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A Cross-cultural Exploration ofChildren's Everyday Ideas: Implicationsfor science teaching and learningBryan Wee aa Geography and Environmental Sciences , University of ColoradoDenver , Campus Box 172, PO Box 173364, Denver , CO ,80217-3364 , USAPublished online: 13 Jul 2011.

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RESEARCH REPORT

A Cross-cultural Exploration of

Children’s Everyday Ideas:

Implications for science teaching

and learning

Bryan Wee∗

Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box

172, PO Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA

Children’s everyday ideas form critical foundations for science learning yet little research has been

conducted to understand and legitimize these ideas, particularly from an international perspective.

This paper explores children’s everyday ideas about the environment across the US, Singapore and

China to understand what they reveal about children’s relationship to the environment and discuss

its implications for science teaching and learning. A social constructivist lens guides research, and a

visual methodology is used to frame children’s realities. Participants’ ages range from elementary to

middle school, and a total of 210 children comprized mainly of Asians and Asian Americans were

sampled from urban settings. Drawings are used to elicit children’s everyday ideas and analyzed

inductively using open coding and categorizing of data. Several categories support existing

literature about how children view the environment; however, novel categories such as affect also

emerged and lend new insight into the role that language, socio-cultural norms and perhaps

ethnicity play in shaping children’s everyday ideas. The findings imply the need for (a) a change

in the role of science teachers from knowledge providers to social developers, (b) a science

curriculum that is specific to learners’ experiences in different socio-cultural settings, and (c) a

shift away from inter-country comparisons using international science test scores.

Keywords: Environmental education; Multicultural; Qualitative research

An Introduction to Children’s Everyday Ideas

Science education is currently at a point where buzzwords like constructivism and

inquiry are constantly part of the discourse surrounding research, teaching and

International Journal of Science Education

Vol. 34, No. 4, March 2012, pp. 609–627

∗Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 172,

PO Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA. Email: Bryan.Wee@ucdenver.edu

ISSN 0950-0693 (print)/ISSN 1464-5289 (online)/12/040609–19

# 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2011.579193

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learning. Theoretically, it makes sense (Dewey, 1964; Vygotsky, 1962). Children con-

struct knowledge based on pre-existing ideas derived from personal/social inter-

actions (henceforth termed everyday ideas), and when curricular connections to

these everyday ideas are established, it creates an authentic and inclusive learning

environment (Driver, 1989; National Research Council, 2000a). In a seminal publi-

cation titled How people learn, the National Research Council (NRC) placed an

emphasis on children’s everyday ideas as ‘one of the primary characteristics of the

new science of learning’ (National Research Council, 2000b, p. 10). Research in

science education (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994; Osborne & Frey-

burg, 1985) further supports the view that:

The process of making sense of the world begins at a very young age. [Children] develop

sophisticated understandings of the phenomena around them. . .these understandings can

have a powerful effect on the integration of new concepts and information. A critical

feature of effective teaching is that it elicits from children their pre-existing understanding

of the subject matter to be taught (National Academy Press, 2000b, p. 15)

In reality, however, these everyday ideas that children rely on to make sense of science

concepts often go unnoticed or are invalidated due to instructional constraints

(e.g. time, teacher efficacy) in the classroom as well as increased accountability in the

form of federal policies such as no child left behind (NCLB) that result in stricter cur-

riculum and narrow assessments focusing on how much (content) children know rather

than how they construct an understanding of science (Wee, 2010). From a research

perspective, studies have investigated children’s science knowledge within a stan-

dards-based framework using test scores whereas relatively few studies have explored

children’s everyday ideas on the basis of their voices (Rickinson, 2001). For example,

what does the term environment mean to children, what experiences in their lives sup-

ports and reinforces this understanding? If indeed children’s everyday ideas help them

make sense of the world and these cognitive models are used to organize, assimilate and

accommodate information (Duit & Glynn, 1996; Piaget, 1969), then it is important to

ask the following questions in science education research: what are children’s everyday

ideas, how might these ideas inform science curriculum and instruction in an increas-

ingly diverse world, what does this mean for the advancement of scientific literacy and

how does it redefine science as a socio-cultural endeavor?

