A goal of K-12 science education is for learners to develop scientificliteracy. However, realizing this goal is being complicated by the availability ofabundant resources that vary strongly regarding their adherence to the Nature ofScience principles, particularly regarding socio-scientific issues, such as, forinstance, vaccination. It requires dedicated reasoning skills, often referred to ascritical thinking, to assess and value the arguments regarding such issues.To stimulate critical thinking, we investigate the use of interactive conceptcartoons. Instead of a single cartoon our instrument provides a sequence ofconcept cartoons. The cartoons are alternated with a diagram and concepts thatlearners have to place in the diagram, leading to a systems’ view on the subjectmatter.The instrument has been presented to teachers for expert review and evaluatedin three classrooms (6th grade) of one school (70 learners). In this paper, wepresent the interactive concept cartoon instrument and report on the study. Theresults indicate that learners are engaged when working with the instrument andlearn relevant knowledge regarding the subject matter and the Nature of Science.
Concept cartoons (Naylor & Keogh, 1999; Naylor et al, 2007) are a popular means to stimulate reasoning with science concepts among children from the age of 8 – 18. The concept cartoons also provide a natural context for children to design their own experiments. Show children a concept cartoon, have some discussion, and then ask them to design an experiment to provide evidence for or against one of the statements in the cartoon, and the children rush off to set up an experiment. They get into the activity so quickly that the teacher even has to slow them down and force them to think through their ideas more carefully and that is where the challenge is, to get them to think and to reason and yet maintain the enthusiasm. In our research we tried out concept cartoons experiments in grade 5 (age 11) and we describe some of the typical difficulties children have in making a claim, designing an experiment, and using the results to reconsider their claim.
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Interactieve concept cartoons stimuleren kinderen om kritisch na te denken over maatschappelijke onderwerpen waar natuurwetenschappelijke kennis aan ten grondslag ligt.Samen met het werkblad en de bronnen vormen de cartoons een didactisch instrument. De kinderen werken zelfstandig in groepjes.
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