Children’s ideas about the internal structure of trees: cross-age studies

Abstract

Trees are important to the environment owing to their ecological services. However, many aspects of their form and function are poorly understood by the public. From their earliest years, children have an elementary knowledge about plants which they gain from their everyday observations, their parents and other people and from their kindergarten and primary schooling. However, studies carried out in Brazil and England have shown that many children hold a number of alternative conceptions about the internal structure of trees. The goal of this research was to investigate Polish children's understanding of trees' internal structure. This cross-age study involved 5-year-old children from kindergarten (n=57, 26 boys and 31 girls) and 7-year-old children (n=105, 57 boys and 48 girls) and 10-year-old children (83 children, 36 boys and 47 girls) from primary school. Participants were asked to draw the internal structure of a tree. The results of the study showed that there were some significant differences in the responses between age groups and between the genders. Nevertheless, there were some ideas that were shared among all age groups indicating that they might be resistant to change. The study also identified some alternative conceptions about the internal structure of plants and the influence of the media on children's ideas. These ideas, which to some extent replicate findings from England and Brazil, might be crucial for shaping proenvironmental attitudes of pupils in central European farmland countries where plants are important organisms not only for environmental but also for economic perspectives.

The Effects of Environmental Education Given by Creative Drama Method on Environmental Awareness of Preschool Children

“…frequently were also shown. This result is also in parallel with the results of the present study (Prokop & Tunnicliffe, 2008;Rybska, et al, 2017).…”

A Study on the Spontaneous Representation of Animals in Young Children’s Drawings of Plant Life

“…In addition, it has also been reported that invertebrates may appear in young children's representations of the environment even though this group of animals tend to be misrepresented [31].…”

Understanding Students Ideas about Animal Classification

“…One of them is the work of Rybska, Tunnicliffe and Sajkowska, who investigated children ideas about internal anatomy of trees (2017), snails (2014) and earthworms (2015). What is interesting in connection with Gelman (2009) work is that as children draw their representation of these living organism and their internal structure, they often do not draw internal organs, but their essence -for example their usefulness -home for animals inside tree trunk (Rybska et al, 2017), or furniture in snails shell (Rybska et al, 2014).…”