Deconstructing learning in science -young children's responses to a classroom sequence on evaporation

Five year old children's ideas were tracked by a range of means during and subsequent to a classroom sequence on evaporation. They held a range of conceptions which changed in complex ways across context and time. These could only be made sense of by moving outside traditional conceptual change interpretations to include broader notions of appropriation of language as a cultural tool, of personal and social narrative responses to features of the phenomena and the classroom setting, and the nature of science explanations. The findings are used to explore the relationship between social and individual perspectives on learning, and to question some assumptions underlying conceptual change research.