J E S The Journal of Emergent Science - a se

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ES The Journal ofEmergent Science

JES9 Summer 2015

3. Editorial

5. Contributing to JES

8. News from the Primary Science Teaching Trust (PSTT)

Main Articles10. Dr. Blasto: Five to six yearold students’ portrayal

of a fictional science villainMichaelAnne Noble and Christine D. Tippett

23. When is a cow not a cow? When 68 yearold children draw a cow described in a story by another animalCatherine Bruguière

34. Using multimodal strategies to challenge early years children’s essentialist beliefsLinda McGuigan and Terry Russell

42. What’s inside an earthworm? The views of a class of English 7 yearold childrenSue Dale Tunnicliffe

49. Notes and News

51. Resource Review

53. About the ASE

54. The ASE 2016 Annual Conference

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ESContents

Issue 9 Summer 2015

The Journal of EmergentScience (JES) is published bythe Emergent Science Networkand is supported by theAssociation for ScienceEducation (ASE). From issue 10 onwards, ASE will be thepublisher for this prestigiousjournal, with the support of the Primary Science TeachingTrust (PSTT).

From this issue onwards, this journal will be free toaccess for all. Our thanks go toour loyal subscribers, ASEmembers and sponsors for thesupport given to JES over thepast eight issues.

Editors:Jane JohnstonSue Dale Tunnicliffe

Editorial contact: Jane [email protected]

Cover Photo Courtesy of:Linda McGuigan & Terry Russellsee page 34

Publisher:Emergent Science Network c/o ASE, College Lane, Hatfield,Herts, AL10 9AA, UK

©Emergent Science Network 2015ISSN: 20464754

mailto:[email protected]

Editorial JES9 Summer 2015 page 3

The future of JES: new horizons

I began my research career at a very early age,when I was a primary school child in Kent and waspart of the Nuffield Primary Science Project. Thisexperience fuelled my interest in science and, later,as a newly qualified but unemployed primaryscience specialist, my interest in research wasestablished when I worked as a researcher prior to my first job as a classroom teacher. Even later,membership of the ASE Validation Board andResearch Committee and a move into HE

consolidated my two interests of early yearsscience and educational research, and I became a Reader in Education.

However, I found it very difficult to be takenseriously at science education researchconferences, as my contributions were oftenmisunderstood, placed in sessions with papers onastrophysics or similar, and eminent professorseven questioned whether young children could

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Editorial

■ Jane Johnston

The Editor (centre) as part of the Nuffield Primary Science Project in the 1960s.

actually understand scientific concepts! Twentyyears after the introduction of the science NationalCurriculum in the UK, the situation for primaryscience research, let alone early years scienceresearch, was relatively unchanged, and so a groupof early years professionals grouped together tobecome the Emergent Science Network, to raisethe profile of early years science education, showhow young children develop their scientific ideas,skills and attitudes and bust the myth that youngchildren cannot grapple with complex scientificissues. Two important contributions of the Networkhave been the establishment of an early yearsstrand within ESERA (the European ScienceEducation Research Association) and the launch of the Journal of Emergent Science (JES).

JES was launched in early 2011 as a biannual ejournal; a joint venture between ASE and theEmergent Science Network and hosted on the ASEwebsite. It took the international definition of earlyyears (that is, birth to 8 years of age) as its focus,thus spanning key stages of development andtransitions from home to foundation stage to KeyStage 1 (age 57) and to Key Stage 2 (age 711).

JES has the following key features:

■ It contains easily accessible yet rigoroussupport for the development of professionalskills;

■ it focuses on effective early years sciencepractice and leadership;

■ it considers the implications of research into emergent science practice and provision;

■ it contains exemplars of good learning anddevelopment firmly based in good practice;and

■ it supports analysis and evaluation ofprofessional practice.

This is based on the important premise that good learning and teaching relies on good research(not just good scholarship) and that anyeducational research is pointless if it does notimpact on practice or provision; that is, have a ‘so what?’ factor.

The first nine editions were coordinated by thefounding Editors, Sue Dale Tunnicliffe and me

(Jane Johnston), and were the copyright of theEmergent Science Network. The journal filled an existing gap in the national and internationalmarket and complemented the ASE journal,Primary Science, in that it focused on research and the implications of research on practice andprovision, reported on current research andprovided reviews of research.

It has been interesting to look at the themes,countries involved and age ranges within the early years covered in the articles in the first eight editions. There have been 25 full articles and 15 extended abstracts from both the ESERA and the World Science conferences, from 14 countries,mainly UK and the rest of Europe, but also a fewfrom North and South America and one each fromAfrica and Japan. The themes of the articles includemainly aspects of children’s understandings, such as those about skeletons, misconceptions,insects, brine shrimps, magnetism, seeds/plants,the solar system, trees, drama, shadows andmetamorphosis (13), and learning approaches suchas photobooks, group work, mind maps, taxonomyand creativity (12). There are, however, themes oflanguage in early editions and books in later ones,as well as a sprinkling of skills (observation,prediction, curiosity, investigation) and teachereducation (2). The majority of the articles andextended abstracts focus on the 58 years agerange, but with the 35 age range also being very popular.

The need for JES is as great in 2015 as it was in2011; maybe even greater, as early years andprimary science education has been squeezed and ‘watered down’ in the current overpackedcurriculum. JES can also not only continue to raisethe profile of the 38 age range, but also throw alight on the youngest children’s scientificdevelopment. It can widen its scope from Europeto the rest of the world and share expertise, as it is only by sharing our experiences that we willbecome more knowledgeable and help youngchildren to develop their emergentunderstandings, skills and attitudes. In addition,there is a continued need to develop understandingof educational research and, in particular,practitioner research, as distinct from scientificresearch. Practitioner, educationalresearch is likely to be qualitative in


nature; to be evaluative, which aims to illuminate,reflect on or clarify an issue; action research, whichaims to develop practice; and observation, whichaims to understand learning and teaching. Thearticles in JES can help us to understand researchby looking at the methodology and methods usedby the authors.

It is in this climate that we move to a new era forJES, one that raises the profile of emergent sciencehigher and sees its importance further recognisedby ASE, who will be taking over the publishing andcopyright of JES from the Emergent ScienceNetwork. This edition of JES sees a return to ‘openaccess’, so that a wider range of early yearsprofessionals can:

■ engage in emergent science issues; ■ be supported by both ASE and PSTT; and■ learn from and with the early years and

research expertise within a new and strongerEditorial Board, with a really internationalfeel and with shared knowledge of early yearsscience, educational research, or both.

This edition of JES contains four full articles of research carried out in France, Canada andEngland. Three of these articles (Bruguière, Noble & Tippett and Tunnicliffe) use drawings as a research tool, and two (Bruguière and Noble & Tippett) look at how fact and fiction can bemutually supportive in developing early yearsunderstandings. Catherine Bruguière’s paper, When is a cow not a cow? When 68 yearold children draw a cow described in a story

by another animal, identifies how fiction and factcan support each other in the scientificdevelopment of young children, so that ‘reading ofa realistic fiction picture book [and]… the use offictional drawings offers new learning opportunitiesin sciences’. MichaelAnne Noble and ChristineTippett’s paper, Dr. Blasto: Five to six yearoldstudents’ portrayal of a fictional science villain looksat how fictional depiction can affect views ofscience and scientists. Linda McGuigan and TerryRussell’s paper, Using multimodal strategies tochallenge early years children's essentialist beliefsexamines the teaching and learning of ‘Evolutionand Inheritance’ on its reintroduction to the UKscience curriculum after some years of absence.They identify that young children ‘tend to holdessentialist views of living things that lead them toregard all individuals within a species as identical – aview at odds with biological reality’. They stress theimportance of good early years interventions tosupport later learning, whilst Sue Dale Tunnicliffe’spaper, What’s inside an earthworm? The views of aclass of English 7yearold children, indicates theimportance of firsthand experience to supportunderstanding.

Overall, the four articles help us to understand thecomplex nature of learning and teaching in theearly years and pave the way to a successfultransition for JES. I am very proud to have beeninvolved in early years science research, fromNuffield Primary Science to emergent science.

Jane Johnston CoEditor of the Journal of Emergent Science


About the journalThe Journal of Emergent Science (JES) was launchedin early 2011 as a biannual ejournal, a joint venturebetween ASE and the Emergent Science Networkand hosted on the ASE website. The first nineeditions were coordinated by the foundingeditors, Jane Johnston and Sue Dale Tunnicliffe,and were the copyright of the Emergent ScienceNetwork. The journal filled an existing gap in thenational and international market andcomplemented the ASE journal, Primary Science, inthat it focused on research and the implications ofresearch on practice and provision, reported oncurrent research and provided reviews of research.From Edition 9 in 2015, JES became an ‘openaccess’ ejournal and a new and stronger EditorialBoard was established. From Edition 10, thecopyright of JES will be transferred to ASE.

Throughout the changes to JES, the focus andremit remain the same. JES focuses on science(including health, technology and engineering) foryoung children from birth to 8 years of age. The keyfeatures of the journal are that it:

■ is childcentred;■ focuses on scientific development of children

from birth to 8 years of age, considering thetransitions from one stage to the next;

■ contains easily accessible yet rigoroussupport for the development of professional skills;

■ focuses on effective early years sciencepractice and leadership;

■ considers the implications of research intoemergent science practice and provision;

■ contains exemplars of good learning anddevelopment firmly based in good practice;

■ supports analysis and evaluation ofprofessional practice.

The Editorial Board The Editorial Board of the journal is composed ofASE members, including teachers and academicswith national and international experience.Contributors should bear in mind that thereadership is both national UK and internationaland also that they should consider the implicationsof their research on practice and provision in theearly years.

Contributing to the journalPlease send all submissions to:[email protected] in electronic form.

Articles submitted to JES should not be underconsideration by any other journal, or have beenpublished elsewhere, although previouslypublished research may be submitted having beenrewritten to facilitate access by professionals in theearly years and with clear implications of theresearch on policy, practice and provision.

Contributions can be of two main types: full lengthpapers of up to 5,000 words and shorter reports ofwork in progress or completed research of up to2,500 words. In addition, the journal will reviewbook and resources on early years science.

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Contributing to the Journal of Emergent Science JES9 Summer 2015 Page 6


Guidelines on written styleContributions should be written in a clear,straightforward style, accessible to professionalsand avoiding acronyms and technical jargonwherever possible and with no footnotes. The contributions should be presented as a Word document (not a pdf) with double spacingand with 2cm margins.

■ The first page should include the name(s) of author(s), postal and email address forcontact.

■ Page 2 should comprise of a 150wordabstract and up to five keywords.

■ Names and affiliations should not be includedon any page other than page 1 to facilitateanonymous refereeing.

■ Tables, figures and artwork should beincluded in the text but should be clearlycaptioned/ labelled/ numbered.

■ Illustrations should be clear, high definitionjpeg in format.

■ UK and not USA spelling is used i.e. colournot color; behaviour not behavior;programme not program; centre not center;analyse not analyze, etc.

■ Single ‘quotes’ are used for quotations.■ Abbreviations and acronyms should be

avoided. Where acronyms are used theyshould be spelled out the first time they areintroduced in text or references. Thereafterthe acronym can be used if appropriate.

■ Children’s ages should be used and not onlygrades or years of schooling to promoteinternational understanding.

■ References should be cited in the text firstalphabetically, then by date, thus: (Vygotsky,1962) and listed in alphabetical order in thereference section at the end of the paper.Authors should follow APA style (Authordate). If there are three, four or five authors,the first name and et al can be used. In thereference list all references should be set outin alphabetical order

Guidance on referencing BookBookPiaget, J. (1929) The Child’s Conception of the

World. New York: HarcourtVygotsky, L. (1962) Thought and Language.

Cambridge. MA: MIT Press

Chapter in bookPiaget, J. (1976) ‘Mastery Play’. In Bruner, J., Jolly,

A. & Sylva, K. (Eds) Play – Its role inDevelopment and Evolution. Middlesex:Penguin. pp 166171

Journal articleReiss, M. & Tunnicliffe, S.D. (2002) ‘An International

Study of Young People’s Drawings of What isInside Themselves’, Journal of BiologicalEducation, 36, (2), 58–64

Reviewing processManuscripts are sent for blind peerreview to twomembers of the Editorial Board and/or guestreviewers. The review process generally requiresthree months. The receipt of submittedmanuscripts will be acknowledged. Papers will thenbe passed onto one of the Editors, from whom adecision and reviewers’ comments will be receivedwhen the peerreview has been completed.

Books for reviewThese should be addressed and sent to Jane Hanrott(JES), ASE, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts., AL10 9AA.

Contributing to the Journal of Emergent Science JES9 Summer 2015 Page 7

The PSTT and ASE JES9 Summer 2015 Page 8

The Primary Science Teaching Trust (PSTT),formerly the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust,has been in existence since 1997, funded by a TrustDeed and endowed by AstraZeneca PLC. The Trusthas focused on supporting excellent teaching ofscience at the primary school level and providedfunding in the region of £6m over the period 19972012. In 2013 it launched a new strategy, which isbased on a flower (PSTT, 2015).The flower modelhas three components: the centre of the flower isthe PSTT’s College of Outstanding Primary ScienceTeachers (Fellows); the petals are Collaboratorswith whom PSTT work on a range of timescales;and the ring between the College and Collaboratorsare clusters of primary schools.

PSTT sponsors the UK Primary Science Teacher of the Year Award and each winner of that award(up to 25 a year) becomes a Fellow of our virtualCollege. These Fellows have access to funding tosupport their own professional development, tosupport the embedding of existing best practice, to support the development of innovative practicein primary schools and to work with otherstakeholders and collaborators. The Fellows alsosupport clusters of primary schools (typically,clusters comprise between 310 schools) to developbest practice in primary science and to raise theconfidence and subject knowledge of teachers inscience within the primary school setting.Collaborators include a wide range of stakeholdersand, in particular, encompass a range of academiccollaborators based in Higher Education Instituteswithin the UK. These Collaborators provideresearch underpinning to the PSTT projects as wellas supporting Fellows and clusters directly andindirectly. Ultimately, the goal of PSTT is to see

excellent science teaching in every classroom inevery school in the UK. Through the flower model,and together with its three components, we areseeking to carry out this endeavour. Figure 1 showsthe progression of the flower model, from a smallnumber of engaged clusters through to all schoolsin the UK being part of the PSTT cluster networkand engaging in excellent teaching of science atprimary level.

In order for teachers to continue on theirprofessional journey, they need to be reflectivepractitioners (Schon, 1983; Brookfield, 1995) andpart of that reflection involves engaging witheducation research, through reading researchmaterial, taking part in research and, in addition, in some cases to carry out their own research.PSTT is very keen to see teachers becomeresearchactive at all levels and the Journal ofEmergent Science is an excellent vehicle throughwhich to support this desire. Without losing therigour upon which this journal was founded, wewould like to support teachers to become researchactive and to publish their work in JES. We alsoview the articles published in this journal to beimportant for teachers to access and so PSTT has taken the opportunity to partner with theAssociation of Science Education (ASE) to supportJES. Therefore, from this edition, JES has becomean open access journal and will include CollegeFellows on its Editorial Board. We hope that thispartnership will encourage teachers to be researchactive and that they will benefit greatly from thisexcellent journal.

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Teaching Trust & the Journal of Emergent Science

■ Dudley E. Shallcross ■ Kathy G. Schofield ■ Sophie D. Franklin

The PSTT and ASE JES9 Summer 2015 Page 9

Referenceshttp://www.pstt.org.uk/SiteDocuments/doc/Primar

y%20Science%20Teaching%20Trust%20Overview%20Brochure.pdf Accessed 12 July 2015.

