ABSTRACT
A key innovation of the Tools for Exploratory Learning Programme was to recognize the importance, educationally and computationally, of semi-quantitative reasoning and modelling. Semi-quantitative modelling is new and important. It involves thinking about systems in terms of the rough and ready size of things and directions of effects, for example, that opening the throttle of my car increases the flow rate of petrol to the engine, which causes the engine to work faster. It requires an understanding of the direction of a causal relationship (increase or decrease) but numerical values or mathematical relationships are not needed. This section comprises two chapters: the first will describe the different areas in which the notion of semi-quantitative reasoning has been used; the second will describe findings about the reasoning of children between 11 and 14 when working with a semi-quantitative tool, IQON in the Tools for Exploratory Learning Programme.
