Of butterflies and beetles: First graders' ways of seeing and talking about insect life cycles
✍ Scribed by Daniel P. Shepardson
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 57 KB
- Volume
- 34
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-4308
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
First graders' understandings of insect life cycles are explored through pre-and postinstructional interviews, as well as through the analysis of children's journal entries and talk that occurred throughout an instructional unit on beetle and butterfly metamorphosis. The data indicated that children's informal experiences resulted in the construction of one of three models of insect life cycles. Children's journal writing provided an avenue for contextualizing their experience with beetle and butterfly metamorphosis. Although the children's ways of seeing and talking about beetle and butterfly life cycles were changed by the instructional experience, the instructional experience constrained their understandings of insect life cycles.