Schon, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: Howprofessionals think in action. London: Temple Smith

Brookfield, S. (1995) Becoming a Critically ReflectiveTeacher. San Francisco: JosseyBass

Dudley E. Shallcross, Kathy G. Schofield andSophie D. Franklin, Primary Science Teaching Trust.www.pstt.org.uk

Figure 1: The flower model and its progression from a small number of clusters through to the completion of themodel where all school clusters in the UK are engaging in excellent teaching of science at primary school level.

http://www.pstt.org.uk/SiteDocuments/doc/Primar

http://www.pstt.org.uk

Major Article: Noble, M-A. & Tippett, C.D. JES9 Summer 2015 Page 10

AbstractThis mixed methods study examines responses ofGrade 1 students (56 yearolds) to a sciencelaboratorybased problemsolving activity, andinvestigates students’ perceptions of the genderneutral villain presented in a science mystery.Students’ drawings of Dr. Blasto (the villain) andsemistructured interviews were analysed, usingchecklists and open coding, to answer questionsincluding: How do Grade 1 students (6 yearolds)depict a character from a science activity? Drawingon research examining drawings of scientists (seeFinson, Beaver & Cramond, 1995) andDevelopmental Intergroup Theory (DIT, Bigler &Liben, 2007), we identified common characteristicsof a science villain and possible reasons for theirinclusion. As anticipated, the majority of studentsdepicted Dr. Blasto as male. However, Dr. Blastowas unexpectedly depicted as having more thantwo eyes and described as possessingsuperpowers. Influences were mainly mediaportrayals of villains and heroes, rather than ideasabout science.

KeywordsDevelopmental Intergroup Theory, DrawaScientistTest, gender, stereotypes

IntroductionThis study took place in British Columbia, Canada,where science is a mandated part of thecurriculum, starting in Kindergarten, and consistsof four strands: processes and skills of science, life

science, physical science, and earth and spacescience (BCME, 2007). The prescribed learningoutcomes for Kindergarten and Grade 1, shown inTable 1, provided the basis for a series of activitiesthat took place during a field trip to a biologylaboratory at a nearby university.

The activities were planned in addition to regularclassroom science instruction and were intended toget Grade 1 students excited about science and todemonstrate that science could be seen in manydifferent situations. The science ideas introducedor reinforced by the field trip activities also allowedthe students to use mathematics and language artsskills. We could reasonably expect that the Grade 1students participating in the study would havepreviously had multiple experiences in which theyused their senses to observe and communicatetheir observations. In this study, students’observations were communicated verbally andpictorially.

The project described here was designed toexamine Grade 1 students’ responses to a sciencelaboratorybased problemsolving activity, and toformally investigate students’ stereotyping of thegenderneutral villain presented in a sciencemystery. In the activity, students collect clues frommicrobiological samples to determine what type ofbacteria a villain, Dr. Blasto, has added tochocolate ice cream, and what type of antibioticwould be needed to kill the bacteria. The story thatsurrounds this problemsolving activity was writtenspecifically for the activity and makes

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Dr. Blasto: Five to six year-old students’ portrayalof a fictional science villain

■ MichaelAnne Noble ■ Christine D. Tippett


use of ageappropriate vocabulary. The villain, Dr.Blasto, is not described in any way (other thanbeing referred to as the arch villain, Dr. Blasto) andis not referred to using any pronouns and, thus,could really be any gender.

ObjectivesThe first author had previously observed thatstudents frequently pictured Dr. Blasto as male, asshown in Figure 1, despite the intentional lack ofgender clues provided in the story, and weanticipated similar results in this study. We were

interested in exploring some of the influences uponstudents’ choices of characteristics, includinggender, seen as relevant for a doctor involved in ascience mystery. The research questions framingthis study are:

■ How do Grade 1 students (6 yearolds) depicta character from a science activity?

■ What characteristics do Grade 1 studentsattribute to doctors, villains, and heroes?

■ What prior knowledge might influence Grade1 students’ assignment of characteristics todoctors, villains, and heroes?

Strand Kindergarten Grade 1

Processes and Skills • use the five senses to make • communicate their observations,observations experiences and thinking in a

• share with others information variety of ways (e.g. verbally,obtained by observing pictorially, graphically)

• classify objects, events and organisms

Life Science Characteristics of Living Things Needs of Living Things• describe features of local plants • classify living and nonliving things

and animals (e.g. colour, shape, • describe the basic needs of localsize, texture) plants and animals

• compare local plants (e.g. food, water, light)• compare common animals • describe how the basic needs of

plants and animals are met in their environment

Physical Science Properties of Objects & Materials Force and Motion• describe properties of materials, • demonstrate how force can be

including colour, shape, texture, applied to move an objectsize and weight • compare the effect of friction on

• identify materials that make up the movement of an objectfamiliar objects over a variety of surfaces

• describe ways to rethink, refuse, • demonstrate and describe thereduce, reuse and recycle effects of magnets on

different materials

Earth and Space Science Surroundings Daily and Seasonal Changes• demonstrate the ability to • describe changes that occur in

observe their surroundings daily and seasonal cycles • describe features of their and their effects on living things

immediate environment • describe activities of Aboriginal peoples in BC in each seasonal cycle

Table 1: Prescribed learning outcomes for science, Kindergarten and Grade 1 (BCME, 2007).


Theoretical frameworkThis study was framed using DevelopmentalIntergroup Theory (DIT, Bigler & Liben, 2007) tooffer a way to explain the influences on theattributes that students aged 5 and 6 years ascribeto doctors (academic or medical), villains andheroes, and how students apply those attributes todevelop an image of a fictional science villain.According to DIT (Bigler & Liben, 2007), there arethree phases involved in the formation of socialstereotyping: establishment of psychologicalrelevance, categorisation of individuals based onrelevant attributes, and development ofstereotypes. The first of these phases, establishingpsychological relevance, has four contributingfactors: perceptual discriminability, proportionalgroup size, explicit labelling and use, and implicituse (see Figure 2). Perceptual discriminability refersto the ability of an individual to notice differencesbetween individuals. Young children tend to focuson differences that are easily observed, such asgender, age and ethnicity, rather than more subtledifferences such as attitudes (Bigler & Liben, 2007).Proportional group size refers to whether or not agroup is a minority or majority in the population

Figure 2: Developmental Intergroup Theory as described by Bigler and Liben (2007). Aspects that have potential implications for this study are perceptual discriminability, explicit labelling and use, the categorisation of individuals, essentialism, and explicit attributions.

Perceptual Discriminability

Proportional Group Size

Essentialism

InternalCognitive

Motivation

Ingroup Bikas

InternalAffective

Motivation

Explicit Labellingand Use

ImplicitUse

ExplicitAttributions

InternaliseEnvironmental

Aliment

Groupattribute

Covariation or Implicit

Attributions

OrganiseEnvironmental

Aliment

Establish Psychological Salienceof Person Attributes (EPS)

Develop Stereotypes and Prejudices Concerning Salient

Social Groups (DSP)

Categorise Encountered Individuals by Salient Dimension

(CEI)

Figure 1: A drawing of Dr. Blasto – a typically male figure.


from which the groups are drawn, with minoritygroups more likely to be noticed due to theircontrast with the attributes of the majority, andthus more likely to be considered psychologicallyrelevant (Bigler & Liben, 2007). Explicit labelling anduse of groups by adults emphasises the relevanceof the categories and their accompanyingattributes. Implicit labelling results in a cognitivechallenge for young children because, in theabsence of understanding what attributes resultedin the categories, children focus on the attributesthat they can discern (e.g. gender or age) and usethem to create hypotheses about the source of thecategories (Bigler & Liben, 2007).

People categorise information in order to makesense of their world and, according toconstructivist learning theory (Piaget, 1975/1977),prior knowledge influences how new information isperceived; therefore, established categories willinfluence which attributes of the new informationare noted and considered to be important. Forchildren, who are formulating their world viewsbased on a myriad of observations, adult cues playan important role in the construction of categories,or stereotypes, even when those cues are implicit(Bigler & Liben, 2007; DeLoache, Cassidy &Carpenter, 1987). These established stereotypesallow children to develop a list of attributes forcategories such as ‘man’ or ‘woman’, so that whenthe category is encountered, the attributes areassumed in the absence of other information. Inthis study, we examine children’s attributes for thecategories of doctor, villain, and hero, based upona drawing of a character in a science mystery.

One factor in the development of children’sstereotypes is popular media, particularly TV showsand movies. A number of studies have examinedthe influence of representations of occupations ontelevision and found that children develop genderschemata that parallel media stereotyping (LiVollmer & LaPointe, 2003). For example, anexamination of ten popular animated filmsrevealed a number of characteristics of villains inanimated films and TV cartoons: distinctly femininefacial features, physique and hands; long flowingclothing, including capes, gowns, and cloaks;constrained body movements; a preoccupationwith grooming; and a lack of manual labour (LiVollmer & LaPointe, 2003). It is likely that ourparticipants’ gender schemata (identification of

activities and behaviours as male or female) andsocial stereotypes (development of attributes fordoctors/villains/heroes) have also been influencedby the shows and movies that they watch, and thatthose schemata and stereotypes might be evidentin the drawings of a science character.

Children’s beliefs about gender differences withregard to occupations can influence subsequentinterpretations of information (Heyman & Legare,2004). Cognition can be affected becauseinformation that is incompatible with a child’sbeliefs may be ignored or recalled incorrectly(Heyman & Legare, 2004; Liben, Bigler & Krogh,2002). It is likely that our participants’ beliefs aboutscientists, doctors and gender may influence howDr. Blasto is portrayed; if students believe thatscientists and doctors are male, then Dr. Blasto islikely to be perceived as being male. Results fromthe DrawaScientist Test (DAST) suggest thestereotype of a scientist as a middleaged whitemale with a wild hairdo who wears a lab coat andglasses and works alone in a laboratory, oftenengaged in ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’ endeavours (Finson,2002; Milford & Tippett, 2013).

The term doctor is considered to be unmarked inthat the sex of the doctor is not indicated in thetitle; additionally, ‘doctor’ can serve as a medical oracademic title. However, ‘doctor’ is also consideredto be an occupation that is culturally stereotypedas masculine (Liben et al, 2002). We wereinterested in exploring the attributes that studentshad for the category ‘doctor’ when presented in ascience scenario, and we anticipated that students’drawings of Dr. Blasto would provide evidence ofthose attributes. In addition, semistructuredinterviews would allow us to probe students’developed categories and associated attributesmore deeply.

MethodsThis study was a mixed methods investigation.Quantitative approaches included the analysis ofgender and other characteristics contained instudent illustrations, which were scored using theDrawaScientist Test Checklist (DASTC, Finson,Beaver, & Crammond, 1995). This checklist wasdeveloped for the DrawAScientist Test(Chambers, 1983), which has been used for morethan 30 years to explore stereotypical


characteristics of images of scientists. Qualitativeapproaches included conducting semistructuredinterviews with students as well as collecting fieldnotes during the focus activity. The content of theinterviews and field notes were analysed using anopen coding process (Flick, 2002).

Participants:The eight participants were members of a Grade 1class, consisting of ten boys and eight girls, whowent on a fullday field trip to a local university(Royal Roads University). Six boys and two girls,average age 6 years and 9 months, returned signed consent forms and agreed to participate in semistructured interviews. Pseudonyms thatreflect the gender of the participants are usedthroughout this article.

Field trip and followup drawing activity:The field trip consisted of a ‘handson’ scienceexperience day. The students, accompanied by the classroom teacher, an educational assistant(EA) and three parents arrived, had a snack, andwere placed into predetermined groups to rotatethrough five different science stations: makingyoghurt, making silly putty, exploring capillaryaction by changing the colour of carnations, using chromatography to separate the colours in felt pens, and examining items under adissecting microscope.

For a final group activity, the children took part in aproblemsolving exercise that asked them to takeon the role of scientists from the Centre for DiseaseControl and solve the mystery of what bacteria animaginary villain, Dr. Blasto, had used tocontaminate ice cream. While talking about thevillainous Dr. Blasto, authors avoided the use ofpronouns. Students circulated through fourseparate stations, collecting scientific evidence,and then the whole class assembled to compareclues. The authors led the students through thiscomparison, and the students were excited tosuccessfully figure out the problem.

Three days after the field trip, as one of severalfollowup activities including some journal writingand a discussion about what scientists do, theclassroom teacher asked her students to drawpictures of Dr. Blasto.

Semistructured interviews:The following week, we interviewed the eightparticipating children individually, asking them totell us about their drawings and their reasons fordepicting Dr. Blasto as they did. We felt that verbalresponses would provide additional details aboutthe drawings and allow us to identify some of theinfluences on children’s representational choices.Interviews were conducted in a private space at theschool, while the rest of the class was engaged inindependent activities (silent reading, journalwriting and creating collages). The semistructuredinterview questions are shown in Table 2.

Each interview lasted between 6 and 14 minutes,depending on the length of student responses.Responses to questions ranged from a brief ‘uh huh’ to more lengthy answers: ‘A doctor likesomebody if a villain tries to get something to poison somebody like they did in the lab if they eatthe ice cream or something they put poison in or ifthey get sick they go to the hospital and the nursesand doctors help them get better. Give themmedicines and a lot of good stuff like medicine andstuff like that.’

1. Tell me about your picture – what is Dr.Blasto doing? What is Dr. Blasto wearing?Why did you draw [glasses, moustache,dark hair, etc.]?

2. Are doctors male or female? Do you know adoctor? Is that doctor male or female?What kinds of doctors do you know about?

3. Tell me about some villains that you haveseen or heard about – what are they like?Do you know of a female villain? Who? Howdo you know about her?

4. Tell me about some heroes whom you haveseen or heard about – what makes themdifferent from villains? Are heroes male orfemale? Why do you think that?

Table 2: Questions for the semistructuredinterviews.


Analysis and resultsWe analysed the DAST and interview dataseparately and then used the themes that emergedto reexamine the dataset as a whole. Thisapproach allowed us to identify themes that mayhave been hidden in an initial overall analysis andto use one source of data to verify patterns andtrends that emerged in the other source. Westarted with the drawings, which we analysedquantitatively, and then moved to the interviewresponses, which we analysed qualitatively.

Drawings:Students’ drawings of Dr. Blasto were analysed foritems like clothing, eye wear, hair, facial expression,gender, weapons and tools, and evidence of mediainfluences using a checklist based on the DrawAScientist Test checklist (Finson, Beaver & Cramond,1995). Common features in students’ drawingswere revealed by aggregating checklist results, and are shown in Table 3.

Common features of Dr. Blasto: The five most common features or characteristicsof Dr. Blasto, as depicted by the eight participants,were: being male, wearing a cape, having a largesmile, having some sort of weapon or technology,and having more or less than two eyes. Thedrawing in Figure 3 is the most representative ofthe eight drawings, depicting Dr. Blasto with fourof the five most common characteristics:

Feature No. of Drawings Comments

Eyes – other than two 4 2 drawings with extra eyes, 2 drawings with one eye

Cape 5 3 black, 1 blue, 1 red

Facial expression – smile 5

Weapons or technology 5 4 guns/blasters, 2 shoes with flames or spikes, and 2 other (germ container, helmet)

Sex (male) 8 7 participants consistently referred to Dr. Blasto as he/him; 1 participant referred to Dr. Blasto as he/him and he or she, but when asked said Dr. Blasto was a girl

Table 3: Common features appearing in student drawings of Dr. Blasto.

