Quantification in Empirical Activity

Abstract

Changing where, when, and how objects are studied is central to lab-based science (Knorr Cetina, 1999). Science involves changing the scale of objects-particularly scales of size, time, and intensity-from what is experienced in the world. Similar to investigations conducted in science laboratories, classroom investigations involve re-representing and rescaling entities, manipulating them, and observing effects in new locations and timescales. However, this aspect of investigation is under-studied and under-utilized as a resource for learning. We argue that, from elementary school, children can experience quantification, or identifying, developing, and working with variables, as consequential and can take up differences in representation and scale in empirical investigations as opportunities for sensemaking and conceptual progress. We describe two instantiations of an investigation into heating and cooling, showing that 7-and 8-year-old students oriented to gaps and ambiguities related to temperature and that the redesign supported children and teachers to take up temperature for productive sense-making and conceptual progress. We examine opportunities for quantification across the heating and cooling investigation and a second investigation into landforms. This work has implications for supporting quantification in science activity in the early grades and using empirical investigations as opportunities for sense-making.

Emergent learning about measurement and uncertainty in an inquiry context: A case from an elementary classroom

“…sensemaking of the data may lead students to reflect on how well their models of the phenomenon or the measure work in the first place (Ford, 2005;Manz & Beckert, 2021). Some students may see the need to reconceptualize temperature so that their conceptual model can align with the empirical results.…”

“…The first author once heard such an inference from a student, who also suggested that this is why a sealed pressure cooker can get beyond the normal boiling temperature. It could also work the other way around: sensemaking of the data may lead students to reflect on how well their models of the phenomenon or the measure work in the first place (Ford, 2005; Manz & Beckert, 2021). Some students may see the need to reconceptualize temperature so that their conceptual model can align with the empirical results.…”

“…In this learning experience students developed generative resources to help “create, isolate, and assign numerical values to features of natural phenomena” (Ford, 2005, p. 474). Similarly, Manz and Beckert (2021) show that within appropriate investigative contexts, students as young as 7 or 8 years old can productively engage in measurement‐related modeling practices, such as identifying and reconceptualizing variables, and reasoning with measurement values to make sense of the phenomena.…”