ABSTRACT
Children are a part of the biological world. Hence, the first animal with which they are aware of is themselves. What they experience and learn from being human and being aware of serves as a template in their younger years for interpreting the rest of the living world, particularly other animals, because their experience is of themselves and others of their own kind, humans. Hence, they interpret the needs, actions and feelings of other living organisms in an anthropomorphic way, being solved in the same manner as is the need for them. Such interpretation is often heard from much older people in the Western world when they talk about pets and/or animals in their daily lives, except, possibly, what humans deem ‘vermin or pests’. The conversations which humans have of animals at exhibitions are full of anthropomorphic interpretations.
Children learn characteristics of organisms, starting with themselves and external parts of their body and begin interpreting internal anatomy using themselves as their reference gemmate. As children age, they produce more realistic drawings of the external and internal anatomy. This chapter reviews the understanding of young child gained from the experience of being with children learning for themselves and from their own drawings, gained from the results of an analysis of drawings their content has shown on the drawing, but further information gained from an interview of the same children, with their drawings, each year over their primary school career.