Figure 3: A drawing containing four of the fivemost common characteristics of the villain, Dr.Blasto, as depicted by participants: ‘Sometimesthey can be a she, but I wanted it to be a he.’

extra eyes

big smile

black cape

male


Semistructured interviews:We analysed the participants’ responses to thesemistructured interview questions using an opencoding procedure (Flick, 2002) to identify themes.Several themes emerged, including explanationsfor why Dr. Blasto was drawn as a male, a commonlist of villains and heroes from popular mediasources, and a lack of gender stereotypes withrespect to doctors, villains and heroes.

Dr. Blasto: Male or female?Based on the first author’s previous experienceswith spontaneous drawings of Dr. Blasto made bychildren who were 5 or 6 years old, combined withfindings from DAST research, we anticipated thatmany of our Grade 1 participants would depict Dr.Blasto as male. Semistructured interviews allowedus to investigate the reasons underlying students’depictions of the gender of a fictional sciencevillain, and to explore the students’ establishedattributes of the categories doctor, villain, and hero.The term ‘doctor’ was included because it was feltthat the title ‘doctor’ might influence students’perception of the gender of the villain. However,based on the responses given by participatingstudents, it appears that the similarities in soundbetween ‘Blasto’ and ‘blast’ or ‘blaster’ could haveinfluenced their choice of gender for the villain.Four students included guns or blasters in theirdrawings and, when asked why, they mentionedthat the name ‘Blasto’ sounded like ‘blaster’: ‘Yeahand also I’m thinking because he blasts stuff, right?So that’s why I thought of a gun and he could like

shoot germs out of his gun to put in stuff like that youeat’. This unanticipated association of the sciencevillain’s name with guns appears to havecontributed to the conclusion that the villain wasmale (see Figure 4 for a possible chain ofreasoning).

What villains and heroes were widely mentioned?Since it seemed likely that the participants’ ideasabout Dr. Blasto would be influenced byparticipants’ exposure to personal experiences (e.g.doctors) and popular media (e.g. mad scientistsand villains), we explored the children's' ideasabout attributes of doctors and villains. Althougheach child’s interview responses included a list ofmany different heroes and villains with whom theywere familiar, the same villains and heroes wereidentified by a number of different participants.Figure 5 shows the three main sources ofparticipants’ prior experience with villains andheroes, as well as the specific heroes and villainsnamed during the semistructured interviews. Ofthe villains and heroes mentioned by theparticipants during the interviews and shown inFigure 5, only three of fourteen villains are female(Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Ursula) and only four oftwelve heroes are female (Black Canary, WonderWoman, Storm and Ariel). These types ofdepictions may be implicitly indicating to childrenthat villains – and heroes – are usually male (Bigler& Liben, 2007). The decision to interpret thegenderneutral Dr. Blasto science villain as male

▲

▲

Dr. Blasto

Dr. Blasto is a boy

sounds like a blast or blaster

blaster is a gun

▲▲

boys have guns

Figure 4: Possible reasoning chain resulting in students’ depiction of Dr. Blasto as a male.


may also support the ideas that the attributesassociated with the term people are the same asthose associated with white male (Merrit &Harrison, 2006) and that scientists are usuallyrepresented as white males (Finson, 2002; Milford

& Tippett, 2013). Merrit and Harrison pointed outthat children learn to use ‘he’ as a genderneutralterm, which may create confusion and theperception that genderneutral characters are male(Merrit & Harrison, 2006).

Figure 5: The relationships between heroes and villains mentioned during the semistructured interviews. The source of the heroes and villains is shown in blue, the group or team of heroes is shown in yellow, individual heroes are shown in green, and villains are shown in red. Arrows indicate the relationship between heroes and villains.

DC Comics

Justice League

Marvel Comics

Other

Clayface

Poison Ivy

Mr Freeze Harley Quinn

Joker

Riddler

Catwoman

Black Canary

Blue Beetle

Superwoman

Wonder Woman

Flash

Green Arrow

Batman

XMen

Wolverine

Storm

Electro

Spiderman

Transformers

Autobots

Decepticons

Optimus Prime

Star Wars

Darth Vader

Bugs Bunny

Elmer Fudd

Hannah Montana

Rico

Little Mermaid

Ursula

Real

Bacon Brothers

Ariel


Doctors, villains and heroes: Boys or girls or both?We asked students whether doctors, villains andheroes were male or female in order to explorestudents’ gender beliefs, as well as the attributesthat had been developed for these categories. Asseen in Table 4, most participants believed that bothboys and girls (males and females) could be doctors,villains and heroes. Of the eight students whoparticipated in the semistructured interviews, sevenwere certain that doctors could be boys or girls. Theeighth student, a boy whose mother was a medicaldoctor, thought that doctors were ‘usually girls’ andthat nurses were typically girls too. This finding wassomewhat surprising, as we had anticipated thatstudents would consider doctors, particularly in ascience setting, as more likely to be male, thusproviding a partial explanation for the depiction ofDr. Blasto as a male. However, it does not appearthat the students were attributing gendercharacteristics to the term ‘doctor’, believing insteadthat doctors can be both girls and boys.

DiscussionThe student drawings of Dr. Blasto showed someinteresting commonalities even within this smalldata set. We were surprised to find that four of theeight drawings showed a number of eyes otherthan two, as seen in Figure 6. While this findingshould be further investigated, it may be related tothe students’ perceptions of villains as beingdifferent from themselves (students are themajority while villains are the minority).

The prevalence of the cape (see Figure 7) wasanticipated, based on our own stereotypical villainimages (black cape, curly moustache, lady on thetrain tracks), the first author’s previous experienceswith student drawings of Dr. Blasto, and publishedresearch results (LiVollmer & LaPointe, 2003).Decades of results from the DAST led us to expectthat some images would show Dr. Blasto dressed ina lab coat, because the students encountered Dr.Blasto in a university science laboratoryenvironment. However, lab coats were notprevalent in the pictures (only one out of eightparticipants drew a lab coat – see Figure 8). Itseems that Dr. Blasto’s identity as a villain wasmore relevant to the students than Dr. Blasto’sidentity as a scientist. It is also possible that, sincethe portrayal of a villain (‘other’) would likelyexhibit characteristics not possessed by theindividual (Bigler & Liben, 2007), Dr. Blasto wouldnot be wearing a lab coat because the childrenthemselves spent most of the field trip wearing lab coats.

Doctors Villains Heroes

Alan both both both

Brad both both both

Carl usually girls maybe girls both

Dave both both both

Eric both both both

Fiona both both both

Greg both both both

Helen both maybe girls mostly boys

Table 4: Responses to the question ‘Can doctors[villains, heroes] be boys or girls?’

Figure 6: A multieyed Dr. Blasto.


Another surprising result was that, in five out of theeight drawings, Dr. Blasto was smiling and had ahappy smile rather than a grimace or leer. Althoughthis result may be due to limitations in thestudents’ ability to draw facial expressions (at leastone student referred to not being a good artist), italso needs to be investigated further. Helen’s‘monster superhero’ sports an enormous grin thatseems more in line with her positive view of herdrawing and of doctors in general than with a lackof ability to portray facial features. When askedwhere Dr. Blasto would be if the drawing had abackground, she replies: ‘he would be at a monsterdoctor office… He would be checking people out tosee if their heart is beating.’ In contrast, only threestudents, including Brad and Greg, made drawingsin which Dr. Blasto was not smiling. Brad referredto his drawing of Dr. Blasto as having scars andsharp teeth, while Greg mentioned that his versionof Dr. Blasto was ‘mad’, which is more aligned withthe stereotype of a villain that an adult (i.e. theauthors) would hold and mirrors typical results ofthe DAST – the mad scientist (Finson, 2002; Milford& Tippett, 2013).

Although we had anticipated facial hair in the formof moustaches and/or beards on the drawings ofDr. Blasto, based on DAST results (Finson, 2002;Milford & Tippett, 2013), none of the eightparticipants drew facial hair of any type and thedrawing in Figure 9 is the only one to depict Dr.Blasto with dark hair. This result may show theinfluence of the villains and heroes in popularmedia – none of the villains and only one of theheroes (Green Arrow) listed in Figure 5 has facialhair. The stereotype of the moustachioed villainthat the authors had anticipated is not supportedby the evidence from this small group.

Although six out of eight children were certain thatboth girls and boys could be villains, and the othertwo children thought that maybe girls could bevillains, seven of the children stated that theirdrawing of Dr. Blasto showed a male villain. Thiswould seem to indicate that the students at thisage are attributing gender as a characteristic ofvillains, an important step in establishing a villainstereotype (Bigler & Liben, 2007). One of thereasons for this attribution may be theoverwhelming depiction of bothvillains and heroes as male in thepopular media. Although the

Figure 7: Dr. Blasto in a cape.

Figure 8: Dr. Blasto in a lab coat.


literature suggests that the same attributionhappens with the categories of scientist anddoctor, our participants appeared to believe thatboth doctors and scientists could be male or female.

Limitations As with any research, there are a number oflimitations to this study and the results presentedhere. The study involved a small group of childrenaged 67 years. With such a limited sample, thestudy can be considered interesting preliminarywork. However, a larger sample size is needed toexplore whether our results are characteristic ofthis age group in general or are specific to thisparticular group of children.

The classroom teacher noted that it would have beeneasier to avoid the use of pronouns when providingthe instructions for the Dr. Blasto drawing exercise ifshe had had a script to read when introducing theactivity. In retrospect, we feel that the provision ofsuch a script would not only have helped theclassroom teacher to introduce the drawing activity,but also would have avoided some unanticipated

restrictions that were placed on the students’drawings. For example, students were instructed notto include a background in their drawings, althoughthis instruction was neither requested noranticipated by the authors. A background may haverevealed further insights about what the childrenthought of Dr. Blasto, science villain.

It was unclear during the interviews whetherstudents were distinguishing the idea of ‘doctor’ as a physician from the idea of ‘doctor’ as a scientistor academic. Dr. Blasto’s role as the science villainand the attributes ascribed to being a villain appearto have been more important for the characteristicsthat the children included in their drawings than theattributes they may have given to categories ofdoctor or scientist. Future research will bestructured to more closely examine children's ideasabout physician/academic attributes.

Future researchWe will be conducting a followup study, duringwhich several changes will be made to theprocedure in order to focus more on the attributesthat children are attaching to scientists. We plan tochange the name of the villain in the sciencemystery, not only because the title ‘doctor’ did notappear to be an influence on the choice of genderfor the villain with these participants, but alsobecause ‘Blasto’ was reported as a factor indetermining gender. For example, we may use Dr.Smith or Dr. Burette, as well as a villain namewithout ‘Dr’, such as Smith or Burette.

We will also be looking to score the drawings priorto the interviews in order to more closely target thequestions to emergent themes, such as multipleeyes or weapons, which may become evident. Itwould also be desirable to have a larger sample sizethan the current eight participants, and to explorewhether Grade 2 students (aged 78) have the samedoctor/villain stereotypes as the Grade 1 students(aged 67). We would also like to examine the issueof whether a ‘bad guy’ is necessarily a boy.Students often referred to villains as ‘bad guys’, butit is unclear whether that was an expression or agender reference. We would like to further considerthis idea in the context of the personequalswhitemale idea (Merritt & Harrison, 2006).

Figure 9: A darkhaired Dr. Blasto.


ImplicationsThis study highlights the importance of explicitlydiscussing the appearance and actions ofcharacters – genderneutral characters in particular– and students’ perceptions of those features whenreading or viewing narrative or nonfiction texts ofany length with young children. DIT (Bigler &Liben, 2007) suggests that, in the absence of suchdiscussions, children will create hypotheses thathighlight the relevance of gender in categoriessuch as scientist, doctor, villain and hero, and thesehypotheses may contribute to the development orsolidification of stereotypes by emphasisingmasculine attributes in the absence of otherinformation (DeLoache et al, 1987). Additionally,representations of these categories (and othercharacters) can be reviewed with students duringand after reading, with particular attention paid toexplicit and implicit labelling, categorisation andattribution. Teachers can emphasise the relevanceof particular attributes for various occupations,helping to avoid the cognitive challenges imposedby implicit labelling and minimising the possibilityof students identifying easily discernible attributessuch as gender and age as key attributes forparticular jobs (Bigler & Liben, 2007).

Another implication highlighted by the results ofthis study is the need to explicitly discuss studentperceptions of what it means to be a scientist,doctor, villain or hero (or a member of any othergroup) in order to address possible misconceptions(e.g. gender or ethnicity being a definingcharacteristic for particular career categories). Thismay be a difficult step for teachers, requiring themto examine their own perceptions andpreconceptions, reflecting upon their ownstereotypes of various professions. However,teachers should not necessarily proceed on theassumption that students share their same views.We were certainly surprised to find that many ofour perceptions of the characteristics implied bythe terms ‘doctor’ and ‘villain’ were not shared bythe children in this study.

Concluding remarks There is a gap in the reported research on children,literature and stereotyping, as studies have tendedto examine gender stereotyping in children’sliterature by quantifying the gender of characters(e.g. TurnerBowker, 1996) or to explore theattributes ascribed to heroes (e.g. Holub, Tisak &Mullins, 2008). There is a dearth of research onchildren’s stereotyping of villains, particularly in ascience setting. It is apparent from this small studythat there is a great potential for young children toform firm ideas about what characteristics areimportant when constructing categories, based onvery few clues and assumptions. If gender becomesone of the characteristics that children ascribe tothe category of scientist, it may contribute to thedevelopment and establishment of the scientiststereotype of a white male in a lab coat, leading toan inability for students to see themselves takingon that role in their future endeavours.

