Exploring the role of intertextuality in concept construction: Urban second graders make sense of evaporation, boiling, and condensation

Abstract

The study explores urban second graders' thinking and talking about the concepts of evaporation, boiling, and condensation that emerged in the context of intertextuality within an integrated science‐literacy unit on the topic of States of Matter, which emphasized the water cycle. In that unit, children and teacher engaged in a variety of activities (reading information books, doing hands‐on explorations, writing, drawing, discussing) in a dialogically oriented way where teacher and children shared the power and the burden of making meaning. The three qualitative interrelated analyses showed children who initiated or continued productive links to texts, broadly defined, that gave them spaces to grapple with complex ideas and ways of expressing them. Although some children showed preference for a certain way of thinking about evaporation, boiling, and condensation, the data do not point toward a definite conclusion relative to whether children subscribe or not to a particular conceptual position. Children had multiple, complex, and often speculative, tentative, and emergent ways of accessing and interpreting these phenomena, and their conceptions were contextually based—different contexts offered opportunities for students to theorize about different aspects of the phenomena (along with some similar aspects). Children also theorized about aspects of the same phenomena in different ways. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 637–666, 2006

Mechanical Engineering Education: Preschool to Graduate School

“…It is important to understand how purposefully prepared engineering literature presented in the format of picture book children's stories impacts learning in emergent readers. The influence of literature on children's thinking about engineering and the connection children make between science and engineering can be observed through illustrative data and feedback after exposure to engineering literature [4][5][6][7][8].…”

“…Text reads "A firework becoming a rainbow". The children's drawings show the advanced ways that they think about ideas [5,7]. When asked to draw what they would design when they were an engineer, the students did not hesitate to immediately picture themselves in this role.…”

“…Engineering Elephants uses fireworks to explain combustion. It is encouraging that the students are obviously learning through this text because their drawings show they have begun to develop concrete ideas about engineering [5].…”

“…As a mentor, a graduate student has much to offer an undergraduate who is interested in engineering research such as encouragement, guidance, and support. In various studies across fields, being mentored has consistently been linked with academic and professional achievement [2][3][4][5]. WTAMU undergraduates also receive numerous benefits from the transitional program.…”

Alternative Frameworks of the Secondary School Students on the Concept of Condensation at Submicroscopic Level

“…However, the previous studies showed that students at various ages have alternative frameworks on the concept of condensation (Kruger & Summers, 1989;Bar & Travis, 1991;Lee et al, 1993;Chang, 1999;Gopal et al, 2004) covering various topics such as vapor pressure (Gopal et al 2004), condensation in opened system (Paik et al, 2004), condensation in closed system (Costu, 2006), the concept and the phases of matter (Johnson, 2005) and the development of the students conceptualization in understanding the change of phases (Varelas et al, 2006). For example, a study by Costu et al (2012) found that first year students in the department of primary science education listed eight difficulties and alternative frameworks namely water vapor cannot be converted to water, water vapor cannot exist in the air at all times, hydrogen and oxygen, the components of water vapor exist in the air other than the water vapor itself, the molecules of water vapor are lighter than the molecules of water, the air is condensed as water, the condensation occurs because the vapor pressure is rising and only water vapor exists in the air during winter and ice on the cold surface will melt and form water droplets (condensation in the opened system).…”