A STORY AS INNOVATIVE MEDIUM FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOL Federico Corni[1], Enrico Giliberti[2], Cristina Mariani[2] [1] Department of Physics, Faculty of Education University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via G.Campi 213/A, I-41125 Modena, Italy [2] Faculty of Education University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Viale A. Allegri 9, I-42121 Reggio Emilia, Italy
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ABSTRACT Science education researchers are working on theoretical and methodological foundations for constructing and using stories in science teaching. Following this challenge, a story has been integrated in an educational path for primary school using the Prediction-ExperimentComparison cycle, and group discussions guided by the teacher. This methodological choice derives from the consideration that an effective learning is achieved if children are involved both cognitively and emotively, and from the importance of an interdisciplinary perspective, not only inside the experimental sciences, but also towards the human sciences. The effort has been addressed to identify the peculiarities of a story and of its characters to be relevant for science education, as well as to design its integration with experimental activities and discussions. Experimentation with 8-9 years old children has been performed about the subject of water in equilibrium and in motion to identify the level difference as driving force for water flow, the relation between pressure and current, and the role of the pipe connecting two vessels in terms of resistance. In this paper we summarily illustrate the story about the adventures of a character named Leo and his friends and the way it has been employed. In addition we discuss the results of the experimentation, obtained from the analysis of the drawings and the writings produced by children during the path. 1. INTRODUCTION The description of phenomena and experiments are located on different ontological levels than hypothesis or interpretation of observations, which are necessary stages to build mental models and images, preliminary to meaning construction. Fuchs (2007) highlights the difficulties of the transition from one level to the other proposing a model with 4-cycles, that arises as a detailed development of scientific method, generally represented only with the 2-cycle models – experiments. According to Fuchs and Egan (1988), the figurative-metaphorical thinking characterized by fantasy, metaphor, rhythm and narration, images, telling and emotionality is source for the formation of hypotheses (H), while imaginative or romantic thinking is a tool to motivate and to make questions (Q) necessary to the problematic situation insight. Our research question is if a story for primary school children, built with appropriate characteristics like those we used in constructing the “Leo’s Worlds”1 and in which the experiments are closely integrated, could promote understanding of a phenomenon by creating support for the complete structure of the 4-Cycle. 2. STORY-TELLING IN SCIENCE EDUCATION 1
The character Leo is going to be now called Pico
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In literature there are a lot of examples of use of stories, most of which with historical background. In a very schematic way, functional to discuss the use of a story (not necessarily with historical background) as an effective medium for science teaching/learning, storytelling can constitute a positive contribution to science teaching because it calls for an emotional (Egan, 1989; Bruner, 1994; Campbell, 1996; Hadzigeorgiou, 2006; Klassen, 2007; Kokkotas, 2008; Sallis 2008), cognitive, and heuristic involvement (Lehane and Peete, 1977; White, 1981; Egan, 1989; J. Bruner, 1994; Ellis, 2000; Kokkotas, 2008; Avraamidou and Obsborne, 2009), stimulating the imagination and the process of decontextualisation (Egan, 1989; White, 1981; Noddings and Witherell,1991; Casey et al, 2004; Shiro, 2004; Klassen, 2007). 3. CHARACTERISTICS OF LEO’S WORLD STORITELLING AS METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND Based on literature, we state the choices made for the construction of the stories used in the project the “Leo’s Worlds”. Story and characters features (I) Each character has features in which children can easily identify. The children identification with the characters is suitable to catch their attention and emotions, to foster involvement in solving problems placed in the story. Three characters are recurrent in all the stories. Leo (Figure 1), the archetypal child which may become a scientist, lively, creative, and curious, asks the questions in the “right way”, to highlight such relevant factors promoting the involvement of children in the proximal development zone (Vygotsky, 1987). Leo has two friends: a blackbird and a frog. Blackbird can fly high and looks at the phenomena from different points of view, helping Leo to observe all factors of reality. This character represents the child beginning to learn from intuition, to compare and to classify, starting modelling activities to find explanations for natural phenomena. Rupert, a frog, nice, a bit unlucky and confusing, spontaneous and full of initiative is the carefree children attitude that, if properly encouraged become a good curiosity to start asking targeted questions.