ReferencesBigler, R.S. & Liben, L.S. (2007) ‘Developmental

Intergroup Theory: Explaining and reducingchildren’s social stereotyping and prejudice’,Current Directions in Psychological Science, (16),162–166

BC Ministry of Education. (2005) Science K to 7:Integrated Resource Package 2005. Victoria, BC:Queen’s Printer.https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/sciences/2005scik7_4.pdf

Chambers, D.W. (1983) ‘Stereotypic image of thescientist: The DrawAScientist test’, ScienceEducation, 67, (2), 255–265

DeLoache, J.S., Cassidy, D.J. & Carpenter, C.J.(1987) ‘The three bears are all boys: Mothers’gender labelling of neutral picture bookcharacters’, Sex Roles, (17), 163–178

Finson, K.D. (2002) ‘Drawing a scientist: What wedo and do not know after fifty years ofdrawings’, School Science and Mathematics, 102,(7), 335–345

Finson, K.D., Beaver, J.B. & Cramond, B.L. (1995)‘Development and field test of a checklist for theDrawAScientist Test’, School Science andMathematics, 95, (4), 195–205

https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/sciences/20


Flick, U. (2002) An introduction to qualitativeresearch (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Heyman, G.D. & Legare, C.H. (2004) ‘Children’sbeliefs about gender differences in the academicand social domains’, Sex Roles, (50), 227–239

Holub, S.C., Tisak, M.S. & Mullins, D. (2008)‘Gender differences in children’s heroattributions: Personal hero choices andevaluations of typical male and female heroes’,Sex Roles, (58), 567–578

LiVollmer, M. & LaPointe, M.E. (2003) ‘Gendertransgression and villainy in animated film’,Popular Communication, 1, (2), 89–109

Liben, L.S., Bigler, R.S. & Krogh, H.R. (2002)‘Language at work: Children’s genderedinterpretations of occupational titles’, ChildDevelopment, (73), 810–828

Mead, M. & Metraux, R. (1957) ‘Image of thescientist among high school students’, Science,126, (3270), 384–390

Merritt, R.D. & Harrison, T.W. (2006) ‘Gender andethnicity attributions to a gender and ethnicityunspecified individual: Is there a people = whitemale bias?’, Sex Roles, (54), 787–797

Milford, T.M. & Tippett, C.D. (2013) ‘Do priorscience experiences make a difference?Preservice teachers' images of scientists’,Journal of Science Teacher Education, (24), 745–762. Doi 10.1007/s109720

Piaget, J. (1977) The development of thought (A.Rosin, Trans.) New York, NY: Viking (Originalwork published 1975)

TurnerBowker, D M. (1996) ‘Gender stereotypeddescriptions in children’s picture books: Does“Curious Jane” exist in the literature?’, Sex Roles,(35), 461–488

Christine D. Tippett is an Assistant Professor inscience education at the University of Ottawa inOntario, Canada. Her areas of research includevisual representations, young children and STEM.Email: [email protected]

MichaelAnne Noble is an Assistant Professor inenvironmental education at Royal Roads Universityin British Columbia, Canada. Her research interestsinclude online learning, science education andproblembased learning in science. Email: [email protected]



Major Article: Brugière, C. JES9 Summer 2015 Page 23

AbstractPicture books are a feature of early years’classrooms. In this article, we focus on fictionaldrawings by illustrators that appeal to theimagination of young pupils, specifically as part ofactivities involving the reading of the picture book,Un poisson est un poisson (Lionni, 1974), andexamine to what extent the children can interpretfeatures described in the text by an animalcharacter about another species of animal. Wewanted to find out which features of therepresentation in words cued the children intorethinking their mental model of a cow, and whichmay lead pupils to adopt a different point of viewabout that animal from the one that they hadhitherto held. The use of an illustrated storyenhances the thinking of young readers aboutwhich of the cow’s characteristics described by the‘fish’ enabled them to represent more clearly arecognisable image of a cow, with salient features.

KeywordsPicture book, classification, fictional drawing, pointof view, animal

Introduction – Children’s picture books andknowledge about animalsThis study focuses on another form of drawing,namely fictional drawings (Bruguière et al, 2007),Young children have to learn to recognise thesalient observable features of a kind of organism.Observing the living world is an essential skill,which should be developed from the youngest age (Johnston (2009). It is achieved through exercising

curiosity and sustained questioning with regard tothe living world.

Very young children, aged 4 to 6 years, notice andfind out about living things around them. Whenchildren deal with living organisms, this offerscountless opportunities for understanding thenatural world and contributes to their science (inthis case, biological) learning (Phenice & Griffore,2003). Johnston (2005, 2010) highlights theimportance of observation in the early years foremergent scientists. It is, she claims, ‘arguably themost important skill in science and certainly the firstskill we develop’ (Johnston, 2005, p.33). We knowfrom research (e.g. Inagaki & Hatano, 2002) that allchildren entering school have a naive biologyacquired intuitively from the world and peoplearound them. Through urbanisation and reducedfreedom for children to play unsupervised, therehas been a loss of opportunity for most children toreadily engage with natural objects and livingthings in their home environment. Children inmany developed countries are acquiring a ‘naturedeficit’ (Louv, 2006) and are often said to beincreasingly out of touch with the immediatenatural world. However, Patrick et al (2013) found that the knowledge that learners (aged 6, 10 and 15 years) have of animals shows that thereis a common folk knowledge of everyday animalsand plants that is held across cultures. Theconcepts of ‘animal’ and ‘plant’ are fundamentalontological categories, which allow children inevery culture to organise their perceptions of theworld in which they live (Angus, 1981).

J

ES

When is a cow not a cow?When 6-8 year-old childrendraw a cow described in a

story by another animal■ Catherine Brugière


Part of learning biological science is that pupilslearn what and why they need to observe in orderto be able to select, from among all the possibleobservable features, those that are relevant as partof describing and recognising an organism.Children hold some baseline knowledge of thecategories and salient features of the organismbeing depicted, in order to form a judgement onthe authenticity or otherwise of an illustration(Reiss, Tunnicliffe et al, 2002).

Drawing specimens plays a major role in theidentification and recognition of observablefeatures by young pupils, who usually enjoy thisactivity. Chang (2012, p.191) has shown how‘drawings also offer children milieus in which toconstruct knowledge’. Therefore, drawings (of aspider or rainbow, for example) produced bychildren under 5 years of age may lead the childrennot only to discuss what they have chosen todepict, but also to go back to their drawings toimprove them. According to Chang (2012),‘drawing’ is taken here to be more than a simpleform of expression and communication by children,which is widely used in research projects inscientific education; rather as being an integral partof questionbased observation, it requires thechildren to ask themselves about the characteristicelements and depict them in an objectivelymeaningful way. This study focuses on anotherform of drawings, namely fictional drawings(Bruguière et al, 2007), which we have found appealto the imagination of young pupils as part ofactivities involving the reading of realistic fictionpicture books (Bruguière & Triquet, 2012). We aimto show how such drawings, which are muchsimplified, of observed real specimens about whichchildren aged 6 to 8 years have some knowledge,offer them opportunities to ask questions aboutthe identification and classification criteria offamiliar animals. Our work focuses on the cow, a familiar animal to young children in France. The fictional picture book, Un poisson est unpoisson (Lionni, 1974), is taken as a readingreference for engaging the pupils in creating theirown fictional drawings.

A fictional framework for observing anddrawing in sciences In class, the task of observation is traditionallycarried out through a direct or indirect observationof a target object. The child’s observationaldrawing is a representation form of the realspecimen observed and drawn, which includesfeatures that the child notices. Young childrenobserve and select particular features to include intheir drawings. For example, four yearold childrenobserve humans a great deal, but still draw atadpole man. They sift out and select the mostobservable features, for them. Thus theobservational drawing is the result of a choice inrelation to the function it will be made to fulfil.However, we regard the drawings in our study as a little different, in the sense that the fictionaldrawings produced do not seek to represent areality constructed as closely as possible to what is currently known, but instead a possible realitytaking into account what we think we know.Malraux, quoted in MerleauPonty (1964),described an alternative reality to the real worldarising from a ‘coherent deformation of reality’.While the observational drawing is the result of aninterpretation that is dependent on the knowledgeand cultural references of the subject who draws,the fictional drawing depends also on the fictionalframework in which the subject who draws isplaced. Hence, in our study, the fictionalframework provided by the picture book, Unpoisson est un poisson, involved asking the pupils toput themselves in the place of the ‘fish’ character ofthe story, to take his point of view, how he saw thecow, to create the drawing of a cow.

The picture book, Un poisson est un poissonUn poisson est un poisson is one of the firstcontemporary children’s picture books written andillustrated by Léo Lionni (1974). Published in alandscape format, it presents a series of doublepagespreads separated by a horizontal line,marking the surface of the water, whichdifferentiates the aquatic environment from theland environment. This line moves during thecourse of the story: very high up in two thirds of thebook, but then situated right at the bottom of the


page when it reaches the part of the book wherethe overland environment is explored by the fish,before moving back up again and separating thetwo characters.

The story can be summarised in the following way:‘On the edge of the forest, a tadpole and a minnowswim among the weeds in a pond. The two areinseparable friends. But then, one morning, thetadpole notices that he has grown two little legs, and proudly announces that he is a frog, which hisfriend the minnow disputes. Once he has become anadult, he goes off to explore the overland world.Back in the pond, he tells about all the“extraordinary things” he has seen. The fish imaginesthe birds, cows and men just like him. Finding himselfalone again, he decides to go out in search of theother world. There, on the bank of the pond, healmost suffocates. Fortunately, the tadpoleturnedfrog rescues him by pushing him back into the water.He then realises that “a fish is a fish”.’

The evocation of a place ‘on the edge of the forest’signals that the whole plot will be focused aroundthis border zone between two worlds, the aquaticworld and the land world, characterised by theforest. Through the events of the plot, the storydramatises biological phenomena (indirectdevelopment of the frog and direct development of the fish), which will determine not only theentire unfolding of the story but, even more so, thefinal outcome. In a previous study, Bruguière andTriquet (2013) showed how the statement ‘a fish isa fish’, which crystallises the crux of the problemand described as the story’s ‘golden sentence’ byTompkins (2003), can be discussed with youngpupils to engage them in the potentiallyproblematic discussion about the question of thepermanence of a species during the developmentof an individual.

We wanted to find out if and how the use offictional drawings, which encourage pupils toconsider a point of view different from their own(the point of view of a character in the story),makes it possible to hone their thinking about the choice of which of the cow’s characteristics to draw. What attributes should be depicted? For what reasons? In what format?

This questioning about the cow’s characteristicsseems to us all the more relevant as it concerns ananimal that is familiar to young French pupils. Asimilar familiarity has already been shown in youngNew Zealanders by Bell (1981), and young Spanishpupils (Villalbi & Lucas, 1991). Strauss’s research(1981), quoted by Johnston and NahmadWilliams(2009, p.123), shows that children consider, withoutdifficulty, the cow as an animal, with a very highand increasing score between 5 and 17 years of age(80% to 100%). The cow is, therefore, an animalthat, in principle, does not pose any problems forthe pupils and does not raise any particularquestions for them. It is a vertebrate (technically a chordate) and it shares characterises with othervertebrates in the story, the fish and the frog. Onthe basis of these known criteria, it is a matter ofengaging in critical scientific questioning, anexercise that is not an obvious one for the pupils(Ryman, 1974), but which is essential classification.

MethodThe children who participated in the study attendan urban school in the Lyon area. They had alreadyseen representations of cows in various forms(picture books about farm animals, toys, etc.) and may have seen a real cow. They were able topick out and name a cow from other animals in apicture book.

The curriculum did not expect that these childrenhad had teaching in classifying animals (or plants).The French curriculum does not requireclassification in biology until the age of 10, but we are aware that they may have learnt about the animals out of school and we were unable toascertain this. While the children’s artistic capacityvaried considerably, they were all capable ofsituating the various characteristic anatomicalfeatures, such as four legs and a tail, on a drawingof a cow.

The teaching situation in which pupils aged 6 to 8years were placed arises from the actual story ofthe picture book, Fish is Fish (1974), where the fishcharacter tries hard to imagine the landbasedanimals described to him by the frog character(p.12). Thus we can regard this as a situation of the‘imaginary play’ type, in the sense


that the pupils ‘involve themselves in the imaginarysituation’ (Kravtsova, 2008, quoted by MarylinFleer, 2010, p.125), through the fact that they are ‘inside the play imagining themselves as someanimal (a fish) within the imaginary situation(producing an imaginary drawing of a cow)’. Thechoice of asking them to depict a cow is related to the fact that children are familiar with cows.Consequently, as it is very widely accepted by the children that the cow belongs to the animalkingdom, it is easier to question them about what makes their drawing depict a cow and notanother animal, or in what way it does not depict a ‘real’ cow.

Interaction occurred in the first class session of a teaching sequence relating to animalclassification with children from two classes, Class 1(78 years) and Class 2 (67 years). This first classsession, the four stages of which are shown in Table1, took place in two different classes. Class 1represents the treatment group that drew the cowbased on the frog’s description, while Class 2represents the control group that drew the cowwithout the frog’s description. Class 1 is taught byan experienced male teacher and Class 2 by anewlyqualified female teacher. Both teacherswere actively involved for two years in the ‘Scienceand story’1 research group within which theteaching sequence was developed.

Our data consisted of 7 drawings from Class 1 and21 drawings from Class 2, carried out in Stage 2.The data also included transcripts of exchangesthat took place in the two classes when the pupilscommented on and discussed the drawings (Stage3). In Class 1, the teacher asked the pupils to putthemselves in the place of the fish character anddraw individually the cow that he imagined basedon the description that the frog gave (see the textof the frog’s description in Table 1*). In Class 2, theteacher asked the children to put themselves inthe place of the fish character and draw the cowthat he imagined without their being providedwith the frog’s description. Then, the fictional cowdrawings were displayed on the board and

discussed by the pupils with specific support fromthe teacher. The pupils drew in the fish’s thoughtbubble on a photocopy of the relevant doublepage spread (see illustration on Table 1). They hadas much time as they wanted to do their drawings,usually between 10 and 20 minutes, and they werereminded that they would not be assessed on theirdrawings and that they must not copy each other.

So, the pupils were invited to take the fish’s pointof view by drawing what they thought the fishknew about a cow in the story. They were notobservational drawings. The pupils did not drawwhat they actually saw in real life, but what theyimagined, taking into account what they hadunderstood of the story. As such, the drawingsrepresented what the pupils knew about a cow(Reiss & Tunnicliffe, 2001).

The analytical frameworkWe devised an analysis protocol of drawings basedon the story as recounted in the book in order tosee to what extent the fact of providing or notproviding the frog’s description influences thetypes of fictional drawings produced by the pupils,considering the disparity in the age of the pupils.The younger pupils did not have access to the frogcharacter’s description of the cow, whereas the 78 yearold pupils did.

The drawings were classified by the research group according to 1) whether or not they showeda certain number of known anatomicalcharacteristics of the cow and 2) whether or notthey showed any variations in these knowncharacteristics. We considered nine anatomicalcharacteristics: Head (H), Body (B), Horn (HN), Ears (E), Tail (T), Legs (L), Hoof (HO), Udder (U),Spot (S). The established analytical frameworkspicked up the principles defined by Reiss et al(2002). Each member (teachers and researchers)involved in the research gave a score for eachdrawing. The scores allocated were then comparedand discussed collectively.

1The ‘Science and story’ research group is supported by ARC 5 (Research programme of the RhôneAlpesRegion) and is part of a Léa plan (Educational institution partnered with the IféENS of Lyon),‘questioning sciences with children’s picture books’. Every month for the past 7 years, this researchgroup has been bringing together researchers and elementary school teachers to discuss the issue of thefunction of fictional stories in scientific learning by young pupils.


Learning situation Treatment group Control group(with the frog’s description) (without the frog’s description)

Class 1 (78 years): the frog’s Class 2 (67 years):description of the cow is provided the frog’s description of theto pupils cow is not provided to pupils

Stage 1: partial reading The teacher reads the first nine double pages of the picture book, Fishof the picture book is Fish, taking care not to show the author’s illustrations, up to the (pps. 1–8) sentence: ‘And off it goes chatting away continuously, until night falls on

the pond’. The illustration on the cover sheet is hidden by a cover card.

Stage 2: production The teacher asks the pupils to put The teacher asks the children toof fictional drawings themselves in the place of the fish put themselves in the place of the

character and draw the cow that he fish character and draw the cowimagines based on the description that he imagines without themthe frog gives: p. 9* ‘“Cows,” said being provided with the frog’s the frog. “Cows! They have four legs, description *horns,eat grass, and carry pinkbags of milk”.’

Stage 3: discussion The fictional cow drawings are displayed on the board and discussed by theabout the fictional pupils, with specific support of both classes from the teachers.drawings produced

Stage 4: complete The pupils discover the cow drawing offered by the author, as well as thereading of the picture other animal depictions (bird, people, wonderful world)book (p.9 to the end)

Table 1: The learning situation in Class 1 and Class 2


The first framework dealt with the morphological and anatomical characteristics of each ‘cow’ drawing:

■ 1st stage: the organisation plan. (If theorganisation plan were that of a cow, weattributed the number 1; if it were that ofanother animal (fish...), we allocated thenumber 2).

