ABSTRACT

This chapter looks at some of the ideas that children have worked out for themselves and at reasons for taking them into account in developing their scientific understanding. Research in the Science Processes and Concepts Exploration project studied the ideas of children about what was happening inside hens' eggs that were being incubated in the classroom. Children's ideas about sound were explored after they had the opportunity to make sounds with a variety of instruments. A very common understanding of children was that sound travels through air, or at least through holes in solid objects, and not through the solid itself. Drawings are particularly useful in conveying children's ideas since they try to represent what they know, or think they know. The chapter concludes with a list of characteristics of children's ideas which give clues to helping children to develop more scientific ideas.