Philosophically, it is one thing to ask teachers to elicit and work with everyday ideas

that children bring to the science classroom so that these can be ‘challenged and

replaced where appropriate’ (National Research Council, 2000b, p. 19). It is quite

another to legitimize everyday ideas as windows into children’s worlds, where their

ways of thinking and understanding are neither naıve nor inaccurate but a collection

of meanings attributed to real events and phenomena encountered in their lives. The

former reflects what adults think children should know, the latter asks (on equal

terms) what children think and why. In a special issue of The State of the World’s Chil-

dren, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) cites the Convention on the

Rights of the Child to make known children’s views on matters that affect them

(UNICEF, 2002). Additionally, UNICEF declares that (2002, p. 5, italics added),

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Authentic child participation must start from children and young people themselves, on

their own terms, within their own realities and in pursuit of their own visions, dreams, hopes

and concerns. . .authentic and meaningful participation requires a radical shift in adult

thinking and behavior – from a world defined solely by adults to one in which children

contribute to building the kind of world they want to live in.

In addition to advocating for democratic involvement in science education research,

an exploration of children’s everyday ideas in science lends itself to a deeper under-

standing of the inherent connections between factors such as geographical location,

socio-cultural norms, teaching and learning. For example, a child who has grown

up in the city and considers the environment to be a highly urbanized place with con-

crete playgrounds and asphalt roads is less likely to find a science lesson describing

predator–prey relationships using arctic fox and hare populations either pertinent

or motivating. From a curricular perspective, the same child is also more likely to

encounter difficulty with science concepts such as deforestation if s/he views

human impacts on the environment in the form of litter and exhaust fumes from

cars (Gough, 1999). Ultimately, children’s everyday ideas are specific to their experi-

ences in places where culturally sanctioned norms shape their understandings and

representations of the world (Golomb, 1994). Validating children’s everyday ideas

can promote equity in the science classroom by being inclusive of different viewpoints

(Harding, 1991). It can also enhance science literacy by encouraging learners to ‘think

about and make sense of many of the ideas, claims, and events that they encounter in

everyday life’ (AAAS, 1993).

Moving from science to environmental science in particular, there is a growing rec-

ognition that solving complex environmental problems requires a collaborative spirit

and a holistic (though no less rigorous) approach to science research and teaching

(Gharajedaghi & Ackoff, 1985). One example is to seek a better understanding of chil-

dren’s everyday ideas across cultures and countries in order to cultivate humanity in a

global society and work toward a collective resolution of environmental challenges

(Nussbaum, 1997; Wee, Harbor, & Shepardson, 2006). China, for example, is

headed toward an era of globalization and increased environmental pollution that

will almost certainly have direct and indirect effects on climate, resource allocation

and other aspects of the environment across the world. Population and economic

growth in Southeast Asian countries like Singapore also represent anthropogenic

changes (e.g. urbanization) that will have wide-ranging social and environmental

implications. As environmental landscapes continue to be transformed, it becomes

ever more important to arrive at an understanding of ‘how children themselves

construe and negotiate their worlds’ (Greene & Hill, 2005, p. 13) because these

everyday ideas also represent unspoken assumptions that legitimize behaviors and

ultimately decisions about resource allocation (Alerby, 2000; Robertson, 1993).

Consequently, this paper highlights the importance of exploring the nature of

children’s everyday ideas about the environment across different countries and

socio-cultural settings. It does not seek to address similarities and/or differences in

children’s everyday ideas using demographic variables. Instead, the paper attempts

to answer the following questions:

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(1) What are children’s everyday ideas about the environment in the US, Singapore

and China?

(2) What do these everyday ideas reveal about children’s relationship with the

environment?

(3) What are the implications of these findings for teaching and learning in science

education?

Children’s Everyday Ideas about the Environment: What we know

A body of literature currently exists on children’s ideas in science (National Research

Council, 2000b) covering concepts ranging from tropical rainforests (Bowker, 2007)

to gravity (Palmer, 2001) and respiration (Kao, 2007). However, these studies did not

explore children’s ideas about the environment, which supports a more holistic under-

standing of human–environment relationships (Shepardson, Wee, Priddy, & Harbor,

2007).