Figure 1 A painting of Leo and his friends 2
(II) The emotional involvement induced by the story is mostly intended to engage to the problematic situation: so, it is important that story is problematic, posing concrete problems. Each cognitive step is submitted to pupils as a new problem they must help the characters to solve in order to the story progress. For example, Rupert has the problem to full fill at the “right” level a pool and to solve this problem a lot of questions are poses by Leo to children. (III) The story is structured in steps with a net internal rate given by a recursive structure with acts and scenes. This could promote the memorization and learning of children (IV) There are some gaps in which the fantastic story is suspended and pupils are recalled to the actual world for experiment execution. The continuous cycling, from the logic to the imagination plane, fosters decontextualisation. This passage, from reality to the symbolic space, is facilitated by Merlo and Leo living, at need, either in a virtual world or in the story. (V) The child in the classroom is one of the story protagonists, explicitly called to act with the experiments to provide assistance and answers to Rupert. In fact the Leo’s Worlds story includes experiments and activities (games, plays, mimes ...) closely integrated to be performed by children with teacher help. (VI) The story is plausible and the fantasy elements to awake children imagination, attention and curiosity are the minimum necessary so that pupils easily enter and come out the imagination world. For example, the context is always likely real, the characters are children, like Leo, or anthropomorphized animals.. (VII) The time of narration is marked not so much by the narrative events, as by logical eventsproblems that call for Leo’s questions and children’s answer. A simple and elegant plot is always the result of a clear disposition to clear and order of the facts narrated (Kubli, 2001). We believe that if modelling is done in a science storytelling, in which the narrative is felt as a logical process, it will be perceived not as an isolated event, but rather as dynamic, network meaning construction. (VIII) In the story everything suggests the scientific method: the terminology used in the dialogues, the presence of a problem situation, the focus on the relevant variables, and Leo’s questions inviting children to formulate hypotheses, to perform experiments, to observe, to compare, to decontextualize. (IX) Leo’s stories are complete with respect to certain events but keeps open the possibility of being continued with a new episode provided directly by the teacher or invented by the child, using the previous concepts to solve new problems. The application of this methodology will open up creative spaces and from this viewpoint story can be a didactical tool offering to teacher the opportunity to verify children skills and to start their process of internalization (Vygotsky, 1987). (X) In stories many communication languages are used. First, the story is thought both drawn2 and as a narrative text, tightly integrating the two languages. Characters and scenes have been chosen with nuance, tonal gradations and color combinations intentionally designed and painted to bring viewers inside the scene. Gradients, vibrations of light, character’s velvety shades are designed to create a natural effect of beauty because we believe that nature is beautiful and “Beauty” is itself educational. The designed narrative story is also prepared in an interactive cartoon version3 that combines the verbal oral, written, and iconic animation. 4. RESEARCH QUESTION We are interested, in this work, to the following research question: what is the effect of the use of a story as medium for a didactical path? To answer this question we will analyze 4 topics: 1) the children interaction between imaginary and real world; 2 3
The illustrator and character design is Arcadio Lobato Cartoon version has been realized by Studio Bozzetto; http://www.studiobozzetto.com/
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2) the inclination of children to describe, to make hypotheses and to interpret phenomena; 3) the differentiation and clarification of the basic physical concepts; 4) the generalization process. 5. DIDACTICAL PATH “Rupert and the dream of a swimming pool” story proposes various problematic situations on a swimming pool that has to be water filled to the right level. A lot of events happen to Rupert garden that cause the pull to be put at different heights or at different distances from the aqueduct with pipes of different inclinations and sections. The story has been built on the following steps: level difference between reservoir and pool as cause of water flux; pipe as resistance depending on length; pipe as resistance depending on section; tap positioning in relation to resistance; thrust within the circuit. For each step, a task, to be answered by the experiments with the hydraulic concrete model, is imparted to pupils. Before and after each experiment, pupils have to make hypotheses, descriptions and interpretations with drawings and writings. Classroom didactical path has been experimented in a classroom of 8-9 years old children and was organized in 18 lesson hours with the following recurrent structure: 1. Story telling with a stop at a problematic situation 2. Wallpaper updating summarizing the experimental situation 3. Discussion guided by the teacher about the problematic situation posed by story and by Leo’s question 4. Children formulation of individual hypothesis by drawings and written texts 5. Experiment execution with the hydraulic concrete model under the teacher guidance 6. Children individual representation/interpretation of the experimental observations In Figure 3 the wallpaper (a) and the hydraulic model (b) used for experiments, related to a lesson, are shown.
