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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.
To cite this article: Bryan Wee (2012) A Cross-cultural Exploration of Children's Everyday Ideas:Implications for science teaching and learning, International Journal of Science Education, 34:4,609-627, DOI: 10.1080/09500693.2011.579193
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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: [email protected]
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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