SPACE Project Research Report: Rocks, Soil and Weather

The Science Processes and Concepts Exploration (SPACE) project research report on Rocks, Soil and Weather was conducted at two centres, the University of Liverpool and King’s College, London, and published in 1993 by Liverpool University Press. Each centre took responsibility for research in particular concepts and for producing the report of the work. In the case of Rocks, Soil and Weather, one of the reports to be published after the publication in 1989 of the National Curriculum for England and Wales. The research was conducted from Liverpool and the authors were Terry Russell, Derek Bell, Ken Longden and Linda McGuigan.

The research was carried out between January and May 1990. In previous SPACE research, conducted prior to the National Curriculum, a list of concepts was drawn up by the research team for each topic in order to define the focus of the research. The publication of the National Curriculum provided an externally defined framework of concepts which was adopted for this purpose. In the case of Rocks, Soil and Weather these ideas were concerned with: the nature and origins of soil; the nature of rocks; the structure of the Earth; weather and weathering. For the first phase of the research, activities for primary school students related to these ideas were compiled. Primary school teachers taking part in the project were provided with an introduction to these activities prior to involving their students in them. After two weeks of exposure to these activities students' ideas were elicited using a range of techniques, including individual interviews, by the researchers.

The next phase was intervention in which strategies were used to enable students to develop their ideas. The intervention, which lasted for three weeks, provided children with experiences designed so that they could test out their ideas, or discuss, amend, reject or retain their ideas. Activities were related to the particular idea being developed, such as looking closely at soil, examining a variety of objects made from rocks, discussing what is underground through studies of mines, exposed rock in cliffs, and so on. This was followed by further interviews so that pre- and post-intervention ideas could be compared.

The research report provided a large number of representations of students' ideas, both pre- and post-intervention, mainly through the students' drawing and writing and transcripts of their oral explanations. Tables giving pre-and post-intervention results for particular ideas and for each age group were included. The authors conclude that there is evidence that students' ideas in this area can be developed through more rigorous observation and simple investigations. Appendices provide full details of the activities, interview schedules, materials used in the activities and the classroom intervention strategies.