■ 2nd stage: the presence or not of eachanatomical characteristic. (When theanatomical characteristic was present, weindicated the anatomical characteristic with acapital letter (B for body, T for tail, HO forhoof, H for horn, etc.)).

■ 3rd stage: the presence or not of variations inthe anatomical characteristics. (When therewas a variation in a characteristic (position,number…), we indicated with a lower caseletter the characteristic affected by thevariation (h for horn, t for tail, etc.)).

Figures 1 and 2, the drawings by a boy (E) aged 7(Class 1) and that of a girl (CH) aged 8 (Class 1) areexamples of the analysis:

Figure 1 is scored 1HBETLUS /u, according tothe method described in the text. (Head (H), Body(B), Ears (E), Tail (T), Legs (L), Udder (U), Spot (S))

Figure 2 is scored 2HBL/hbl, according to themethod described in the text.

The second framework (see Table 2) dealt with the point of view adopted by the pupils, byconsidering the general appearance of thedrawings. The point of view depends on theorganisation plan and the variations in theanatomical characteristics made on the drawings.For example, the point of view 2 is adopted by E (Figure 1), because the organisation plan is thatof a cow (pupil’s point of view) and there is avariation in the number and position of the udder(fish’s point of view). Point of view 1 is adopted by CH (Figure 2), because the organisation plan isnot that of a cow and there are variations in thenumber and positions of different characteristics.

Figure 1: A drawing by E, a male pupil aged 7, from Class 1.

Figure 2: A drawing by CH, a female pupil aged 8,from Class 1.

Point of view 1: the drawing represents thepupil’s point of view only.

Point of view 2: the drawing represents boththe pupil’s point of view and the fish’s point of view.

Point of view 3: the drawing represents thefish’s point of view only.

Table 2: The score attributed to the point of viewtaken by the pupil.


Two questions guided our analysis:

■ Which cow attributes were depicted and notdepicted by the pupils?

■ What variations did the pupils show on thecow attributes that they depicted?

For each question, we identified learningopportunities that arose.

The cow characteristics depicted or not by thepupils in the two classes (Table 3): the influence of the frog’s description on the choose ofanatomical characteristics

ResultsAlthough the ‘cow’ drawings are very varied,as a general rule they present the same externalanatomical characteristics and usually in the sameproportions, except for the udders, among pupils inboth classes (Table 1). In all drawings, we found ahead connected to a body that had legs. Thepresence of a tail was frequently found (6/7 in Class1; 18/21 in Class 2), as were spots (5/7 Class 1; 18/21Class 2). The depiction of horns (4/7 Class 1; 12/21Class 2) or hooves (3/7 Class 1; 9/21 Class 2)appeared averagely frequently. The presence ofears was more rare in Class 2 (2/21) than in Class 1(4/7). The main difference between the two classesconcerned the presence of udders, described by

Anatomical Class 1 Class 2characteristics/ (with frog’s (without frog’s

environment description) N = 7 description) N = 21

legs 7 21

horns 5 12

udders 6 6

environment (grass, plants, algae…) 6 5

tail 6 18

spot 5 18

ear 4 2

hoof 3 9

Table 3: The anatomical characteristics and the environment presence in the ‘cow’drawings from Classes 1 and 2.

Figure 3: A drawing, without an udder, by a 6 yearold male pupil (H), from Class 2: Score: 1HBHNTLS

Figure 4: A drawing by a 7 yearold female pupil (C),from Class 1, showing grass: Score: HBHNETLHOUS/hn

Characteristic presentin the frog’s description

Characteristic not present in the frog’s description


the frog as ‘pink bags full of milk’. Apart from thedrawing by CH (Figure 2), all the drawings fromClass 1 depicted udders (6/7), whereas very fewfrom Class 2 did so (6/21). Another difference canbe seen in the presence of grass (Figure 4) or algae(Figure 2) in the majority of Class 1 drawings (6/7).Few Class 2 pupils (5/21) depict the cows in anenvironment with grass or flowers (Figure 5).

DiscussionThe anatomical characteristics provided by pupilsfrom Class 1 are not limited to the characteristicsprovided in the frog’s description. These pupilsadded missing characteristics with which they were familiar from their mental model (spot, tail,hoof, ear). These same characteristics are also inthe drawings of pupils from Class 2. Class 1 pupilshad no difficulty in converting ‘pink bags full ofmilk’ into the anatomical characteristic ‘udder’.Here, it is apparent that the pupils have more orless incorporated into their drawings thecharacteristics of the Linnaean classificationsystem, where the cow species is defined asbelonging to the vertebrate and then mammalcategory due to the presence of four legs, udders,ear flaps and postanal tail. Further, cows belong tothe hoofed animal category, due to the presence ofhooves. Not one drawing showed cows withattributes from other groups (except the drawingby CH), such as antennae.

The description ‘eat grass’ is not associated with an anatomical characteristic of the cow, but,instead, behaviour. This result confirms those ofTunnicliffe and Reiss (1999), which show that pupilsof 5 to 14 years spontaneously describe an animalby most often citing anatomical reasons and veryrarely reasons based on habitat or behaviour.It is indeed the statement ’it eats grass’ that ledClass 1 pupils to incorporate the environment intotheir cow drawings. The presence of udders andgrass in the Class 1 drawings is influenced by thefrog’s description.

The contrast between the absence of spots in thefrog’s description and the presence of spots on thedrawings gave the Class 1 teacher the opportunityto ask the pupils about ‘the important things’ whendrawing a cow. These ‘important things’ are, as thepupils recall, ‘the horns’, ‘the udders’ and the ‘blackspots’, even if, as one pupil pointed out, ‘it isn’tshown’ (in the picture book). When the teacherasked, ‘Do all cows have spots?’, the pupils repliedin unison ‘no’, before admitting that thischaracteristic can be found in most of them, andthat it may or may not be present. The contingentnature of this attribute, as expressed here, opensup the possibility of asking questions aboutwhether the other ‘important things’ about thecow are of a classificatory nature or not. If there are contingent characteristics, this implies thatsome are common and others necessary.

The point of view adopted by the pupils in the twoclasses: the influence of the frog’s description onthe point of view adopted

Results: The organisation plan (Table 4)The external anatomical characteristics areinterconnected, according to an organisation plan,more frequently as a cow type in the two classes(6/7 Class 1; 17/21 Class 2). The fish type was morerare (see Figure 2, Class 1; Figure 6, Class 2) and thedragon type was unique (Figure 7, Class 2).

Figure 5: A drawing by a 6 yearold female pupil(S), from Class 2, showing an environment(flowers): Score: HBTLUS


In these two drawings coexists a fish or a dragonorganisation plan with cow characteristics.

Certain Class 1 drawings (5/7) show variationsabout only three characteristics: horns, tail andudder. Among these drawings, the variations areexpressed through the number and position of the

characteristics associated with a cow silhouette.The horns, for example, are attached to the back(Figure 4), several udders are positioned on eitherside of the cow’s neck (Figure 1) and the number of teats varies (between one and four). Only onedrawing (Figure 2) has depicted substitutions.

Therefore, the majority of Class 2 remain focusedon their point of view as pupils (point of view 1),whereas the majority of Class 2 drawingsdemonstrate two points of view (point of view 2): a fish point of view (by showing variations) and thepupil’s point of view (with a cow organisation plan).Only one drawing (Figure 2) exclusively takes thefish point of view (point of view 3).

Discussion: The Class 1 pupils find it easier to make a change in point of view than those in Class 2, the majorityof whom remain focused on their point of view aspupils. This difference can be explained by thepupils’ age, as well as by the frog’s incomplete,imprecise description, which opens up differentpossible interpretations as explained very well bypupil CH with regard to her drawing (Figure 2):‘I imagined that he imagines that its horns are its finand given that the frog has said “some” we can putseveral of them’. She justified how she proceededby bringing together the elementsdescribed by the author and the

Table 4: The organisation plan of the ‘cow’drawings in Classes 1 and 2.

Organisationplan

cowfish

dragon

Class 1 (with frog’sdescription

N = 7

61o

Class 2(without

frog’sdescription)

N = 211731

Figure 6: A drawing by a 7 yearold male pupil (H),from Class 2, showing a fish organisation plan:Score: HBTLS.

Figure 7: A drawing by a 7 yearold male pupil (V),from Class 2, showing a dragon organisation plan.

Variations Class 1 Class 2

Horn position 3 0

number 0

Tail position 1 0

number 1

Udder number 1 0

Traits number 2

Substitutions Class 1 Class 2

Horns replaced by fins 1 0

Cow legs replaced by tadpole legs 1 0

Table 5: The variations and the substitutionsin the characteristics of the ‘cow’ drawings in the two classes.


different attributes of the fish ‘because it could havethings in common with the cow’. She imagines thehorns as possibly being replaced by fins, the cow’slegs by those of a tadpole ‘because the fish hasnever seen legs other than tadpole legs’. This work ofconnections set up by this pupil prompts her toimagine similarities between the structures of fishand cow species. And, yet, this activity of makingcomparisons, triggered by the desire to depictsomething unknown (the cow) through a frame ofreference that is not her own (that of the fish), isthat which is carried out when one looks forfiliation links between species. Without positingthe hypothesis of homology, this pupil sets out theidea of a certain equivalence between the differentcharacteristics of different species, which theteacher will ask the pupils to think about at the endof the session. This investigation used the fictionaldrawing that brought into conflict elements ofreality (according to what the drawer alreadyknew) and elements of fiction (according to thecharacter’s supposed knowledge) and wasconducive to creating new connections for thinkingabout or questioning a known reality. Byreintroducing the notion of ‘point of view’, thepicture book’s narrative indeed made it possible toconsider an observation as questionable (Bautier et al, 2000).

ConclusionThis case study shows to what extent the picturebook Un poisson est un poisson (Lionni, 1974)represents an interesting resource for working with young pupils on the question of a species’characteristics. More specifically, this study showshow a familiar animal, the cow, can bereconsidered at the scientific level by 68 yearoldpupils as soon as they are involved in producing a fictional drawing, which leads them to changetheir point of view. Because they are rooted in thenarrative of the picture book, the fictional drawingsact as a springboard for the teacher to question thepupils about what they have imagined and therebyrequestion them about their scientific knowledgeand their mode of reasoning.

Nevertheless, the fictional drawing works in a morelimited way with the 67 yearold pupils, who seemmore inclined to depict a cow like the cow they

know than the 78 yearolds, who dare more easilyto make variations in their cow drawings.Therefore, some 78 yearold pupils are capable ofmoving from questioning about what makes itpossible to recognise a cow to questioning aboutthe characteristics necessary for classifying it as aspecies. As part of the reading of a realistic fictionpicture book, the use of fictional drawings offersnew learning opportunities in science. Moreover, itappears that the fact of providing the author’s text(here the description of the cow by the frog)encouraged the pupils’ interpretive work andthereby helped them to adopt a point of viewdifferent from their own and not to limitthemselves to anatomical characteristics alone.Consequently, a possible extension of this casestudy would be to consider under what conditionsthe joint use of fictional drawings and writtendescriptions would encourage young pupils to takeinto account animals in their environment.

This work could be extended to explore in greaterdepth the most favourable conditions for learnersto recognise criterial attributes of organisms, sothat such a situation works as an initial form ofdeveloping scientific thought in the greatestnumber of pupils and for different age groups.

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Full data are available from the author.

Catherine Bruguière, Université de Lyon, Lyon, FranceEmail: Catherine.bruguiere@univlyon1.fr

mailto:Catherine.bruguiere@univ�lyon1.fr

Major Article: McGuigan, L., Russell, T JES9 Summer 2015 Page 34

AbstractThe work reported here forms one element of awider study across the 411 age range funded bythe Nuffield Foundation. The research was morebroadly concerned with the development of ideasabout evolution, an area of science introduced tothe National Curriculum for England in September2014. Within the study of evolution, one essentialfoundational idea is that of variation, as it is withinspecies variation that enables advantageousfeatures to confer greater survival and breedingsuccess on living things, whether driven by naturalselection or selective breeding. This paper reportson the process and outcomes relevant to variationin living things generally, drawing on evidencefrom the participating children and teachers in theearly years (47) age range. Young children tend tohold essentialist views of living things that leadthem to regard all individuals within a species asidentical – a view at odds with biological reality.Children’s consideration of withinspecies variationwas explored in their enquiries relating tothemselves, other animals and plants. We describehow a range of tailored formative interventions,including the use of mathematical tools, proved tobe helpful in supporting and developing children’sunderstanding of variation in living things.

KeywordsEarly years, variation, evolution

Introduction The work reported here forms one element of abroader study funded by the Nuffield Foundationthat examined teaching and learning of ‘Evolutionand Inheritance,’ an area of science introduced tothe National Curriculum for England in September2014. The authors worked collaboratively withteachers and children across the primary age rangeto explore teaching and learning processes withinthis important biological domain. The domain wasclustered into five interrelated themes, defined as‘Variation’, ‘Fossils’, ‘Deep time’, ‘Natural selectionand selective breeding’ and ‘Evolution’. Thesethemes were believed to have conceptualcoherence, form manageable work packages andprovide sufficient breadth to ensure access forchildren across the primary age range. Here wereport some reflections and findings within thestudy of ‘Variation’ from the subset of early yearssettings (children aged 47 years) included in theproject. The research questions of particularrelevance to this paper are:

■ What ideas do young children bring withthem to their study of ‘Variation’?

■ What multimodal formative interventions can be developed in early years teachers’practices?

■ How can evidence from practice be used todefine optimal teaching and learningsequences?

J

ES

Using multimodal strategiesto challenge early years

children’s essentialist beliefs

■ Linda McGuigan ■ Terry Russell


Withinspecies variation is what makes changesover generations possible, so is fundamental toevolution by natural selection; without it, evolutionby natural selection or by selective breeding couldnot occur. Yet children tend to believe all livingthings within a species are the same; all frogs,rabbits, oak trees, dandelions, etc. are deemed tobe identical. This recurring, socalled ‘essentialist’,view of living things is one in which the belief isthat all individuals within a species share someessential nature that makes them identical (Evans,2001; Gelman & Rhodes, 2012). Appreciating howliving things within the same species varyrepresents an important step along thedevelopmental journey towards understanding of evolution. Children tend to focus on similaritiesbetween living things of the same species, as it isthese that endow them with their identity. Whatchild wouldn’t believe that the tadpoles in Figure 1are all the same? To combat this essentialistthinking, Lehrer and Schauble (2012) suggest that children (grades K 6) can be encouraged to engage in enquiries in which they observe and measure differences in living things of thesame kind.

The research sought to bring to children’s attentionvariation in general, whether in plants, animals orparts of animals or plants and including variationsin behaviour or morphology. In short, the interestwas in variation in living things generally, with noparticular bias of interest towards animals orplants. The choice of living things was in factexplored by prioritising organisms (or partsthereof) that practitioners or teachers found to bemanageable or viable in their classroom and wider

resource environment. The spectrum included, aswell as farm animals (accessible through out ofschool visits), stick insects and tadpoles and variousplants grown from seed. The exploration ofchildren’s ideas about variation thus was framed interms of variation in living things generally, with nospecial priority or bias in mind favouring eitherplants or animals. The actual organism selectedwas determined by teachers’ preferences andchildren’s interests. Some of those choices mademeasurement possible.

