ABSTRACT
Art Linkletter in the 1950s capitalized on children’s conjectures about the natural world in a program entitled Kids Say The Darndest Things. Visit any middle school science class today, and you will hear surprising statements similar to those aired on this program. Over the 15 years we spent in the CLP classroom, we heard students say that wool sweaters warm cokes up, metal cools drinks, holes in blankets let the heat out, and holes in blankets warm you up. Some students explained that just as humans have the temperature of 98.6°, so do objects such as metal platters or wooden chairs have their own temperature. Students drew on colloquial expressions such as “the baby has a temperature so heat the bottle” to distinguish temperature and heat. Weather reports about the “wind chill factor” and the “heat index” convinced students that objects reach different temperatures in the same room.
