Revision and Manipulation of Physical Models as Tools for Developing the Aquifer Model by Preservice Elementary Teachers

Abstract

Citizens show misunderstandigs about groundwater that hinder making informed decisions about problems such as the deterioration of aquifers and clean water supply. Science education should address this, including modelling practices about the aquifer model, along with a representation of the model, for example, as a physical model. Physical models have been extensively used in geology teaching, but students rarely construct, evaluate or manipulate them. This study addressed how the revision and manipulation of physical models contributed to the construction of a complete aquifer model by 80 Preservice Elementary Teachers (PETs) of two cohorts (subsequent years) that participated in a modelling teaching sequence that included fieldwork and the construction of a physical model. The model representations (drawings, writings, oral expressions, physical models) were analysed, based on Components-Mechanisms-Phenomena systems thinking framework, through a constant comparison method. Results show that, although PETs improved their models both years, it was in Year 2 when they improved the Phenomena dimension. PETs that constructed a complete model tripled those of Year 1. The conversations in groups and the model representations throughout the sequence show that the evaluation of the physical model when comparing it with reality during the field trip, and the manipulation of the physical models guided by teachers´ scaffoldings to encourage PETs to make representations and predictions, led them to revise and improve their models in Year 2. Therefore, we conclude that it is indeed the manipulation and revision of physical models that provides opportunities for revising the aquifer model and improving it.