Extant knowledge on children’s everyday ideas about the environment is some-

what limited (Rickinson, 2001). Within this small subgroup of studies, researchers

have largely employed the use of questionnaires, drawings and interviews to describe

how children view the environment. Loughland, Reid, and Petocz (2002) adminis-

tered a questionnaire to 2,249 students aged 9, 12, 14 and 17 from 70 different

schools in Australia (no information was provided on gender and ethnicity). They

identified six distinct, everyday ideas about the environment in childhood: (1) the

environment as a place, (2) the environment as a place containing living things,

(3) the environment as a place containing living things and people, 4) the environ-

ment does something for people, (5) people are part of the environment and are

responsible for it, and (6) people and the environment are in a mutually sustaining

relationship. In terms of human–environment relationships, however, most children

tend to view the environment and people as mutually exclusive. Using drawings and

written descriptions, Alerby (2000) found that children in Sweden thought about the

environment as a place devoid of human influence. In her study of 109 children (47

females, 62 males) aged 7, 10, 13 and 16 years from 4 different classes, the few

children that included humans in their drawings framed the environment as a

resource to meet human needs. Children’s everyday ideas about land use reflected

a similar utilitarian view of the environment; land is used wisely when it benefits

human societies and the environment exists largely to improve quality of life for

people.

A study by Shepardson et al. (2007) found that children’s mental model of the

environment was neither integrated nor comprehensive; in fact, ‘humans were not

viewed as living organisms interacting with natural systems within the environment’

(p. 343). Based on their sample of 1,182 students aged 9–16 from 25 classrooms

across eight different states in the US (no information on gender or ethnicity was

provided), the authors concluded that children’s everyday ideas were largely influ-

enced by prototypical images of environments in textbooks and the media that

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reinforced either ‘an ecosystems perspective or pollution-oriented view of the

environment’ (p. 343). Likewise, in their sample of 786 students aged 11 to 16

from seven secondary schools in England (49% female, 51% male), Myers, Boyes,

and Stanisstreet (2000) found that children often think about the environment in

terms of negative impacts such as pollution. Their questionnaire showed students

were more likely to identify anthropogenic rather than natural sources of pollutants.

For example, students commonly referred to cars and factories as air pollutants

instead of volcanic eruptions (Myers et al., 2000). Furthermore, children’s everyday

ideas are tied to familiar forms of pollution because these are directly observed or

experienced and from their perspective, the environmental impact of pollution was

viewed to be worse in urban rather than rural areas (Myers et al., 2000). In short,

children’s everyday ideas are shaped by their experiences in specific settings and

everyday ideas are used to make sense of human–environment interactions from

the child’s perspective.

Payne (1998) explored children’s everyday ideas of nature, a term synonymous with

environment in the child’s mind, and found that children (in this sample from Austra-

lia) largely viewed nature as a pristine place consisting of animals and plants. Further-

more, data collected from illustrations, interviews, written statements and artifacts

from nine females and five males aged 12 in a philosophy class showed that children

did not view a place as being natural once it had been impacted or modified by human

activity. In the few studies that have investigated children’s ideas about urban areas,

researchers found that students were generally unable to conceptualize a co-existence

between natural and built environments (Membiela, Nogueiras, & Suarez, 1994;

Simmons, 1994). Membiela et al. (1994) used a questionnaire in their study with

201 students aged 14–15 in Spain; no information was provided on gender or ethni-

city. Simmons (1994) used a combination of photographs and interviews to explore

children’s preferences for nature, and sampled 316 children aged 8–9 from eight

elementary schools in Chicago, USA. About 45% of the children were female (55%

male) and either Hispanic (53.5%), White (28.7%) or African American (17.8%).

In his extensive review of the environmental education research literature, Rickinson

(2001) concluded that children tended to confine their everyday ideas about the

environment to places without humans, and built environments as a nature-less

place. To simply put, people and the environment exist as separate entities in the

minds of most children.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of prior research on children’s everyday

ideas about the environment is the relative absence of studies in Southeast Asia

or Asia in general. As evidenced in this review of the literature, research on this

topic has been conducted on various continents and in different countries

around the world (e.g. North America, United Kingdom, Australia) but in primar-

ily English speaking countries. This paper builds upon a previous study exploring

children’s connections to the environment in the US and Singapore (Wee, 2009)

by including an Asian American study sample from the US as well as a study

sample from China in a cross-cultural comparison of children’s everyday ideas

about the environment.

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Theoretical Framework and Methodology

Social constructivism as a theoretical lens informed this qualitative inquiry into chil-

dren’s everyday ideas, where constructivist worldviews helped generate research ques-

tions and guided the interpretations of data (Patton, 2002; Schwandt, 2000). A social

constructivist views knowledge as being constructed on the basis of experiential events

within communities where tools such as language and interpersonal interactions

mediate learning and understanding (Howe & Berv, 2000; Vygotsky, 1962). In

other words, a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of thinking about science or the environment

does not exist because children in different parts of the world construct everyday

ideas in varied contexts, each with a unique set of factors that influence how children

learn and grow (UNICEF, 2002). This represents a paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1996)

away from viewing science learning as an objective accumulation of knowledge

toward a socially constructed reality where meanings are not fixed and ‘both the

object of investigation. . .and the tools by which investigation is carried out share the

same pervasive context that is the human world’ (Rabinow & Sullivan, 1979, p. 5).