MethodA collaborative Design Based Research approach(DBR, Anderson & Shattuck, 2012) was adopted forthe study. DBR combines science educationresearch and theory with educational design anddevelopment intentions to generate evidencebased and ecologically valid recommendations forpractice. The enquiry and this report are qualitativein nature. It is understood and accepted thatpractical and applied project outcomes are morelikely from the use of DBR methodology thanmeasurable effect sizes. Because DBR deals withcomplex interacting variables, discrete measuredoutcomes tend to be relatively insignificant in thebigger picture. More weight is attached to thevalidation by the practitioners involved in theresearch and construction of support materialsthan to measured outcomes of pupils’ assessedunderstanding. A core principle of DBR is toassume complementarity between the skills ofresearchers and practitioners, recognisingteachers’ existing proficiencies with the age group.The classroom relevance of outcomes also enablesinformed support to be offered for professionaldevelopment where there is a lack of confidence.The broader enquiry across the 411 years agerange was conducted with a group of twelvepractitioners selected on the basis of their curiosityto explore the ideas that children bring to theirlearning. Specialist biological knowledge was notessential. Four of the twelve practitionerscontributed to the evidence collected in respect ofchildren aged 47 years reported here. Fourteenresearcher visits were made in total to the project’sfour early years settings. The research followedESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)ethical guidelines.

Figure 1: Observing tadpoles.


All teachers attended three project meetings and engaged in cycles of activity that involvedfinding out children’s ideas and developingformative, targeted interventions. Table 1 outlines the DBR schedule.

Research activities comprised: a) classroomactivities managed by teachers; b) researchers’observations of practice; c) teachers’ insights andpractices communicated via an online (SharePoint)facility and their (Evernote) digital research diaries;and d) group meetings. Data were drawn fromresearchers’ observations of practice, children’sclassroom outputs and teachers’ records of theirinvolvement. Significant informationgatheringactivity took place during researchers’ visits toschools, including video recording, photographyand collection of children’s products.

The DBR approach was one in which theresearchers took responsibility for setting out thegeneral conceptual agenda. The importance of aformative approach to teaching and learning wasemphasised, implying that teachers should acceptthe need to identify children’s currentunderstanding in order to support progression intheir developing ideas. The teachers were deemedto be the early years experts and the judges of theneeds and capabilities of the children they taught.Our intention was and is to build on existingconfidence rather than to inadvertentlydisempower practitioners by the imposition of topdown views of science practices (Russell &McGuigan, 2015). Emerging practices wereexchanged, critiqued and developed across thegroup. In this way, it was ensured that all activitieswere viable and appropriate for the early years agegroup and sat easily with generic practices.

Results Evidence of children’s expectations of withinspecies similarities were revealed and confirmed intheir initial explorations of animals, plants andfeatures of themselves. Reception children (45years) visiting farm animals tended not torecognise the black sheep that they were observingand discussing as a sheep. Their exclamationsmade explicit their essentialist reasoning: ‘They’renot sheep! Sheep are white’. For these children, oneessential feature of sheep was a white woolly coat.Similar essentialist biases were revealed as theyoung children closely observed ducks. Awidespread view of ducks having yellow beaks ledto children failing to identify the animals that werethe object of their attention as ducks (Russell &McGuigan, 2015). The wider research agenda hadsensitised teachers to the essentialist issue. So itwas that, in response to expressed ideas, theinteractions during the visit encouraged children toobserve directly some of the differences withincollections of sheep, ducks and rabbits. Later andback at school, collections of hens were broughtinto some settings for children to observe directly.

Children initially viewed all tadpoles ashomogeneous and undifferentiated. Observationusing magnification brought home to them thatthe unhatched tadpoles showed variation and thiswas a surprise to them. Children’s descriptions ofthe tadpoles’ diversity included: ‘That is a differentshape, not round’; ‘That’s got a white dot in it andthe others are black’; ‘Some are brown and some areblack.’ Amongst the ideas discussed for themeasurement and observation of variation wasplotting the number of tadpoles that hatched dayby day (or by number of days afteregglaying or collection of frog

Year 25 Feb FebApr Apr 30 MayJun Jun 30 SepDec JanJun2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2014 2015

Activity First Classroom Second Classroom Third Classroom Reviewcore based core based core based Validategroup research, group research, group research, Consultmeeting review & meeting review & meeting review &

analysis analysis analysis

Table 1: Project scedule.


spawn). This was expected to reveal a pattern(normal distribution), with a few hatching earlyfollowed by an increase in rate and then a tailingoff. Another measurement possibility was to countthe emergence of legs and absorption of tails.Unfortunately, halfterm breaks and fatalitiesintervened.

The possibility of children measuring andcomparing the length of caterpillars was alsodiscussed. In relation to stick insects, it wasdiscussed whether it might have been possible totime and quantify skin moults. Keeping track ofindividuals proved extremely difficult for the agegroup and under the conditions in which they werekept, so that the criterion of classroom viabilitydictated that other foci of interest were pursued.

While planting seeds and growing plants is aubiquitous and frequent experience in Receptionand Key Stage 1 (47 yearolds), project childrenrevealed an unequivocal essentialist expectationthat, if the seeds they were to plant received thesame amount of water and sunlight and wereplanted at the same time, they would all grow tothe same height and produce the same number ofleaves, flowers, etc. Figure 2 shows a child’sdrawing of how the sunflower seeds might beexpected to look when the seeds grew into ‘adult’plants. In conversation with a practitioner, the childexplained that each plant would have two leavesand a flower. While there is a hint of variability inthe height of the drawn plants, the child was of theview that the plants of the same age would all bethe same. Pointing to one of the shorter plants, she

explained that this plant was ‘the baby’ and wouldtherefore be smaller.

A number of formative interventions weredeveloped as the result of discussions between theproject teachers and researchers. Several teachersfound children engaged with a nonfiction story,The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle. The narrative exploreshow the germination and subsequent growth ofseeds is affected by environmental factors,providing a lowkey and implicit introduction to thenotion of survival probability – a key idea inevolutionary thinking. Reception children seemedto take the demise of the majority of the story’sseeds in their stride and described some of theirown experiences of neighbours’ pets and birdseating seeds in their own outdoor areas.

From this starting point, children from Receptionto Year 2 (ages 47) were encouraged to observeand compare the growth of their seeds. Across theyear groups, children grew a variety of plantsincluding carrots, peas, cress, beans, tomatoes andsunflowers. Their teachers shaped activities so thatchildren were encouraged to look closely toobserve not just similarities but also differencesbetween collections of plants of the same kind.

In one class (aged 46 years), children grew peas ina wormery so that they might be enabled toobserve and compare the differences not only inthe shoots and leaves of the peas but also tocompare root growth (Figure 3). The transparentsides provided novel opportunities forchildren to observe and measure

Figure 2: Child’s (50 months) drawing of ideasabout how sunflower seeds will grow.

Figure 3: Observing differences in the growth ofpea seedlings.


differences in the individual plants’ root systems.Sticky labels and marker pens were used to recordlength, while also taking standard measures oflength in centimetres. Once a measurementstrategy had been invented and agreed for one of the plant’s roots, it could easily be used bychildren to compare each of the plants growing inthe wormery.

In a Reception class (aged 45 years), differencesbetween sunflower seedlings were recordedqualitatively, in drawings and paintings. As childrenmade drawings of the changes in their sunflowerseedlings, they were encouraged to observe closely,to ‘look again’ to check their observations and drawthe leaves accurately. One child drew leaves asgreen lines. When asked to look closely again at theleaves, he selfcorrected, changing his leaves to acurved shape. It is noteworthy that this adult’scomments on drawing did not simply tell the childhow the leaf should be drawn, or point to a fault orshortcoming. More simply, it was a matter ofsuggesting that further observation might prompt achange of mind or a more careful examination.Once prompted in this manner, children ‘adjusttheir sights’, perhaps even raise their standard, inline with external expectation. While each child hadtheir own potted sunflower seedling, they wereencouraged from time to time to makeobservations of differences across the collection ofpots. Developing these careful observations andrecordings helped children to identify and describequalitative differences across the collection.

Children also recorded the number of leaves oneach plant. Some looked across the data andnoticed that the number of leaves on thesunflowers’ stems differed. Similar observationshelped children to notice that some stems varied inheight while other seeds had not germinated at all.They employed their mathematics vocabulary todescribe the heights of sunflower plants and usedordinal relations to sequence seedlings fromshortest to tallest. With adult help, they were ableto transform this row of plants ordered by heightinto something resembling a pictogram, putting liveplants of similar height into columns. Each childadded their plantlet to the ‘living chart’ of seedlings,observing carefully and judging where they thoughteach seedling should go. Typically, a child might puther plant in one column and then, following

discussion of the plant’s height, move it to adifferent column that she thought more accuratelymatched the height of the plants in that set.

One child had a seed that was just showing signs ofgrowth. He demonstrated what was happening tothe seedling by his actions, curling up his body as ifto show the seedling coiled up inside the seed. Heput his seed pot at the very far left of the group,indicating that his plant was the smallest.

These interactions helped children to carefullycompare height across the seedlings. It is fromsuch early interactions that we might expectchildren to develop an awareness of the need formore systematic measures that will supportjudgements about variations in height.

Children were able to identify the tallest andshortest and referred to all those in the middle as‘middlesized’. They traced around the shape of thechart with their fingers to describe the curve (Figure4), also attempting to make the outline shape of thechart in the air when invited to do so. The child’scurling up and unravelling of his body modelled thegermination of the seed, while tracing the shape ofthe heights of the plants with a finger through theair may be the first form of recognition of thecurved shape of the normal distribution or ‘bellshaped’ curve. Both of these forms ofrepresentation use partial or whole body gesturing.

The activities in the Reception class reveal childrenusing a variety of representations, e.g. drawings,paintings, speech, actions, miming,lists and charts to share their

Figure 4: Making a ‘living pictogram’ of plants byheight (60 months).


understandings. Different representational formatsoffer different affordances for revealing andcommunicating understandings. Each of therepresentations highlights different aspects ofchildren’s observations of variation in the sunflowerseedlings. The drawings enable children to revealideas about differences in the colour, shape andnumber of leaves. Relative height can be shown indrawings, while measured height can be added inwritten annotations. Shape and movement mightbe shown in actions. Moving between (or ‘redescribing’) representations in different ways is ametacognitive strategy that helps children toconstruct new understandings. The ‘living chart’could not show the detail that is possible throughthe use of additional notations in children’sdrawings, but it did succeed in showing thedifferences in the number of seedlings at differentheights. In doing so, children were introduced tothe overall shape of the distribution of height of allthe plants being grown by the class.

Year 2 children (6 and 7 yearolds) recorded theirobservations of bean seeds in individual diaries. Toreflect the formative focus on children’s developingideas and to encourage observation of differenceswithin the collection of bean seedlings, thisrelatively familiar experience was shaped in thefollowing ways:

■ Their teacher encouraged children to inventand decide for themselves the observationsto be made and how any measurementsmight be taken.

■ Children were encouraged to share their datawith one another and to make comparisonsacross the collection of growing bean seeds.

Some children focused on the number of leaves,others the height of plants or the length of roots.Their drawings and writings included qualitative,semiquantitative and quantitative observations.For example, the height of plants was compareddirectly, sidebyside, using nonstandard (fingerwidths) as well as standard measures. They wereeager to discuss and compare other children’sseedlings with their own (Figure 5) and used theaccumulating data to highlight differencesbetween the plants. Using measurement helpedchildren to recognise, describe and compare their

observations of the differences within collectionsof plants of the same species.

In order to encourage an overview of the number ofleaves on each seedling across the collection ofplants grown by the class as a whole, one of thepractitioners drew chalk lines as the axes of a largechart in the playground. Each child placed theirgrowing bean seedling on the chart according to itsnumber of leaves. Their teacher spotted some‘exaggerated’ counting due to an initial desire ofsome children to have grown the plant with themost leaves and reminded them to countaccurately, so that they could trust the results! Thenumbers of leaves were recounted and plantswere placed in columns according to the number ofleaves grown. Children appreciated that there werefewer plants at either end and a lot more in themiddle. Drawing around the assemblage of plantshelped to make the shape of the distribution ofnumber of leaves more visible and evident tochildren (Figure 6).

Recording measurements in 3D charts using realplants led children to describe the shape of thedistribution as ‘like a volcano’ and ‘like a hill’. The term‘hill shape’ emerged as useful in helping childrenrecognise similar patterns in their charts ofmeasurements of their hands and feet. This providedthe research group with a useful vocabulary to use inplace of the more formal and obscure (to youngchildren) ‘normal distribution’ – the correct term towhich children might be expected to be introducedlater in their learning. This shape cannot be seen bylooking at individual drawings or by

Figure 5: Comparing bean seedlings (6 & 7 yearolds).


comparing one plant with another. It emerged onlywhen children aggregated the data for one attributeacross the collection of plants. The early yearsteachers seem to have found an innovative andaccessible way to introduce children to a recurringpattern in the distribution of continuous variationacross a population.

Children observed and measured variability in anumber of contexts, enabling them to appreciatethe recurring ‘hillshaped’ pattern. Whileencouraging children to compare physicalcharacteristics of themselves and their peers(especially noncontinuous traits such as eye or hair colour) tends to be avoided to protect childrenfrom potential sensitivities, measurements of handand foot size tend to be acceptable and wereexplored in parallel in several Year 1 and 2 classes(age 57 years). Project teachers invited children to suggest measurement strategies and requiredthem to explain to their peers why a particularapproach should be used. Once agreement wasreached, the preferred strategies were adopted by the class to provide a collection of data. Whilemany creative measurement ideas were lost in thenegotiations, a variety of measurement strategieswere used across the early years sample:

■ Measurements of hand span or hand lengthwere made, along with measures of thelength of foot from heel to toe.

■ In some classes, string and strips of paperwere matched to size of hand or foot andthen measured in centimetres. In others, a ruler was used directly to make themeasurement.

■ Some classes drew around the hand or footand then used rulers to measure the span orlength represented in the drawing.

Children drawing around their hands and feet oftenadded standard measurements in centimetres.

Year 2 children were surprised to find differences intheir hand sizes. To help them think of thesedifferences positively, they were encouraged tothink of variations as making them ‘special’.Children were encouraged to place their owncutout handprint onto a chart. In their discussionsof the assembled information, some noticed thatthe overall shape of the chart was the same, bothin their hand and foot measurements (Figure 7).

ConclusionsFormative targeted intervention experiencesformulated within the research were designed totake account of young children’s essentialistreasoning. This way of thinking tends to leadchildren to think of living things in the same speciesas sharing a common ‘essence’. Ideas such as ‘Sheepare white’ and ‘Ducks have yellow beaks’ emerging inthe course of our research may serve children wellas they seek to name and classify animals. However,such reasoning fails to take account of variationwithin species and may lead children to fail torecognise black sheep and ducks with grey beaks asmembers of their respective family groups.Practical strategies used by teachers in this study,in which children compared the differences withingroups of living things both qualitatively andquantitatively, helped children toappreciate variation. Taking a longer

Figure 6: Drawing around the assembled plantshelps make the shape of the distribution morevisible (6 & 7 yearolds).

Figure 7: Measuring and describing the variabilityin hand span (6 & 7 yearolds).


view of children’s science education, awareness of variation within groups of living things is animportant foundation upon which the mechanismsfor understanding and accepting evolution have tobe based.

