Preconceptions Summary
Student preconceptions (misconceptions, naïve understandings) are important for teachers to uncover, address, challenge and extend. These are commonly held (but not always scientifically accurate) ideas that children bring to the classroom. Students come to school with ideas about the world and science principles because of experiences and observations that have helped to shape those beliefs. Learners hang onto those ideas until multiple experiences cause them to question previously-held beliefs and to form new explanations.
Educators need to discover student preconceptions and be aware of the related scientifically accurate ideas. It is the teacher’s role to facilitate learning experiences that challenge inaccurate ideas, solidify developing ideas, and reinforce and extend scientifically accepted ideas. Knowing student preconceptions helps educators to ask probing questions and craft experiences to move students along to greater science understanding.
Below is a summary of the preconceptions and scientifically accurate ideas related to the Experimenting with Plants unit:
Preconceptions about Plants as Organisms:
Plants are something between living and inanimate that does not respire, eat or reproduce.
Plants originate in shops, factories, and have to be planted by humans.
Scientifically Accepted Ideas:
Plants are living organisms that respire, reproduce, make their own food, and will exist entirely without humans.
Preconceptions about Plant Nutrients:
Water gives plants energy directly.
Scientifically Accepted Ideas:
Water is a part of the photosynthetic process that gives plants energy.
Preconceptions about Photosynthesis and Respiration:
Plants can survive in the dark.
Plants obtain their “food” by absorbing minerals and nutrients from the soil through its roots.
Photosynthesis and respiration are only gaseous exchanges.
Plant respiration is identical to breathing in animals.
Plants do not release oxygen during photosynthesis.
Scientifically Accepted Ideas:
Plants need light in order to photosynthesize (unless in seed form, which has its own food source for a limited time) and will starve and die without it.
Plants need air and water to photosynthesize and other materials are not “food” for plants, although they may contribute to growth.
Photosynthesis and respiration are complex biological and chemical processes as well as gaseous exchanges.
Plant respiration is a complex and continuous process.
Plants do release oxygen during photosynthesis.
Preconceptions about Cells:
Plants “know” what is good for them in a conscious sense, and their cells will absorb accordingly.
Cells are separate from the plant.
Scientifically Accepted Ideas:
Cells are inanimate objects that are governed by biochemical actions.
Cells are the building blocks of the plant organism and function together as a whole.
Preconceptions about Plant Parts:
Flowers only grow on herbaceous plants.
Desert plants do not have leaves.
Plants are only herbaceous and non-flowering.
Scientifically Accepted Ideas:
Flowers grow on a variety of plants.
Desert plants do have leaves, although they may not be in a conventional form.
Plants are any organism that makes its own food through a photosynthetic process.
Preconceptions about Reproduction:
There is no correlation between the functions of flowers and beauty, seeds need to be bought to grow more plants, and fruit is for us to eat.
The seed is a separate being from the plant, and it is a continuous source of food and energy.
Scientifically Accepted Ideas:
The plant life cycle is a complex process where plants disperse seeds which grow into an adult plant, flower during its reproductive cycle, and produce seeds to propagate more plants.
The seed provides a finite food source for plants when they are in their embryonic stages of growth.
Preconceptions about Scientific Inquiry:
Experimentation is a method of trying things out or producing a desired outcome.
Scientifically Accepted Ideas:
Experimentation is guided by particular ideas and questions and experiments are tests of ideas.
Preconceptions about Scientific Inquiry:
Students tend to look for or accept all evidence that is consistent with their prior beliefs and either distort or fail to generate evidence that is inconsistent with their beliefs.
Scientifically Accepted Ideas:
All evidence must be interpreted fairly.
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