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Figure 3: Wallpaper (a) an hydraulic model (b) used with story 4. ANALYSIS OF THE PUPILS MATERIALS AND RESULTS We report analyses and results referred to each topic in which the research question has been declined. T1: the interaction between imaginary and real worlds The interaction between imaginary and real worlds has been tested as involvement in problemsolving. Two ways were used: a) For each child, the evolution of the drawings that relate to story has been analyzed in terms of represented elements. 4
As an example, we see in Figure 4 drawings of a child: we note that following the path, contextualized items are less and less present and sidelined in the background, while those elements which relate to the problematic situation are highlighted with a “zoom” to ensure that growing relevant objects occupy the entire sheet.
Figure 4: Sequence of drawings (1-4-5-8-11) of a single children (in drawing 8 the writing is:“For me first of all there is a “zig-zag”. For this reason water can’t through the pipe because the pipe is straight and then turns and moreover the pipe is over the aqueduct”) b) We have evaluated the effect of the interaction between story and experiment, analyzing couples of drawings of every child: first, the drawing which answers to the task to refer to story and, second, the drawing that refers to the concrete hydraulic model. In summary, the drawing evolution made by each child indicates that there is a gradual ability to identify and focus on significant problem story objects. T2: the inclination of children to describe to make hypotheses and to interpret phenomena; Children drawings and written productions have been analyzed to identify whether there was an evolution from description to interpretation, independent form correctness. Here we present three examples of children who attempted to interpret the situation with drawing 2 (Figure 5).
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b
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Figure 5: children drawing 2 (a-1: “if the pipe is too uphill, the water goes back”; a-2: “if the pipe is going down the water goes into the pool and not into the aqueduct”; a-3:, if the aqueduct is as tall as the tank, water ends; b high: no water comes out here; b middle water comes out here too; b lower: water comes out here; c if the water is equal it is still)
The analises of drawings and texta show (see Graph I) that there is a gradual shift from phenomenological description to formulation of hypotheses and interpretations. 5
Graph I: Children evolution from description to interpretation T3: the differentiation and clarification of the basic physical concepts; Graph II reports the inclinations of pupils in using interpretative models.
Graph II: Children use of naive, correct, qualitative, quantitative models The information emerging from T3 analysis is that through the didactical path children have begun to identify some concepts, mainly those of water level difference, current and resistance. The learning analysis of every child shows a generally increasing trend with some fluctuations, i.e. the achievements are not always stable in time. The most persistent naive children model is that water flow is due to pipe inclination (Figure 6). 1)“The pipe is inclined so far water falls” 2) It is not able to climb As a consecuence the pool is emptied and water falls down again 6
Figure 6: Persistent naïve children model At the beginning of the didactical path, among children who have interpreted, this model has been used as unique model or as model superimposed to the correct one in 27% and in 4% of cases respectively. T4: the decontextualisation process. Deconextualisation is a high goal and it cannot be reached effectively with a single activity or series of activities limited in time. However, two children in particular have developed a remarkable capacity. Here a relevant drawing is shown (Figure 7): the pupil represents and explains what happens by lifting up the pipe full of water above the water level of the aqueduct, decontextualizing the representation from the story and the concrete hydraulic model reference.
Figure 7: Drawing showing decontextualization ability
6. CONCLUSIONS Our results support the hypothesis that the use of storytelling in primary school science education, built with the characteristics we have identified and presented, improves at the same time emotional, cognitive and heuristic involvement. In fact the analysis of pilot experimentations of the “Rupert and the dream of a swimming pool” story has highlighted the transition from the mere description to the interpretation of phenomena, and the ability of making hypotheses focusing on relevant physical elements. Moreover data show children improvement to generalize and transfer mental models into the context offered by storytelling. We have identified a very dominant and strong children idea concerning the inclination of the pipe in causing water flow. The use of the story has not improved so far a stable conceptual change from pipe inclination toward difference of potential in a better way than in other data described in the huge literature. Children learning exhibits a generally increasing trend, with some fluctuations. We believe that effective science learning requires time and spiral deepening of the basic concepts, so the activity here analyzed should be followed by a series of activities aimed to differentiate and clarify basic physics concepts and to accustom the children to apply them. 7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors thank the teacher Mirta Pagliaro of the “Carovana Primary School” in Modena, for her availability and direct involvement in this research program. 7
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