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Health education is critical for preventing the spread of infectious diseases and ensuring societal well-being. Children, on the other hand, are rarely actively involved in infectious disease education. Children's literature promotes reasoning and engages students in argumentation and decision-making. Given the importance of active student participation in infectious disease education, we recommend using children's literature to engage school students in role-playing argumentation. This approach not only bridges the gap in student engagement but also promotes argumentation in order to make informed decisions for both individual and public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to design an argumentation activity for third-grade students learning about the features defining matter. The research was carried out with seven students who enrolled in a tutoring program in a science and art center in the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey during the academic year of 2017–2018. The activities were completed over four hours. First, the students were asked to make a claim using the available data, and write a justification supporting their claims. Second, they were asked to evaluate their friends' classifications of different objects. Third, they were asked to use reasoning to rebut the counterclaims provided by their peers. We found that the students used evidence while supporting their initial claims and rebutting the other students' claims. However, the students still had difficulties using evidence to justify their claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representations are fundamental tools to support argumentation in science learning. However, little is known about how preservice science teachers (PSTs) with different argumentation understandings view and use representations in argumentation. Therefore, the purpose of this case study was to explore the views and practices of PSTs' use of representations for argumentation purposes. The participants were six graduate students enrolled in an argumentation course in a northeastern university in Turkey. Data was collected through videotaped lessons, the PSTs' artifacts and semi-structured interviews. Video analysis and content analysis were used to investigate research questions. Results indicated that with the increased argumentation understandings the PSTs showed a sophisticated understanding of using representations for argumentation. Moreover, with the increased argumentation understanding the PSTs used representations for multiple purposes during argumentation and used visual-graphical representations as rebuttals and counterarguments. Implications include the explicit teaching of the purpose of multiple representations in argumentation, integration of representational and argumentation practices in teacher education programs, and enriching argumentation experiences by providing learners with multiple representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using multiple representations and argumentation are two fundamental processes in science. With the advancements of information communication technologies, these two processes are blended more so than ever before. However, little is known about how these two processes interact with each other in student learning. Hence, we conducted a design-based study in order to distill the relationship between these two processes. Specifically, we designed a learning unit on nuclear energy and implemented it with a group of preservice middle school teachers. The participants used a web-based knowledge organization platform that incorporated three representational modes: textual, concept map, and pictorial. The participants organized their knowledge on nuclear energy by searching, sorting, clustering information through the use of these representational modes and argued about the nuclear energy issue. We found that the use of multiple representations and argumentation interacted with each other in a complex way. Based on our findings, we argue that the complexity can be unfolded in two aspects: (a) the use of multiple representations mediates argumentation in different forms and for different purposes; (b) the type of argumentation that leads to refinement of the use of multiple representations is often non-mediated and drawn from personal experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]