Secondary Science - Air
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CHAPTER 13-Air
Making Sense of Secondary Science: Research into Children’s Ideas
Rosalind Driver, Anne Squires, Peter Rushworth, Valerie Wood-Robinson
Summarized by Nadia Chocron
Existence of Air
Researchers discovered that children 11 and younger have a hard time grasping that air has properties of its own. For many children, they could not give air its own properties like mass or volume. Until students are able to grasp that gas has mass, they are not likely to consider it when describing chemical reactions that involve gases.
Air Pressure
Sere worked with children of different ages in France. He noticed that children had a hard time understanding air pressure. Children were able to say that pressure acted in a downward motion, but had a harder time understanding that pressure works in all directions. Also, students had a hard time seeing direction in air pressure with syringes. If there was not movement in the syringe, students concluded that the air was not doing anything.
Gases involved in life processes
Students even at a young age are able to report that air is necessary for life. They have a very limited view of what the air is used for. Often, oxygen is not different from air according to many children. They also have a better understanding of the use of oxygen by people than of the use of carbon dioxide by plants. Even at the high school and college level, stduents have a difficult time explaining the respiration of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
