At the Beginning Was Amount of Material: A Learning Progression for Matter for Early Elementary Grades

Abstract

A learning progression for matter is a hypothesis about how knowledge about matter could evolve, with proper instruction, from young children's ideas about objects and liquids to the atomic-molecular theory taught in high school. It involves a series of deep reconceptualizations consisting of mutually constraining changes in a large network of interrelated domain-specific, epistemological, and mathematical knowledge. Each reconceptualization results in a stepping stone---a coherent state of knowledge about matter that is conceptually closer to scientific understanding and helps students keep moving forward. Reconceptualizing matter at the macroscopic level in elementary school is crucial to understanding the atomic-molecular theory in later grades. In this chapter, we elaborate the K-2 section of a learning progression for matter; we describe how preschoolers' knowledge about matter could be progressively reconceptualized to include concepts of material, amount of material, and weight that are compatible with a scientific theory of matter at the macroscopic level (2nd grade stepping stone). We present a classroom intervention with kindergartners based on this learning progression. Students' significant progress (compared to a control group) supports the validity of learning progression as a theoretical construct and as an approach to science education.