Within the research, some familiar early yearspractices were shaped towards multimodalinterventions to support children’s understandings.The emphasis in practice was on childrenrepresenting their ideas in different modes,including speech, drawings, writings, mime,measurement, lists and charts. Encouraging thedevelopment and use of mathematical tools suchas counting and measurement extended children’sobservations, enabling them to recognise andcompare differences that may not otherwise havebeen possible. The multimodal practices incombination were considered to have helpedchildren develop an awareness of variation withingroups of living things. In the course of theresearch, some insights were gained into howmathematical tools might help children shift fromordering data in linear sequences to preparingoutcomes as charts comprising physical objects.Shifts from ordinal lists to charts helped children toshow and describe a collection of measuresgathered by the class. Children’s descriptions of the(normally distributed) pattern in data as ‘hillshaped’ provide a useful basis for generating laterunderstandings of the relationships betweendistribution of attributes in populations and naturalselection. These representational practices arelikely to be foundational for children’s developmentof ‘thinking scientifically’. Rather than ‘letting go’of drawing, mime, writing, etc. as they acquiremore complex mathematical and symboliccapabilities, we see developing learners continuingto explore, use and make sense of the full range ofrepresentational possibilities as a critical aspect oftheir scientific reasoning. Just as scientists do!

The researchers’ particular interest in children’s ideasabout variation included the prospect of formulatingdevelopmental trajectories that describe the kinds ofunderstandings and practices in the early years thatare important to support later understanding of‘Evolution and Inheritance’. Descriptions ofconceptual progress are invaluable in supporting aformative assessment approach, but must beempirically checked in settings and classrooms. The

longerterm practical aspiration of our work is theproduction of science curriculum support materials,validated and illustrated by those early yearspractitioners directly involved in their formulationand grounded in their expertise. Our DBR approachcombines science education research and theorywith educational design and development intentionsto generate evidencebased and ecologically validrecommendations for practice.

References Anderson, T. & Shattuck, J. (2012) ‘Designbased

research: A decade of progress in educationresearch?’, Educational Researcher, 41, (1), 16–25.DOI: 10.3102/0013189X11428813

Carle, E. (1997) The Tiny Seed. London: PuffinEvans, E.M. (2001) ‘Cognitive and contextual

factors in the emergence of diverse beliefsystems: Creation versus evolution’, CognitivePsychology, 42, (3), 217–296

Gelman, S.A. & Rhodes, M. (2012) ‘Two thousandyears of stasis’. In Rosengren, K.S., Brem, S.K.,Evans, E.M. & Sinatra, G.M. (Eds.), EvolutionChallenges: Integrating Research and Practice inTeaching and Learning about Evolution (pps. 1–26). Oxford Scholarship Online. DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730421.001.0001

Lehrer, R. & Schauble, L. (2012) ‘Supporting inquiryabout the foundations of evolutionary thinking inthe elementary grades’. In Carver, S.M. & Shrager,J. (Eds.), The Journey from Child to Scientist (pps.171–205) APA

Russell, T. & McGuigan, L. (2015) ‘Why clone asheep when they all look the same anyway?’,Primary Science, (137), 19–21

Russell, T. & McGuigan, L. (2015) ‘Identifying andenhancing the science within early years holisticpractice’. In Papadouris, N., Hadjigeorgiou, A. &Constantinou, C.P. (Eds.), Insights from Researchin Science Teaching and Learning. Book of selectedpapers from the ESERA 2013 Conference,Springer

Linda McGuigan and Terry Russell, Centre forLifelong Learning, University of Liverpool.Emails: [email protected] [email protected]



Major Article: Dale Tunnicliffe, S. JES9 Summer 2015 Page 42

AbstractThis paper gives the views of a class of 28 sevenyearold English children (14 girls and 14 boys)about the internal anatomy of an earthworm,elicited through an analysis of their drawings of itsinternal structure. When their class teacher askedthem to make drawings of the inside ofearthworms, the children informed her about thewormery they had kept the previous year and whatthey had noticed, particularly that earthworms ateleaves. Nearly all the drawings showed at least anelement of a digestive system and most included abrain and depiction of a heart indicating thepresence of a blood system in a body cavity.

Keywords Earthworms, internal anatomy, drawings

Literature reviewChildren learn about phenomena in their worldfrom the earliest years – they are intuitivescientists. Some of their learning happens in thehome and everyday surroundings, where theynotice organisms in their locality as well as exoticspecies through various forms of media. However,although visiting museums, zoological andbotanical gardens and nature centres andobserving the everyday environment can bring tolearners recognition of the external features ofplants and animals (e.g. Patrick & Tunnicliffe, 2011),it is not evident that such observations lead toknowledge of the internal anatomy of organismsother than by referring to themselves as a template

and drawing conclusions through conjecture,unless particular exhibits of anatomy are displayed.

The mental models drawn upon by the child in adrawing are representations of an object or anevent. The image that the drawer is seeking toproduce is formed by the process of mentalmodeling. Glynn & Duit (1995) state that theprocess of forming and constructing models is amental activity of an individual or group. A mentalmodel that is talked about or drawn is thus sharedwith others, as it is expressed in some form. In thisstudy, the drawings are products of the drawer’simagination (Reiss, Boulter & Tunnicliffe, 2007) andmemory as expressed models (Gilbert & Boulter,2000). Visualisations are ‘an essential element ofteaching, understanding, and creating scientificideas’ and depend on the person visualising,selecting the essential information and recordingthis, on paper, in the case of pencilpaper drawings(Tversky, 2007). Making a drawing of somethingtangible can help young children to shift fromeveryday or spontaneous concepts to morescientific concepts, whilst their construction alsoenables children to come to terms with spatialvisualisations, interpretations, orientations andrelations. Tversky claims that when children areable to create visual representations of their ideas,they are more able to work at a higher cognitivelevel. Of course, there are always the provisos thatthe child can achieve the technical andmanipulative skills of drawing.

J

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What’s inside an earthworm?The views of a class of

English 7 year-old children

■ Sue Dale Tunnicliffe


Using drawings to elicit understanding depends onhow researchers can interpret the artifactproduced. However, the clarity of such drawingscan affect the ability of researchers to interpretthem without interviewing the child and this canpresent difficulties and potentially lead toinaccurate interpretation of the child’s intent.Drawing is difficult for younger children because ofpossible inexperience in using drawing tools andlack of motor skills in controlling a pencil.Symington et al (1981) proposed three stages inthe development of children’s ability to draw. Thefirst is ‘scribbling’ (the youngest children) – theresult being unintelligible to adults, Secondly, achild enters a stage in which drawings show verylittle resemblance to the object and the picture isused more as a visual representation of the child’sideas – a symbol. Thirdly, an older child shows‘visual realism’, where the object and the drawingsof it are identifiable and bear a closer resemblance.

Research using the drawings of children to accesstheir ideas has become more common. Krampen(1991) suggests that one way of looking at andmaking conclusions about children’s drawings is tofocus on one figure, such as a human, and hereports that it was soon discovered that suchdrawings change from a ‘tadpole’ man to a morerealistic presentation (p. 330) as the age of the childincreases. Through observing and listening,children become aware of the existence of organsin their bodies (Cuthbert, 2000) and this knowledgethey apply to other organisms.

However, the nature of the internal anatomy oforganisms is a relatively new area of studyamongst biologists. Bartoszeck and Tunnicliffe(2013) interviewed Brazilian children about theirunderstanding of the internal structure of trees.Older children sometimes interpreted ‘inside’ asinternal to the outside of the tree, inside the trunkand branches, reflecting Symington’s perspective,which develops from scribbling to realism(Symington et al, 1981). These children transferredtheir knowledge about bones, muscles, veins andheart, features peculiar to vertebrates, to the tree,using, as Carey (1985) identified, the self as theirtemplate. More recently, Rybska et al (2015)worked with children in Poland who had receivedno formal teaching on this subject, looking at theirunderstanding of the internal anatomy of trees.

Recently, several researchers have studiedchildren’s understanding of the anatomy ofinvertebrates. Bartoszeck et al (2011) useddrawings to elicit children’s understanding of theexternal anatomy of insects. Rybska et al (2015)used drawings and interviews to examine theunderstanding of 5, 7 and 10 yearold Polishchildren’s understanding of the internal anatomy ofsnails, where it was found that the most oftendrawn organ was a heart, although all the childrendrew organs in the fleshy part of the snail, the footof the mollusc, not within the shell.

The understanding of the internal organs ofvertebrates, beginning with bones, was elicitedthrough an analysis of drawings by Tunnicliffe andReiss, (1999), who then studied the understandingof organs in some vertebrate specimens from fishto humans (Reiss & Tunnicliffe, 2001). Theseresearchers showed real specimens of a fish (fresh,a herring), a bird and a rat (preserved), before theyasked the young people (ages 5 through 8 years, 14 yearolds and undergraduates), about theinternal anatomy of these vertebrates.

Subsequently, Reiss and Tunnicliffe et al (2002)conducted an international comparison of learners’understanding of human internal anatomy, usingan analysis of the drawings of 15 yearolds from avariety of countries, some Western and some fromAsia. Some other research, such as a South Africaregional study (Dempster & Steras, 2014) foundthat children were able to identify and drawfamiliar organs, but not the relationships betweenthem. Other studies, where drawings have beenused that focused on people’s ideas about thehuman body, have been summarised by Patrick(2014).

However, as Prokop et al (2007) point out, there area number of factors that affect children’sunderstanding of their knowledge of internalanatomy. Moreover, if the learner is subsequentlyinterviewed with their drawings, they may reveal agreater understanding (Tunnicliffe & Reiss, 2014).

The study upon which this article focuses useddrawings executed by children to explore theirunderstanding of the internal anatomy of theearthworm. These children had kept awormery the previous school year.


Their class teacher cued them in by talking aboutthe wormery and what the worms did.

MethodologyDrawing earthworms as a class was a spontaneousevent that occurred when I was observing them.They finished their French lesson early and theteacher asked me if there was anything I would liketo see. I suggested this activity, which sheimplemented enthusiastically.

She asked the class about earthworms to establishthat they understood what earthworms were. Atthis point, the children informed us about thewormeries they had kept the previous year. Theteacher asked the children to draw, in pencil, an

outline of the body of an earthworm and theninsert what they thought was inside theearthworm. She did not ask them to draw a fullpicture and so no contexts were drawn.

We collected the drawings and noted whether thedrawer was male or female.

I used the basic protocol that Tunnicliffe and Reiss(1999) devised for scoring drawings of internalanatomy, in which the researchers describedstages of development of the understanding oforgans and systems, and coded each occurrencewith a lower case letter for an organ and capitalletter for the indication of a system.

Level definition Girls Boys Total girls Total boys Overallletters indicate the first letter of the relevant anatomical system

Level 1: No internal recognisable organs 2 2 2

Level 2: One+ internal organs shown at random d,c 2 1d 1 c

Level 3: One organ in correct position d d,d,d 1 = d 3 (all d) 4 d

Level 4: Two or more organs in approximately correct position ncd ncd n=9 n=7 n=16

cd ncd c=11 c=6 c=17ncd ncd d=11 d=21

ncd(r) ncd r=3 d=10 r=3ncd u=1 r=0 u=2

ncd(r) ncd u u=1nc ru n d

ncncd

ncd (r)cd

ncd

Level 5: One organ system Ddc c=1 c=1d= 1 D=1D=1

Table of Results


This is essentially a 5level system:

■ Level 1: No internal recognisable organs;■ Level 2: One+ internal organs shown at

random;■ Level 3: One organ in correct position;■ Level 4: Two or more organs in approximately

the correct position;■ Level 5: One organ system.

Although developed for vertebrates, this systemwas applicable to these drawings. Hence, one girl’sdrawing showed a gut in approximately the correctposition and so was coded as a Level 3. However,this was all that was shown on her drawing.

ResultsI numbered each drawing for reference (1 to 27) andmade notes on the number of children who indicatedand labeled the anus (2 boys, 5 girls – one of whomalso mentioned the mouth), whilst others depictedthe gut beginning behind the central ganglion(counted as ‘brain’), but with no obvious opening.

The organs indicated on the drawings for eachchild were entered into the Table to show thespread of organs understood by the children andthe consistency in expectations of internalanatomy.

According to the Reiss and Tunnicliffe (2001) rubric,the majority of children (18) were at Level 4. Thismeans that they knew of two or more internalorgans that are part of a system and located themin approximately the correct place. One girl (no. 3)indicated the roles of different parts of the gut(‘masher’, ‘pusher’, ‘squashes it out’). Four girlsdrew lungs, which indicates that they have anunderstanding that organisms have respiratorysystems but with no understanding of themechanisms in these invertebrates.

One girl (no. 26) drew and labelled an externalcovering of slime. Two children (1 boy, 1 girl) drewvery similar excretory tubes. Two children(drawings no. 23 and 26) indicated the presence ofpores externally.

Other external features drawn includedsegmentation, where one child (female) producedan external view showing this.

Figure 1: Inside an earthworm: ‘Masher’, ‘pusher’,‘squasher’ and outlet.

Figure 2: DNA.


Her drawing was scored as a Level 1, as no internalorgans were indicated. Drawing 20 (male) indicatedbones, and three boys and two girls labelled bloodas containing DNA (see Figure 2). Blood in the bodycavity was indicated in a number of drawings, aswas a heart, and these were scored as ‘c’ for anorgan in the circulatory system. One girl drew a gutwith an opening and an anus and was thereforescored as a ‘D’ for indicating a system.

A number of children drew the type of food thatthey knew worms ate inside their outline. One childalso depicted slime, which might indicate that thechild knew earthworms have moist skin (see Figure 3).

Discussion This analysis is not as specific as when used for avertebrate but, for example, blood was labelled,which was taken to understand the need for acirculatory system, which, indeed, is found inearthworms. They have two main blood vesselsand ‘hearts’, and these drawings did indicate aheart. A closed circulatory system is indicated inFigure 1, which also shows a heart, albeit the iconic‘love heart’ inserted in a number of drawings. Theinclusion of a heart was taken as such, although theheart structure of an earthworm is not like that of a

vertebrate. It is most unlikely that children of thisage would have either dissected an earthworm orseen drawings or models of internal anatomy, butthe drawing indicated that a closed system waspresent. The understanding of a circulatory systemwas indicated by a few drawings that labelledblood in the body cavity. Interviewing the childrento find out why they had labelled this would havebeen useful, and I wonder if those children decidedblood was present because of the colour of thebody of an earthworm that they had seen? Thedrawer of Figure 3 labelled slime on the exterior,possibly from her direct observations ofearthworms, which are moist, leading to herinterpretation of ‘slime’.

The drawings show that, of these children, 26indicated at least part of a digestive system andone child drew what represented a completesystem, so 27 understood the need for thepresence of such a system. Seventeen childrenindicated a heart or part of a circulatory system andsixteen depicted a brain (although this is a centralganglion, it is in the same relative position as thevertebrate brain).

These representations on the drawings of aninvertebrate suggest that the children consideredwhat they knew they themselves possessed by wayof organs and transposed this to the earthworm.Having had a wormery in their class the previousyear appeared to have led them to observe theeating habits of earthworms. The class had toldtheir teacher that worms eat leaves and so had apractically observed understanding of the gutfunction of earthworms. Several children revealedan understanding of the role of component parts ofa digestive system.

ConclusionThese data show how effective the involvement oflearners in first hand observations and activities inschool are in informing their knowledge. Theteacher was new to the school and had not knownthat the children had had a wormery the previousyear before she undertook this activity. Suchevidence as these data yield strengthens the caseput forward by a number of educators that livingorganisms should be present inFigure 3: Bones and slime.


classrooms, because children observe them thoughtheir inherent curiosity and interest even if notformally instructed so to do.

