Children's hypothetical reasoning about a complex and dynamic causal system was investigated. Predominantly White, middle-class 5- to 7-year-old children from the Greater Toronto Area learned about novel food chains and were asked to consider the effects of removing one species on the others. In Study 1 (N = 72; 36 females, 36 males; 2018),…

A learning format gaining attention that encourages language acquisition in science is the use of dynamic models as instructional tools. This grounded theory investigates the impact of the dynamic food chain model as an alternative lesson for teaching food chains. The researchers examined the impact of a paper-based activity and a dynamic model…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine playful practices in the science video composition of a fourth-grader. Design/methodology/approach: With an analytic interest in "chasing the theory of muchness" (Thiel, 2015a) that describes distinctive moments of affective energies in playful learning, the authors explored a child's…

The current study aims to determine science student teachers' cognitive structure on the concept of food chain. Qualitative research method was applied in this study. Fallacies detected in the pre-service teachers' conceptual structures are believed to result in students' developing misconceptions in their future classes and will adversely affect…

Aspects of preschoolers' ecological understandings were explored in a cross-age, quantitative study that utilised a sample of seventy-five 3- to 5-year-old children. Specifically, their concepts of feeding relationships were determined by presenting physical models of three-step food chains during structured interviews. A majority of children,…

Purpose: The present study explores the development of agri-food value chains from an organizational learning perspective, using the German organic food sector as an example. We illustrate how the development of local value chains unfolds over time and outline how facilitation can support this process. Design/methodology/approach: The study used…

A pilot study was conducted on a multimodal educational tool, Peruvian Food Chain Jenga (PFCJ), with 5th-grade students (N = 54) at a public charter school. The goal was to compare the effectiveness of the multimodal tool to a more traditional presentation of the same materials (food chain) using an experimental/control design. Data collection…

The durability and variety of plastics mean that they can take an age to break down (or biodegrade) in the environment. Plastic carrier bags will be around for 50 to 100 years, plastic bottles for 600 years, and Styrofoam/polystyrene containers for a whopping 5000 years. As more of these plastic items are added to the ocean, they just build up and…

Gender and prior knowledge may affect students' performance and motivation when simulations and games are used for learning. Accommodations should be made for students of different genders and with different levels of prior knowledge. A simulation digital game about the food chain concept geared for elementary school students was developed for…

This mixed-methods study examines the implications of using the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) to design an elementary science lesson grounded in four virtual reality (VR) videos. Given the need for additional understandings of how elementary science educators can infuse cultural relevance alongside content development, this study…

Inhibition is thought to help suppress interference from misconceptions in science learning. Using a pre-, post-, and delayed posttest design, we examined the influence on learning from science texts of three inhibitory-related functions--prepotent response inhibition, resistance to distractor interference, and resistance to proactive…

The number of school gardens and university farms is increasing in the United States. Produce grown in these venues is often sampled in the classroom or incorporated into the food chain. Food safety education for students and workers is needed to ensure that produce is safe. Two 1-hr food safety curricula were developed to inform K-12 students and…

The "Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC, 2012) and "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States, 2013) stress that in addition to disciplinary core ideas (content), students need to engage in the practices of science and develop an understanding of the crosscutting concepts such as cause and effect, systems,…

The societal lockdown imposed in Canada in March 2020 to stem the spread of COVID-19 severed key points of connection for low-income Canadians who rely upon schools, libraries and even fast-food chains for internet connectivity. This has had dire implications for timely access to vital information and resources, and has revealed the extent to…

Regarding future ecological challenges, it is highly relevant for students to understand the processes within ecosystems and the effects of external influences on their conservation. Since ecosystems are complex, difficulties in learning are often examined from a systems thinking perspective. However, challenges also arise in other areas,…