Our epistemologies are grounded in specific social–cultural experiences and the

world appears in multiple layers where no single view is more valid or significant

than another (Guba & Lincoln, 1990). The interpretations of children’s everyday

ideas using social constructivism as a theoretical lens refutes claims that anything

can ever be truly known because the web of meaning that constitutes human existence

‘cannot be shielded from external interference, studied in a vacuum or a scientifically

controlled experiment’ (Rabinow & Sullivan, 1979, p. 7). Our capacity to understand

is grounded in who/what we are as individuals operating within a cultural world;

therefore, the findings in this paper are inevitably interpretations of interpretations

(Cobern, 1993, 1996).

Visual methodology is closely aligned with social constructivism as a theoretical

frame of reference in that images are constructed by people as part of broader inter-

actions within communities, each with their own unique socio-cultural dimensions.

Hence, visual methodology is interpretive because meanings derived from the collec-

tion and analyses of images are filtered through the researcher’s lenses within a par-

ticular social-cultural context (Prosser, 1996). Visual methodology has been

applied successfully in fields such as health (Radley & Taylor, 2003), childhood (Ras-

mussen, 2004) and teacher education (Taylor, 2002). The visual methodology in this

study uses drawings to frame children’s realities. Not only do children see the world

differently from adults, their abilities to share these observations differ with age,

with visual expressions such as drawings being more suitable for younger children

(Golomb, 1994; UNICEF, 2002). According to Banks (2007), the notion of frames

in visual methodology has literal and metaphorical meanings – there is the image

that frames what is/is not shown and then there are the socio-cultural factors that

influence image selection. Both meanings are critical in guiding the interpretation

of children’s everyday ideas in the context of their physical and social worlds (Darby-

shire, MacDougall, & Schiller, 2005). Social constructivism and visual methodology

are informed by a philosophical undercurrent that runs counter to traditional views

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about children’s everyday ideas in science being ‘less sophisticated’, or even ‘wrong’.

Together they acknowledge and validate different ways of knowing, thereby contribut-

ing to a growing body of research that places children as active learners embedded

within communities with varying social norms and practices.

Methods: Data collection and analysis

The data used in this paper were derived from three separate studies conducted in

2007 that investigated children’s ideas of the environment through the use of a

draw-and-explain task that combined drawings with written descriptions (Table 1).

This task had been developed and validated in similar studies related to children’s

ideas (Shepardson et al., 2007; Shepardson, Wee, Priddy, Schellenberger, &

Harbor, 2009).

Unfortunately no data on gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status and academic

achievement were collected at the time these studies were conducted, and I was

unable to differentiate gender based solely on children’s names. While it represents

a limitation, the goal of this paper is to explore children’s perspectives (what they

think the environment is) and not, at this point, to tease out or explain potential

Table 1. Demographics of population samples and settings in three different studies

Location

(city)

Sample

size

Age/grade/setting Participants

Primary language of

participants

US

(Chicago)

31 12–13

yrs/7th

grade/urban

Asian-American students

enrolled in a 2-week

summer nutrition camp

English/Chinese

As second generation

children, they spoke English

at the camp but spoke

Chinese or other dialects at

home (with family/friends)

China

(Nanjing)

103 9–12 yrs/3rd–6th

grade/urban

Chinese students in an

elementary school in

Nanjing, China

Chinese

The draw-and-explain task

was translated into Chinese

by a native Chinese speaker

in the US and further refined

by teachers in Nanjing prior

to data collection

Singapore

(Singapore)

76 13–14

yrs/8th

grade/urban

Primarily Chinese

students with a mix of

Malay and Indian students

(data on ethnicity was not

collected at the time of

study). Students were in a

geography class

English/Chinese

English is the language of

instruction in Singapore

schools, but the most

common conversational

language is Chinese or other

dialects

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variations in children’s responses across different demographic variables. This popu-

lation sample also represents a relatively wide cross-section of schools and commu-

nities in the US, Singapore and China but the intent is not to generalize these

results within and across countries. Instead, I hope that these findings help us consider

the variety of ways by which these groups of children make sense of the environment in

various socio-cultural settings at a particular point in time, and to reflect on its impli-

cations for the teaching and learning of science.