The drawings show clearly that children use theirexisting knowledge of human anatomy toextrapolate systems into the earthworm, as theydo for other organisms (Carey, 1985). One childlabelled bones, presumably because he knew thathe has bones in his body? In this study, childrenalso used their understanding, or at leastawareness, of earthworm behaviours, which wasrevealed in the spontaneous predrawingdiscussion about earthworms eating leaves, andwhich may have cued children into the fact thatearthworms have a gut. However, such anassumption strengthens the case for the closeobservation of living things and the keeping oforganisms, such as mealworms and earthworms, inclassrooms where the children may make their ownobservations about some life processes.

Tomkins and Tunnicliffe (2007) point out thatchildren are motivated through observing naturalobjects and this has a ‘positive effect on attitude’ aswell as their usefulness in ‘developing children’sknowledge, language and communication skills’.Moreover, these biology educators make the pointthat the more teachers make available organismsfor the learners to observe, the more these childrenlearn from their personal observations. Suchobservations are fundamental to the continualdevelopment of learners’ inquiry and science skills.

The next stage in this probe into children’sunderstanding is to find out how information isacquired as children develop. Ideally, a longitudinalstudy following the same children from preschoolto the end of their primary years should beconducted. However, more realistically, a study ofeach class in a school from four to eleven yearswould yield further understanding of when childrenacquire greater knowledge of the internal anatomyof earthworms. Interviewing all the children, or asample from each year, alongside their drawingswould be the optimum study.

ReferencesBartoszeck, A.B., Rocha da Silva, B. & Tunnicliffe,

S.D. (2011) ‘Children’s concept of insect by meansof drawings in Brazil’, Journal of EmergentScience, (2), 17–24

Bartoszeck, A.B. & Tunnicliffe, S.D. (2013) ‘What doearly years children think is inside a tree?’, Journalof Emergent Science, (6), 21–25

Carey, S. (1985) Conceptual change in childhood.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Cuthbert, A.J. (2000) ‘Do children have a holisticview of their internal body maps?’, School ScienceReview, 82, (299), 25–32

Dempster, E. & Steras, M. (2014) ‘An analysis ofchildren’s drawings of what they think is insidetheir bodies: a South African regional study’,Journal of Biological Education, 48, (2), 71–79,DOI: 10.1080/00219266.2013.837401

Gilbert, J.K. & Boulter, C. (2000) Developing Modelsin Science Education.Dordrecht: Kluwer

Glynn, S.M. & Duit, R. (1995) ‘Learning sciencemeaningfully: Constructing conceptual model’. InGlynn, S.M. & Duit, R. (Eds.) Learning science inthe schools: Research reforming practice. Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Krampen, M. (1991) Children’s Drawings: IconicCoding of the Environment. New York: PlenumPress

Patrick, P. & Tunnicliffe, S.D. (2011) ‘What Plantsand Animals Do Early Childhood and PrimaryStudents Name? Where Do They See Them?’, J SciEduc Technol, (20), 630–642. DOI 10.1007/s1095601192907

Patrick, P (2014) ‘Social interactions and familialrelationships preservice science teachersdescribe during interviews about their drawingsof the endocrine and gastrointestinal systems’,International Journal of Environmental & ScienceEducation, (9), 159–175

Prokop, P, Prokop, M., Tunnicliffe, S.D. & Diran, C.(2007) ‘Children’s ideas of animals’ internalstructures’, Journal of Biological Education, 41,(2), 62–67. DOI: 10.1080/00219266.2007.9656064

Reiss, M.J., Tunnicliffe, S.D., Andersen, A.M.,Bartoszeck, A., Carvalho, G.S., Chen, S.Y. &VanRoy, W. (2002) ‘An international study ofyoung people’s drawings of what is insidethemselves’, Journal of Biological Education, 36,(2), 58–64


Reiss, M., Boulter, C. & Tunnicliffe, S.D. (2007)‘Seeing the natural world: a tension betweenpupils’ diverse conceptions as revealed by theirvisual representations and monolithic sciencelessons’, Visual Communication, 6, (1), 99–114DOI: 10.1177/1470357207071467

Reiss, M.J. & Tunnicliffe S.D. (2001) ‘Students’understandings of human organs and organsystems’, Research in Science Education, (31), 383–399

Rybska, E., Tunnicliffe, S.D. & Zofia, A.S. (2014)‘Young children’s ideas about snail internalanatomy’, Journal of Baltic Science Education,13, (6)

Symington, D., Boundy, K., Radford, T. & Walton, J.(1981) ‘Children’s drawings of naturalphenomena’, Research in Science Education, (11),44–51

Tomkins, S. & Tunnicliffe, S.D. (2007) ‘Naturetables: Stimulating children’s interest in naturalobjects’, Journal of Biological Education, 41, (4),150–155

Tunnicliffe, S.D. & Reiss M.J. (1999b) ‘Learningabout skeletons and other organ systems ofvertebrate animals’, Science EducationInternational, 10, (1), 29–33

Tunnicliffe, S.D. & Reiss, M.J. (2014) A longitudinalstudy of a class of English primary children fromfive years to eleven years on their developingunderstanding of what was inside their body. Talkgiven at National Association for Research inScience Teaching, Pittsburg, USA

Tunnicliffe, S., Bartoszeck, A. & Rocha da Silva, B.(2011) ‘Children’s concepts of insects by means ofdrawings in Brazil’, Journal of Emergent Science,(2), 17–24

Tversky, B. (2007) ‘Prolegomenon to scientificvisualizations’. In Gilbert, J. (Ed.), Visualization inScience Education, pp. 29–42. Dordrecht:Springer

Dr. Sue Dale Tunnicliffe is a Reader in ScienceEducation at University College London Institute ofEducation. She is a zoology graduate whospecialised in education, has taught at all levels ofthe school system and has written widely.Email: [email protected]


Notes & News JES9 Summer 2015 Page 49

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ES Notes & News

ASE Annual Conference 2016University of BirminghamWednesday 6th to Saturday 9th January 2016Primary days: Friday 8th and Saturday 9th

This prestigious event will include some specificsessions on early years science during the PrimaryDays of the Conference (Friday and Saturday).

Please see the advertisement on page 54 of this issue of JES. More informationabout the Conference can be found at:

www.ase.org.uk/conferences/annual-conference/

It’s not too soon to book!

ESERA Conference 2015The European Science Education ResearchAssociation (ESERA) Conference will be held at theUniversity of Helsinki, Finland, starting Monday31st August and finishing on Friday 4th September2015. The event is attended by science educators,teachers and students from around Europe, withsome delegates from the Americas and Australia.There are oral and poster sessions and theConference, apart from being a very usefulnetworking event, also provides insights into topicsof current research in science education.

For more information, please visitwww.esera2015.org/or see the Facebook page at

https://www.facebook.com/esera2015

12th International Conference on Hands-on Science: Brightening our futureFunchal, Madeira Island, PortugalJuly 27th – 30th 2015

The 12th annual conference, on Hands-on Science –HSCI’2015, will provide an ideal opportunity forpresentation of work, of all kinds, related to scienceeducation. The aim of the Conference is to promotean open, broad exchange of experiences on goodpractice, syllabus and policy matters, social factorsand the learning of science, and other issues relatedto science education and its development, throughan enlarged use of active investigative learningapproaches with focus on hands-on experimentsand activities to be performed in the classroom andin non-formal and formal contexts.

Early warning for 2016!

NSTA National Conference 2016The National Conference of the National ScienceTeachers Association (NSTA) will be held inNashville, Tennessee, USA, from 31st March to 3rdApril 2016. For more details, please visit:www.nsta.org/conferences/

http://www.ase.org.uk/conferences/annual-conference/

http://www.esera2015.org/

https://www.facebook.com/esera2015

http://www.nsta.org/conferences/

NSTA 2016 Global ConversationsConference

Call for abstracts

Science Goes Global: The Next Generation: March 30th 2016 in Nashville, TN, USA.

The International Advisory Board to the NationalScience Teachers Association (NSTA) is thrilled toinvite submissions for both oral and posterpresentations for the 2016 Global ConversationsConference. This preNSTA oneday Conferencewill be cohosted with the national NSTAConference in Nashville, TN. The theme for the2016 Conference will be Science Goes Global: TheNext Generation.

In alignment with the national Conference themes,the Global Conversations Conference encouragessubmissions from diverse areas of scienceeducation, including formal elementary to collegescience education, policy standards, best practices,novel content delivery, scientific literacy andinformal education. Interspersed with the oral

presentations will be roundtable discussions onspecific topics relevant to the international scienceeducator community, which also allow fornetworking and ideas exchange. The posterpresentations will be held as part of the Wednesdayafternoon Conference program.

We solicit abstracts for the Conference, which willbe screened by the members of the InternationalAdvisory Board. The deadline for submission ofabstracts is September 30th 2015. We will sendout announcements of acceptance by October 14th2015. Please complete the form on the NSTAwebsite and submit it to Oliver Grundmann,International Advisory Board Chair 201516, [email protected]

For more information and history of the GlobalConversations Conference, please visit our websiteat http://www.nsta.org/international/

You can also obtain information about the 2016national NSTA Conference at:http://www.nsta.org/conferences/national.aspxto get an early start on planning your attendance.

Notes & News JES9 Summer 2015 Page 50

NSTA 2016 Global Conversations Conference


http://www.nsta.org/international/

http://www.nsta.org/conferences/national.aspx

Resource Reviews JES9 Summer 2015 Page 51

The Routledge International Handbook of Young Children’s Thinking and Understanding

Edited by Sue Robson and Suzanne FlanneryQuinn. Published in 2015 by Routledge, Abingdon,UK, price £140.00 Hb. ISBN 9780415816427(eBook 9781315746043

This Handbook is part of the excellent RoutledgeInternational Handbook series and is an extremelygood reference book for any educators interestedin this vital stage of learning, where numeracy,literacy and scientific literacy blend and emerge.This volume is a contemporary and authoritativereference book, available in hardback and as aneBook (from which you should be able to purchaseindividual chapters).

Although an excellent reference book, this is notone designed to be read, as I did, from beginning toend! The book is organised in four parts, each apartfrom the final one having 10 chapters, and there isa comprehensive index as well as biographies ofeach chapter contributor.

Part 1 is entitled How can we think about youngchildren’s thinking? Concepts and contexts’. Thechapters in this section discuss relevant topics,such as play, selfdiscovery, an exploration ofchildren’s casual explanations and issuesencountered by bilingual children.

Part 2 deals with Knowing about the brain andknowing the mind; whilst the third Part is focusedon making sense of the world, discussing a child’sworking theories in the early years, developing anunderstanding of astronomy, pretend play and itsimaginative role, and narrative thinking. Part 4focuses on Documenting and developing children’sthinking.

Having read the book, I was quite overwhelmed, ina positive way, because so many chapterscontribute to the understanding of thedevelopment of a learner’s scientific literacy. Myreading particularly made me consider further therole of play which, to me, seems to be a child’s‘work’ in experiential science in many cases of roleplay and other imaginative play. The chapters inPart 3 on Making sense of the world are relevant toscience and engineering, as are some in Part 2,Knowing about the brain and Knowing about themind. Of particular resonance to me as a scienceeducator, apart from the information on literacyand communication in which scientists need to beproficient, was Chapter 2, I wonder why our dog hasbeen so naughty? Thinking differently from theperspective of play, contributed by Elizabeth Wood.Reading this prompted me to consider scienceexperiences, which are very much partof many play episodes with toys,

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Resource Reviews

everyday items and the outdoors explorations. Are such activities ‘educational play’, or ‘freelychosen play’? This chapter provides much food for thought when considering experiential scienceand children’s interpretations.

Chapter 37, which considers young children’sdrawings, is another pertinent and thoughtprovoking chapter for those of us using drawings in research. I would urge anyone engaged in suchwork with young learners to read and consider this text, contributed by Kathy Ring, in planningtheir investigations.

There are many other chapters with messages thatare very relevant to early years science educatorsand researchers and I urge everyone to consult thisvery useful definitive text. It could be of particularuse to Bachelor and Masters’ students and those in teacher training, as well as researchers.

Sue Dale Tunnicliffe, Reader in Science Education,UCL Institute of Education.

Resource Reviews JES9 Summer 2015 Page 52

The Associationfor Science EducationPromoting Excellence in Science Teaching and Learning

Essential Reading for Science TeachersAASSEE GGuuiiddee ttoo PPrriimmaarryy SScciieennccee EEdduuccaattiioonnOnly £19.50 for members Available in digital formatand £26.50 for non-members Visit: www.ase.org.uk/bookshop

GGRREEAATT DDIISSCCOOUUNNTTSS FFOORR MMEEMMBBEERRSS

http://www.ase.org.uk/bookshop

About ASE JES9 Summer 2015 Page 53

ASE and you!Interested in joining ASE? Please visit our websitewww.ase.org.uk to find out more about what thelargest subject teaching association in the UK canoffer you!

The ASE Primary Science Education Committee(PSC) is instrumental in producing a range ofresources and organising events that support anddevelop primary science across the UK andinternationally. Our dedicated and influentialCommittee, an active group of enthusiastic scienceteachers and teacher educators, helps to shapeeducation and policy. They are at the forefront,ensuring that what is changed within thecurriculum is based on research into what works ineducation and, more importantly, how that ismanageable in schools.

ASE’s flagship primary publication, Primary Science,is produced five times a year for teachers of the 3–11 age range. It contains a wealth of news items,articles on topical matters, opinions, interviewswith scientists and resource tests and reviews.

Endorsed by the PSC, It is the ‘face’ of the ASE’sprimary developments and is particularly focusedon impact in the classroom and improving practicefor all phases. Primary Science is the easiest way tofind out more about current developments inprimary science, from Early Years Foundation Stage(EYFS) to the end of the primary phase, and isdelivered free to ASE members. In the past, theCommittee and Editorial Board have workedclosely with the Early Years Emergent Science

Network to include good practice generated inEYFS across the primary phase. Examples ofarticles can be found at:www.ase.org.uk/journals/primary science/2012

There is now an e- membership for primary schools.This enables participating schools to receive all thecurrent benefits electronically, plus free access tothe exciting primary upd8 resources, at adiscounted price. For more information, pleasevisit the ASE website (www.ase.org.uk)

The Committee also promotes the Primary ScienceQuality Mark, (www.psqm.org.uk). This is a three -stage award, providing an encouraging frameworkto develop science in primary schools, from theclassroom to the outside community, and gainaccreditation for it.

The ASE Annual Conference (see theadvertisement on page 54) is the biggest scienceeducation event in Europe, where over 2,500science teachers and science educators gather forworkshops, discussions, frontier science lectures,exhibitions and much more... Spending at least oneday at the ASE Annual Conference is a ‘must’ foranyone interested in primary science.

To find out more about how you could benefit fromjoining ASE, please visit: www.ase.org.uk ortelephone 01707 283000.

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http://www.ase.org.uk

http://www.ase.org.uk/journals/primary


http://www.psqm.org.uk


A must for all science teachers... Will be using ideas with my pupils... A great and inspiring week... Useful and reasonably priced...

Ideas from the classroom, for the classroom.

Annual Conference 2016Wednesday 6 to Saturday 9 January 2016 at the University of BirminghamPractical inspiration across science teaching and learning

Prof Steve Jones... Lord Baker... David Perks... Prof Justin Dillon... Alessio Bernardelli... Drs Ray & Rosemary Plevey’s Chemical Magic... Neil Monteiro

Book now at www.ase.org.uk/annual-conference for members’ discounts

SATURDAYSPECIALFROM ONLY

£59

CPD for teachers, technicians and subject leaders from primary and secondary.

www.ase.org.uk


http://www.ase.org.uk/annual-conference