Pre-service Elementary Teachers Constructing the Nature and Language of Science

Abstract

This paper reports on a two-year effort to understand and affect the conceptions of the nature of science held by pre-service elementary teachers. The first year of the study, examined the change in the ways twenty seven students defined and described science, following a series of tasks designed to have them 1) explore explicit and tacit conceptions of science and 2) negotiate a definition for science. Findings from the first year, include notable shifts in complexity and sophistication of the language used to describe science. Data from the second year of the study, suggests a strong influence of conceptual views of science of the pre-service teachers upon the selection of curriculum-related children’s literature. The findings suggest: 1) that the limited language and simplistic structure typically used to describe science may belie a deeper and richer understanding of the subject and 2) opportunities to explicitly construct their conceptions regarding the nature of science positively, influences their selection of children’s literature within science.