A major obstacle in educational research is gaining access to participants,

especially given that school districts these days are often unwilling to approve

research that does not have direct impact on student achievement (test scores).

All children were selected based on pre-existing connections that I had with

school administrators or teachers who allowed me access to classrooms (and in

the case of the US sample, to a summer camp program). Due to such socio-political

forces operating beyond my control as an educational researcher, it was very difficult

to ensure equal sample sizes, e.g. Chicago had the smallest sample size relative to

the other groups. However, the children from Chicago represented a unique oppor-

tunity to understand how Asian-American children operating at the intersection of

cultures (raised in the US but using Chinese as a spoken language at home) viewed

the environment. In such cases, it is important to emphasize that the findings in this

paper are credible insofar as they relate to these specific groups of children and how

they view the environment. The findings are not in any way intended to categorize

children’s everyday ideas using broad strokes that are incompatible with the study

samples.

Following institutional review board approval and informed consent from all

parties, participating children were invited to (a) draw a picture of the environment

and (b) define the environment in their own words. Children in Singapore and

China completed the draw-and-explain task during a regular class period, while

those in the US completed the task during one of their lunch breaks (all children

had about 20 minutes to complete this task). Children were informed beforehand

of the research questions, told to work on this task individually, that ‘right’ or

‘wrong’ answers did not exist, and that they could work with any medium (pencils,

crayons, etc). Drawings are designed to encourage self-expression, elicit children’s

ideas in alternative formats and provide a place in which to focus the meaning-

making process (Wee, 2009). Furthermore, drawings represent a visual methodology

that is grounded in the construction and interpretation of images (Prosser, 1996), that

is, children’s drawings can be considered an accurate reflection of their everyday ideas

about the environment.

Data were analyzed inductively to generate codes and categories embedded in

children’s drawings and written descriptions of the environment (Miles & Huber-

man, 1994; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Two graduate researchers and I came together

as a group to code a random subset of the data and to compare our interpretations

of children’s responses. This was done to ensure that everyone began data analyses

with the same understanding of how codes were developed. One of the graduate

researchers was a native Chinese speaker from Taiwan and had prior experience

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working with Chinese students as an elementary teacher in Taiwan. She also

received an undergraduate degree in Chinese literature. The other researcher was

a native of Denver, Colorado and had no prior experience with either the

Chinese language or culture. As for myself, I was born and raised in Singapore

thus I had an intimate understanding of the contexts within which children from

that country were operating. Given this varied set of backgrounds, we met on a

regular basis throughout the coding process to clarify and refine our interpretations

of the data. If and when unique features were found in the drawings, details and

differences were also noted for later analyses and discussions. Whenever children’s

written descriptions conflicted with their drawing or were simply incoherent,

codes were assigned based on the drawing to avoid any ambiguity. Whenever

both drawings and written descriptions could not be interpreted, the data were

removed from the analysis phase. After all data had been coded, the authors gener-

ated categories that best described the codes. To ensure consistency, categories were

operationally defined by the group and revised if and when there was no conceptual

fit with the codes. In other words, data were not forced to fit into categories. These

categories provided the basis for main themes that emerged from the data (Table 2).

Data analysis concluded when all categories were saturated, that is, the point where

neither new properties nor dimensions in the categories emerged (Strauss & Corbin,

1998).

Table 2. Emergent categories from data analyses

Category Operational definition Codes embedded within the category

Built

environment

The environment is a place that largely

consists of anthropogenic (human-

made) structures

Buildings, streets, organized (trees/building), houses, city, schools, bike

route, side walk, parks, factories, lawns

Nature The environment is a place that

consists of things that exist

independent of human activities

Rock, mountains, plants, animals,

rivers, ocean, trees, mountains, flowers,

water, forest, grass, sun, clouds, sky,

lake, desert, sprouts

Stewardship Humans are responsible for the

management of the environment

Clean, reduce, reuse, recycle, plant

more trees, environmental protection

Harmony The environment is a place where

human beings, animals and plants live

in unity

Humans and animals live in peace,

everything lives together

Pollution/No

pollution

The environment is a place that either

consists of harmful substances or a

place without damage from human

beings

Quiet, clean, fresh air, no trash and

cars, polluted water, polluted air, noise,

garbage

Utilitarian The environment is a place that

supports human beings by providing

resources

Crops, farming, resource use, biking,

play, boats, pavilion

Poetic The environment is an imagined place

depicted through the use of prose that

conveys emotion

Beautiful, sounds of nature, blowing

wind, poetic phrases

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Interpretive Results and Informal Discussion

