Molecules as tools: discourse, artefacts and children's meaning-making about particles of matter

© 2013 Dr. Cheryl D. JakabThis thesis reports on a discursive sociocultural research project exploring 6-12 year old children's use of 'molecules' as conceptual tools. Current curriculum guidelines for chemistry recommend delaying the introduction of 'molecules' until secondary schooling. The idea that matter is particulate is taken as 'too abstract' for young learners, who express only 'vague ideas' of unseen 'particles'. Three research question direct the study: . What everyday ideas of 'molecules' and 'atoms' do children today contact and what are the sources of these ideas? . How do children progress in their meaning-making with 'molecules', when given opportunities to explore particle ideas, including in virtual interactive visualisations? . What are young children afforded (Gibson, 1979) when explorations with all three levels of chemical thinking (Johnstone, 1991) are socially and materially supported? Twenty two dialectic-interactive teaching interviews were conducted with 24 participants in 2010, with this researcher performing the role of the more expert other. This cultural tool-use study tracked the young participants as they explored the offered signs in the materially and socially supported activity. Participants' speculations were supported, tracked and analysed using positioning theory (Harré, 2002a). Moment-to-moment changes in discourse identified ways in which these beginners began putting on their molecular spectacles (Kind, 2004). The research findings show that children today are contacting terms, images and chemical symbols of molecules in everyday life. A set of scientifically appropriate chemical learning themes were isolated as storylines in the data. Previously reported difficulties learner's have with using all the three levels of chemical thinking were re-interpreted as appropriate learner discursive work with the thinking tools when participating in a scientific cultural activity. Two suggestions are put forward to apply in re-considering current practices: 1. that young children be encouraged in their thinking with the three levels of chemistry when exploring matter, by offering them ideas of 'molecules', including the nanoscopic-world scale, using the hinge proposition 'molecules are built of atoms'; and 2. that available virtual interactives provide visualisations that can modify the learnability of 'molecule' concepts, by using the three levels of chemical thinking in combination, giving learners opportunities to experience movement between these frames in their developmental thinking