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Introduction:Recreation of construction patterns is an important form of supporting students’ cognitive development. Unfortunately, a lack of research makes it impossible to characterise the skills of contemporary children. Research Aim: To establish the current ability of pre-school children to reproduce constructions and to determine how these skills have changed in relation to research conducted 70 years earlier (Popiel, 1955–1957). Method: In order to compare the results of the research conducted, the tools were recreated and the method of the research conducted 70 years earlier was repeated. Seven finished constructions were presented to the children and the method of recreating them was recorded. The description included the method of construction and the correctness of the reconstructed construction. Results: The level of reproduction of the constructions is similar. However, modern children are better at recreating more difficult constructions. The small number of subjects limits the generalising power of the results of the study. Conclusions: The results of the study shed some light on children’s constructional abilities. They indicate that the situation of recreating constructions can be used as a form of supporting children’s mental development. The differences in the results of the studies indicate that caution should be exercised in citing research findings on the construction skills of children living many years earlier. Research is needed to explore these issues in more depth.

Artykuł przedstawia wyniki testu EARTH-2 przeprowadzonego w formie internetowej wśród 890 uczniów w wieku od 10 do 15 lat uczęszczających do klas IV – VIII szkoły podstawowej. Uczniów proszono o wskazanie prawidłowego symbolu graficznego przedstawiającego lokalizację ludzi, drzew i chmur, poruszanie się ludzi i przedmiotów na Ziemi a także zjawisko dnia i nocy w kontekście kształtu Ziemi. Badanie wykazało, że co trzeci badany (38%) niekonsekwentnie wskazuje kulistą Ziemię wyjaśniając lokalizację ludzi, drzew, chmur, sposób poruszania się ludzi i przedmiotów oraz wyjaśnia zjawisko dnia i nocy. Ponadto, co czwarty badany uczeń kończący szkołę podstawową (27%) okazał się mieć trudności w wyjaśnianiu podstawowych pojęć astronomicznych. Badania nie wykazały znaczących różnic w zakresie płci i miejsca zamieszkania.

Children begin to fully understand evaporation at the age of 11 years, but they already have some idea of this phenomenon in preschool age. The paper presents the results of a research exploring the understanding of evaporation by 6- and 9-year-old children. The research used the method of a narrative based on incorrect information in order to verify whether and how well children would discover the errors in that narrative and how they could explain the process of evaporation. The incorrect narrative method is inspired by the science fiction film genre, which uses false assumptions to prove something that is not true. According to the research, half of the children knew that evaporation accompanies the process of cloud formation, but only half of the children who knew that (one-fourth of the respondents) could detect an error in the narrative. The reason for that is believed to be children’s lack of critical thinking and limited structured knowledge of evaporation in the water cycle in nature.

W artykule scharakteryzowano dziecięcą ocenę stanu pogody w różnych częściach kraju i świata. Celem przeprowadzonych badań było ustalenie dziecięcych kompetencji w zakresie oceny stanu pogody oraz umiejętność przewidywania pogody w innych częściach świata, w odniesieniu do aktualnie panującej pogody w miejscu zamieszkania. Badania przeprowadzono wśród 42 dzieci (21 dzieci w wieku 6/7 lat oraz 21 uczniów 9/10 lat). Badania miały charakter jakościowy, zastosowano metodę wywiadu, podczas którego dzieci kodowały pogodę (za pomocą serii obrazków) obserwowaną na ekranie komputera (w miejscu zamieszkania) i na tej podstawie wnioskowały o pogodzie w miejscach pokazywanych na mapie kraju i globusie. W prezentacji wyników scharakteryzowano pogodę w Szczecinie, Warszawie i Rzeszowie oraz Azji, Afryce, Australii, na biegunach i wyspach Tahiti. Porównano dziecięce prognozy pogody osobno dla pory zimowej i letniej. Zwrócono uwagę na różnice we wskazaniach stanów pogody względem wieku (dzieci 6- i 9-letnich). Okazało się, że 30% badanych (częściej dzieci w wieku przedszkolnym) postrzega pory roku jako zjawisko, którego różnice w pogodzie widać już w skali kraju. Biegun południowy jest oceniany przez dzieci jako rekordowo zimne miejsce na Ziemi. Przeanalizowano źródła dziecięcej wiedzy i wskazano możliwe przyczyny błędnych przekonań.

Copyright of Childhood Care & Education / Problemy Opiekuńczo-Wychowawcze is the property of Akademia Pedagogiki Specjalnej im Marii Grzegorzewskiej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Forum Pedagogiczne / Pedagogical Forum is the property of Uniwersytet Kardynala Stefana Wyszynskiego w Warszawie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Arranging tasks at the level of device design is an important part of supporting children's mental development in technical education classes. Due to little interest in this area of education, there is little research on children's task-solving skills in device design (por. Furmanek, 2007, part 1). This paper presents the situation of solving, by 8-year-old pupils, a task involving the use of a turnstile mechanism to design a device that sends planes into the air. The investigation showed that pupils make strong use of familiar devices (e.g. lift, crane) in designing the device. Referring to the names of the devices, they easily communicate with each other, and when designing a common structure, they complete their ideas and evaluate their practicality. Group creation of a new device is creative and stimulates children's thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lubelski Rocznik Pedagogiczny is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article presents the process of 81 8-year-old children investigating which compo- nent of an electrical circuit is faulty (a burned-out light bulb). The research was carried out in groups of three and was qualitative in nature. Dewey's (1988) complete act of thinking was used to analyse children's behaviour. The ways in which pupils behave at the stage of familiarisation with the problem, hypothesis formation, hypothesis verification and the stage of finding the final solution to the problem were discussed. Attention was paid to children's capabilities and limitations and conclusions were drawn for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater is out of direct observation. Their presence can be inferred from the observation of water disappearing in puddles, wells and lakes. The article presents a childlike explanation of these three phenomena. The study covered 50 children aged from 6 to 8 years. The obtained explanations have been categorised into mental models and arranged in relation to the degree of approximation to the scientific explanation. The research showed that children do not refer to groundwater when explaining the phenomenon of water disappearance in puddles and the origin of water in a well and lake. They are aware of the existence of water in the ground, but their cognitive horizon is limited to a deliberate explanation of the phenomena of water origin (e.g. water from rain immediately penetrates a well). The research has shown that children lack experience in preserving water in the ground and conclusions for pedagogical practice have been presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shape of the Earth, locating people on the surface of the planet and explaining the phenomenon of the shape of the Earth are some of the key issues for children to accept scientific explanations about astronomy. On the basis of research (Jelinek, 2017) it was found that the mental models of Polish children are similar to those presented by children in other countries (Vosniadou i Brewer 1992, 1994). This article presents research aimed at determining the frequency of individual mental models in different age groups (N = 444). Studies have shown that the number of correct indications of scientific models increases with age. Already 15.2% of the examined children in age of five and six years gave scientific explanations regarding the astronomical issues discussed. In turn, 1/3 examined children in age of the 9 and 10 year-old cannot properly explain the phenomenon of day and night. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]