Investigating children's ideas about chemicals

CHED 162

Mary O'Donnell, odonneme@muohio.edu and Stacey Lowery Bretz, bretzsl@muohio.edu. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056
A potential source of difficulty for students learning science arises from the fact that many words used in formal science instruction have meanings outside of the classroom. We are qualitatively investigating fourth grade children's conceptual knowledge of chemicals. The purpose of this study is to discover the ideas about chemicals that children bring to an instructional setting so that these ideas may be better understood as a necessary piece in the learning process. Methodology and preliminary results from this investigation will be discussed.