Selected drawings from children (pseudonyms are used in all examples to ensure

anonymity) are presented in this section to illustrate specific categories that

emerged from data analyses. The categories of nature, utilitarian, stewardship, pol-

lution/no pollution that emerged from data analysis (Table 2) mirrors what we cur-

rently know, that children tend to typecast the environment as a natural place

without any human influence or intervention, and that the environment exists to

meet human needs. As mentioned earlier, evidence suggests that it is likely the influ-

ence of mass media, school textbooks and other sources of environmental information

that reinforce this stereotype of environment as nature and as having only extrinsic

value. Consequently, this paper focuses on the emergent categories of built environ-

ment, harmony and poetic because they are not as well documented in the literature.

Specifically, children’s everyday ideas in this study reflected (a) an ability to concep-

tualize the environment as having some form of human intervention, (b) the use of

poetic phrases by children in China to convey feelings about the environment, and

(c) people living harmoniously with their surroundings.

In reality, the environment consists of both natural and built elements, with perhaps

an increasing proportion of the latter due to population growth and increased human

development. As such, it was reassuring to note that children from all three countries

viewed humans and human activities as part of the environment. For example, Casey

Figure 1. Casey’s drawing of the environment: US (Category: Built environment)

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from Chicago drew houses, cars, streets interspersed with trees in ‘a land with people,

buildings and organisms on it’ (Figure 1).

Jordan from Singapore also conceptualized the environment in a similar way – there

were tree-lined roads, cars and buildings in a place ‘where people live and play

together in a neighborhood’ (Figure 2).

These two drawings also reveal everyday experiences in different settings – Casey

drew double-storey houses (Figure 1) whereas Jordan drew high-rise buildings

(Figure 2). This may reflect different land-use policies between countries, e.g. land

is viewed as a scarce resource in Singapore hence land use is conceptualized as an

upward movement whereas land is viewed as an abundant resource in the US and

land use is conceptualized as an outward movement. Additionally, it provides a

nuanced picture of what the term ‘urban’ might mean to different people, e.g.

urban Chicago in Casey’s drawing did not depict the downtown area but a developed,

residential area. Previous research (on predominantly Caucasian, English speaking

populations) suggests that built areas rarely show up in children’s everyday ideas

about the environment, yet children in this study defied those expectations. Given

that the US population in this study consists of Asian-American children (thereby

establishing one common factor, ethnicity, across these three countries), future

research might pursue the influence of ethnicity on children’s everyday ideas in

science.

More critically in the context of this paper, the category of built environment

highlights the role that children’s lived experiences play in science learning. Children

Figure 2. Jordan’s drawing of the environment: Singapore (Category: Built environment)

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from all three countries reside in urban areas (some more urbanized than others) and

tend to be familiar with human interventions and activities in their lives. Shepardson

et al. (2007) also found that students who lived in urban settings were more likely to

incorporate humans into their drawings of the environment. It is likely that children in

this study drew on these experiences to construct meaning of science concepts such as

environment.

The representation of environment using poetry – the use of words to evoke a par-

ticular sentiment about the environment – is a powerful indicator of socio-cultural

forces shaping children’s everyday ideas. Children from China were the only group

to use poetry in their descriptions of the environment. Not only did they use poetry

to present a vivid picture of the environment (relative to other children in the

study), idiomatic phrases for describing a natural environment also frequently

showed in their writing. Zhiyi, for example, describes the environment as

[translated] a place that has mountains, water, things. The air is fresh, the sky is high, and the

clouds are light, which is extremely beautiful. There are sounds from birds’ singing, sounds from

river’s running, and sounds from the wind blow tree leaves and the sounds from grass’s swaying.

The sounds from the environment are pleasant and enjoyable (Figure 3).

This affective dimension is a relatively novel development in visual methodology as

it relates to human–environment relationships. The fact that the draw-and-explain

task elicited an emotional response from children in Nanjing suggests that the

Chinese language may play a larger role in children’s learning than previously

thought. The memorization of specific idiomatic phrases is one of several major

curriculum components in Chinese language literacy, and may assist students in

Figure 3. Zhiyi’s drawing of the environment: China (Category: Poetry)

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making sense of environmental phenomena. These idiomatic phrases also provide

connections and images to facilitate the comprehension of Chinese literature; for

example, the phrase qing shan lu shui (green mountain blue river, translated)

instantly conjures images similar to the one that Zhiyi portrayed in her drawing.

