Observing and drawing the Sun: research-based insights to assess science communication practices aimed at children

Abstract

Knowing how specific publics understand and experience science is crucial for both researchers and practitioners. As learning and meaning-making develop over time, depending on a combination of factors, creative possibilities to analyze those processes are needed to improve evaluation of science communication practices. We examine how first grade children's drawings expressed their perceptions of the Sun and explore their views of a major astronomical body within their social, cultural and personal worlds. We then examine how the observation of the Sun through a telescope led to changes in graphical representations, and how learning and meaning evolved after several months.

Preschool Children’s Drawings: Frequency and Theme Analysis

“…First, the anthropological significance of the sun as the life-giving object (it is the source of heat and light for the plants, which provide nourishment, for other organisms and people, to whom it also gives the feeling of safety), well known to the children from everyday life (Anjos et al, 2019). Second, the child's immediate environment provides a number of models for indirect everyday observation learning of graphical representation of object (the sun appears practically in every magazine for children, in a number of children's books and websites, mother often draw it for the children or show them pictures of it, it is included in the didactic materials and the process of preschool education, both indoor and outdoor learning, Anjos et al, 2019;McLeod & Giardiello, 2019), observational learning as a function of symbolization and incentive set (Marzocchi et al, 2020). Third, the simplicity of the graphic scheme, whose shape corresponds to the naturally developed graph motor skills of preschool children, because there are only two basic components: a circle and radiating lines, which children manage to draw already at the age of four (Garner, 2012, 94), i.e.…”

Scientific Journalism as an Educational Practice: An Experience Report of the Collective Construction of a “Science Clothesline”

“…In order to assess the validity of the educational practice and its learning effect, three main points were considered (Anjos et al, 2019). The first was the definition of the main objective: by means of the educational practice, to evaluate how students understand scientific dissemination and how they relate science subjects to their daily lives.…”

Imagining the Sun: using comparative judgement to assess the impact of cross-curricular solar physics workshops

“…Recent work using drawings as a method to evaluate children's increase in knowledge and understanding used comparative judgement where children's drawings are compared before and afterwards to identify changes in knowledge [Anjos, Aibeo & Carvalho, 2019]. However, comparative methods are generally time consuming to analyse, particularly for researchers who do not have a background in qualitative methods, and who must be trained in the analysis, along with standardization of judgements.…”