Encouraging the construction of a precursor model about air through experimental activities in preschool

Abstract

This chapter presents the results of an empirical research on the construction of a precursor model related to air in Spanish preschool children. It is based on a teaching intervention specifically designed to address the ideas that air exists, has mass and occupies a volume in space and during which the children were encouraged to make predictions for daily phenomena using air and test them experimentally. The participants’ explanations about air were categorized considering the conceptual framework of precursor model. According to that conceptual framework, young children are able to construct a precursor model when they provided naturalistic explanations or other more sophisticated explanations. The discussions with the young children showed that, at first, they had not conceptualized the idea of air. Nevertheless, during the performance of the teaching sequence, the children’s explanations were acquiring a higher level of sophistication. A considerable number of preschool children recognized that air exists and occupies a space. The mass was the most difficult property to assimilate. The results suggest that the teaching sequence allows young children to construct a precursor model related to air that will probably support the development of their understanding in the conceptual domain of matter