Furthermore, the images conjured by these phrases include an affective

component; qing shan lu shui depicts peace, serenity and balance in nature. Accord-

ing to Nisbett (2003), the tendency to use verbs in Asian languages such as Chinese

(Figure 3) shapes both the affective and cognitive dimensions of thought in

children. Children raised in Asian cultures tend to emphasize relationships

between objects and events whereas children in the US who are typically raised

on a steady diet of nouns from the English language tend to engage in the identi-

fication and classification of phenomena. Perhaps it is the relative emphasis of

either verbs or nouns in the Chinese and English languages that explain, in part,

why built environments (an indicator of a more holistic/relational view of the

environment) were observed in these children’s everyday ideas and not as much

in previous studies.

Harmony is similar to poetry but reflects a deeper level of expression from

children. As a category, harmony was evident only in the children’s drawings

from China and Singapore. In this paper, harmony is interpreted from two different

perspectives – the first being harmony as social culture (China) and the other as

political culture (Singapore). Chinese philosophy is deeply embedded in Chinese

culture where a sense of collective identity and harmony in society is highly

valued. Indeed, these values are taught in schools as one of many doctrines that

have their origins in religion, specifically Confucianism and Daoism. Nisbett

Figure 4. Long’s drawing of the environment: China (Category: Harmony as social culture)

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(2003) adds that Asians differ from Westerners in thought because of unique socio-

cultural norms that are influenced in part, by religion. His studies also support the

notion that Asians (in particular, Chinese) are more likely to emphasize harmonious

relationships (e.g. feelings of acceptance) and tend to view the world holistically.

Long’s drawing from China reflects this theme of harmony as social culture where

the environment is ‘[translated] Trees with leafy shade. There are mountains, water and

animals. The people here not just have fresh air but also live harmoniously with animals’

(Figure 4).

Another perspective of harmony, political culture, is evident in drawings from chil-

dren in Singapore who were apt to describe the importance of people living together in

harmony. This is different from harmony as social culture because it represents

harmony as a national slogan. For example, Salem defines the environment as ‘both

rural and urban, humans and nature living together (interacting with one another)

peacefully and in harmony’ (Figure 5).

This emphasis on harmony may be attributed to the Singapore government’s efforts

to promote harmonious relationships between four dominant ethnic groups in the

country – Indians, Malays, Caucasians and Chinese. As a native Singaporean

myself, I can clearly recall the national pledge that all children were (and still are)

required to recite in schools everyday.

We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people

Regardless of race, language or religion

To build a democratic society, based on justice and equality

So as to achieve happiness, prosperity & progress for our nation

Figure 5. Salem’s drawing of the environment: Singapore (Category: Harmony as political

culture)

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The Singapore government also devotes resources toward repetitive, long-term cam-

paigns to support the interests of the country, e.g. encouraging Chinese families to

have a third child, water conservation, etc. From a political perspective, this form

of indoctrination encourages Singaporeans to accept national policies as their own

and over time, shapes their everyday ideas (Wee, 2008).

Implications for Science Teaching and Learning

The findings from this study support the notion that socio-cultural settings shape chil-

dren’s everyday ideas and play a critical role in science teaching and learning (Wee,

Harbor, & Shepardson, 2006). Specifically, children living in urban areas included

humans and human activities in their everyday ideas about the environment regardless

of nationality. There is some commonality in children’s drawings from the US,

Singapore and China, suggesting that learning is contextual in terms of the physical

(urban) and social (ethnicity) worlds that children inhabit. In this study, children

relied on the familiar to make sense of science concepts such as the environment.

According to Kahn (2002), these unique ways of knowing do not disappear over

time but ‘are transformed into more comprehensive and adequate ways of under-

standing the world and of acting on it’ (p. 94). Teaching science to build scientific

literacy, therefore, requires all perspectives (no matter how different or unlikely) to

be both recognized and validated. With this in mind, science teachers should not

be held to traditional roles as knowledge providers but instead become social develo-

pers, guiding children and themselves to establish connections between what is

experienced in the world to science instruction in classrooms.

