Prior Knowledge Investigation

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Prior Knowledge Investigation

• Water Availability and the Water Cycle
• Jennifer Uerz, MAED Candidate
• Secondary Science Education
• Virginia Tech

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Advantages of using Prior Knowledge in Education

• Create a meaningful, individual connection
  between each student and the material presented
• Meaningful connections foster more personal
  analysis of material and better retention
  (Piagets theory of assimilation and
  accommodation)

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Problems with Prior Knowledge

• Misconceptions!
• Humans are scientists in life constructing
  theories about the world around them (Kuhn,
  1989).
• These theories may or may not be correct.
• Prior knowledge can interfere with new learning
  if incompatible with material presented (Dole,
  2000).

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Goals

• Analyze students prior knowledge and
  misconceptions
• Design a lesson to build off of prior knowledge
  and address misconceptions
• Analyze students learning and the lesson to find
  out whether it was constructed in a way that
  changed incorrect constructs

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Initial Interview Questions
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How much of the worlds water is freshwater?
Correct Answer 2-3
Class Range 1-63
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How much of that freshwater can we (humans) use?
Correct Answer 0.003
Class Range 0.3-100
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Why cant we use all the freshwater on Earth?

• Student 1 some is polluted and there are animals
  living in the rest
• Student 2 fish/sharks are living in it
• Student 3 fish are living in it
• Student 4 not sure

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Draw what you think the water cycle looks like.

• Student 1

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Student 2
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Student 3 (representation)
Clouds
Evaporation
Rain
Lakes
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Student 4 (representation)
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Water Lesson Overview

• Day 1 What is water? How is it used?
• Day 2 How much water is there on Earth?
• Where is it? How much can we
• use?
• Day 3 What is the water cycle? How does
• water travel through the water
• cycle?

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Day 1 Objectives

• Introduction to water
• Definition of water
• Students analyze personal water use
• Water usage outside the home
• Importance

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Day 1 StrategiesAqua Words Activity

• Critical thinking- Brainstorming
• Auditory, Visual and Spoken- Class discussion
• Application of problem solving/critical thinking
  (identifying a known substance)
• Spoken and Spatial- Creation and sharing of
  individualized products (water definition pages)

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Day 2 Objectives

• Demonstrate water availability.
• Give students a sense of how little water we have
  to work with and why we need to take care of it.
• Show students where water on our planet exists.

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Day 2 Strategies Drop in the Bucket Activity

• Visual and Auditory- Demonstration
• Written- Questions Activity Sheet
• Auditory and Spoken- Class Discussion on Water
  Usage and Availability
• Auditory, Spoken and Written- Water Facts game
  review, to stimulate interest

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Day 3 Objectives

• Review the water cycle.
• Help students realize the complexity in the water
  cycle.
• Illustrate where some of the otherwise available
  freshwater is tied up.

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Day 3 Strategies The Incredible Journey
Activity

• Kinesthetic-students journey through the water
  cycle (movement to different stations, rolling
  dice)
• Spoken and auditory Listening to and sharing
  individual journeys
• Visual- pictures of various locations in the
  water cycle, drawing of individual water cycle
  journey
• Spatial- illustration of water cycle journey
• Written- description of movement from location to
• location (to accompany water cycle picture)

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Post Lesson Interview

• How much of the Earths water is freshwater?

Correct Answer 2-3
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How much of that freshwater can we use?
Correct Answer 0.003
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Why cant we use all of the freshwater on Earth?

• Student 1 Some is trapped as groundwater
• and some is frozen as glaciers.
• Student 2 The unusable part is caught up
• in glaciers or ice or is polluted.
• Student 3 Its polluted and animals live in
• it.
• Student 4 Because we need to conserve some.

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Water Cycle Depictions
Student 1
no noticeable alteration
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Student 2
no noticeable change
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Student 3
incorporation of more than one location
(puddle/river/ocean)
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Student 4 (representation)
no noticeable change
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Discussion of Results

• For the question concerning amount of freshwater
  on Earth, all students were within 2 of the
  answer. They understood the discrepancy between
  the amount of water and the amount of freshwater
  on Earth.

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Discussion of Results

• Though no students interviewed produced a
  correct answer for the usable freshwater
  question, 2 of the 4 did understand that less
  than 1 was available and all 4 did realize that
  little of the freshwater on Earth was actually
  available for our use.

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Discussion of Results

• All students interviewed exhibited more complex
  thought when answering the question concerning
  why all freshwater was not available for use.
  Before the lesson the primary answer was because
  of animals living in the water afterwards the
  students expanded their ideas to include
  pollution and water caught up in other locations
  (glaciers, ice, groundwater).

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Discussion of Results

• Only 1 student of the 4 interviewed altered his
  water cycle diagram to reflect learn about the
  more complex nature of the water cycle.

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Reasoning behind Results

• More time was needed to work with the new
  material and review.
• Student 4 was the only student of the ones
  interviewed that was absent from class. His
  absence, lessened his exposure to the material
  and may have contributed to his diminished
  retention.

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Suggestions

• Incorporate prior knowledge into lessons to
  stimulate student interest.
• Address misconceptions and give students a chance
  to work through them on their own.
• Spend time with multiple activities and review,
  allowing students the chance to work with the new
  material in various different ways.

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Questions?