Learning Pathways in Environmental Science Education: The case of hazardous household items

Abstract

The present study draws on environmental science education to explore aspects of children’s conceptual change regarding hazardous household items. Twelve children from a fifth‐grade class attended a 30‐h teaching module of environmentally oriented science activities aimed at assessing their awareness about the environmental and health hazards posed by several typical household products. In‐depth interviews before, 2 weeks after, and 1 year after, the teaching intervention revealed that children followed three pathways of conceptual change ranging from the substantial alterations of their initial ideas to the qualitative enrichment of those ideas to the complete rejection of the new knowledge. Two components of the instructional intervention—the use of living organisms in classroom experiments, and group learning activities—along with the development of children’s situated metacognitive ideas facilitated their learning and increased the durability of the acquired knowledge. Additionally, sound indications concerning the situated nature and the social construction of the new knowledge were observed, as well as that in environmental education moral and value issues are closely related to knowledge.