To make science relevant, curriculum and pedagogy should be developed and

implemented to meet the needs of learners. For example, Duschl, Schweingruber,

and Shouse (2007) describe a new wave of instructional and assessment practices

in science education aimed at building ‘successfully more sophisticated ways of think-

ing about a topic that can follow one another as children learn about and investigate a

[science] topic over a broad span of time’ (p. 219). However, such learning pro-

gressions should not be based on researchers’ ideas about what counts as sophisti-

cated conceptions of science but rather, on how children’s everyday ideas are

developed over time based on their experiences as individuals operating within

unique social-cultural settings.

Textbooks (typically adopted by states and school districts in the US en masse) and

standardized curricular frameworks that reinforce socially desired outcomes as well as

stereotypes in science (e.g. the environment is nature) seem ill suited for the purposes

of constructing meaningful learning and supporting scientific literacy. Indeed, ‘if

[society] has in view a fixed end to which the child is to be adapted, the things in

the child which relate to that end are the only things which [society] is capable of

seeing’ (Dewey, 1897 in Kliebard, 1995, p. 45). It also broadens the concept of ‘cul-

turally responsive teaching’ in science beyond standard terminology and practices

(e.g. different learning styles) to include children’s everyday ideas. A radical notion

to some perhaps, but one that is sorely needed if children’s voices are to be heard

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and their perspectives included as central tenets of diversity and equity in science

education.

The use of idiomatic phrases to communicate affect about the environment makes

explicit the role of Chinese language in science learning, while the importance of

interpersonal/intergroup relationships in China and Singapore support children’s

views of harmonious relationships with the environment. This combination of cogni-

tive and affective perceptions demonstrated by children in this study represents an

antecedent to intellectual growth, and serve as stimuli for further learning and devel-

opment (Kellert, 2002). It also highlights the importance of emotions in science;

giving children opportunities to explore and engage the world they inhabit nurtures

an enthusiasm for life that can have positive impacts on intellectual as well as social

maturation (Kellert, 2002; Louv, 2005). I am not suggesting that children in the

US start learning the Chinese language or that nationalistic pride should take the

form of campaigns in the country. Instead, these comparisons should give those of

us in science education a moment’s pause to consider the different socio-cultural

settings within which science is taught and learned throughout the world. Simply

transplanting learning strategies (e.g. rote learning), pedagogical techniques or assess-

ment practices from one country (or countries) into another does not automatically

resolve the challenges involved in developing a scientifically literate citizenry. Com-

parisons of international test scores in science, for example, can be useful to a

certain point but it is important to understand why these differences occur. Conse-

quently, science education reform in the US should not be focused solely on improv-

ing student achievement relative to other countries (a one-dimensional approach that

focuses on symptoms rather than the cause of a problem), rather, it should be con-

cerned with the socio-cultural forces that potentially hinder or sustain meaningful

science teaching and learning.

A deeper appreciation of these socio-cultural factors also enhances our capacity as

science educators and researchers to understand children’s relationship with the

environment and to predict how they might respond to environmental changes. For

example, children who do not view humans or human activity as part of the environ-

ment are more likely to adopt anthropocentric motives when making decisions

between conservation and development because they exist (cognitively and affec-

tively) separately from the world they inhabit (Wee, 2009, 2010). Learners should

know that the environment consists of both natural and urban areas, that all actions

have environmental consequences, and that environmental connections can be

drawn in different places and in different ways. Adopting an earth systems or multi-

disciplinary approach (e.g. systems thinking, place-based education) may develop

learners who are more conscious of these complex human–environment interactions

(Gruenewald, 2003; Porter & Cordoba, 2009). For example, the use of school

gardens in the science curriculum has encouraged students to learn about social

and ecological dimensions of the environment in local communities (Blair, 2009;

Fusco, 2001) as well as ‘the feedbacks and other interactions among their actions

and other ecosystem components’ (Krasny & Tidball, 2009, p. 466). Future studies

of this nature would benefit from collecting and analyzing additional demographic

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data such as gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status so as to highlight multicultural-

ism in learning, facilitate the cross-comparison of children’s everyday ideas, and expli-

cate the meaning making process. Additionally, data from other countries and

continents would be helpful in expanding our knowledge about children’s everyday

ideas in a global society.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank University of Colorado Denver (UCD) doctoral students,

Ya-Wen Chang and Austine Luce, for assisting with data analysis; the UCD Center for

Faculty Development for a small yet timely grant that supported the write-up of this

paper; the Jiangsu Institute of Education in Nanjing, China for facilitating access to

study sites; and all who have helped encourage the use of visual methods to further

our understanding of people and places.

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