Following the Story Science Session

Following the Story Science session.

ASE Summer Celebration Conference 28th June. 2013

‘as a house is not a pile of bricks, so science is not a pile of disconnected facts’

(Harlen 2010)

Primary and early year’s teachers are well aware that science education is not just the transmission of information or the physical wellbeing of a child. It is an enriching process where imagining and reasoning is promoted in a language rich environment. Physical and cognitive engagement provides the context for the development of positive attitudes and relevant behaviours alongside an emerging understanding of the 'big ideas (Harlen 2010). Learning is then both a cognitive and emotional experience and involves a dialogic relationship between the adult and child (Alexander 2008).

Using language as a tool for learning is not a new idea and certainly the pedagogical ideas of today's classroom can easily be attributable to the likes of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky and the principles of sociocultural learning and Piagetian reasoning patterns that have underpinned the CASE programmes like ‘Let’s Think’ (Adey et al 2001,) and have influenced the Story Science session.

It is now understood that during the process of reading and writing, a range of neural systems are engaged (Geared 2009). These require decoding and encoding of a visual symbol systems at the same time as the auditory system has to match the sound to the internal systems. It is in this way that sense is made. Hearing stories also involves these complex neural connections as explored in the session.

The use of story books in science can be broadly classified into three: Stories that give an overt context for the science such as; Shirley Hughes' 'Out and About Through The Year', which is a collection of poems about the Seasons, or Michael Foreman's 'Dinosaurs And All That Rubbish, which explores issues around recycling and conservation. These two, along with the 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle are just a few of the favourites to be found in primary schools and overtly linked to the science curriculum.

To these examples we can add the specially written series of books which explore science themes and raise scientific explorations such as those created by Millgate publishing such as 'The Seesaw and Other Science Questions’ and ‘I wonder Why. Questions and Answers about Science and Technology’ published by Kingfisher. More recently there has been a flurry of graded reading books to accompany the current emphasis on the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics. These books try to utilise a range of genre including simple story structure with scientific information such as, ‘Follow the Clues’ published by Pearson. In this book the reader hunts for clues in nature as well as reading cues for literal meaning.

The second group of books are those that have the science as ‘possibilities’ and provide a context for further scientific exploration. Popular examples might include 'The Rescue Party' by Nick Butterworth. Here a context to explore 'forces' such as pulleys and levers and friction as in ‘slip and slide’ can be explored from a very basic approach to highly complex level of investigation. Another might be ‘Penguin and the Pinecone’ by Salina Yoo, where an unusual friendship blossoms. This lends itself to a series of lessons exploring optimal growing conditions for plants or the germination of seeds.

The third group of books is where the story narrative is achieved in words or pictures or both and the relationship with 'science' is about the reader being intrigued and captivated in order to 'solve' the dramatic incident and understand the problem from an alternative perspective.

The story is often set out in a familiar structure such as, 'Once upon a time...' or 'Long, long ago...' These story structures cross cultures and time and have been part of ‘teaching’ for centuries such as the Greek legends, fairy tales and fables. The same principles of anticipation also apply to other genres such as thriller, love story or horror. It is the predictability of the structure that assists in the processing. These common elements stimulate certain complex neural connections in the brain and help the reader ‘see’ and believe from a different perspective than their personal reality.

Such stories for young children might include ‘Heckedy Peg’ by Audrey Wood, which is full of detailed illustrations and short text and builds up suspense, yet enables the reader to identify the likelihood of different outcomes using narrative seriation. It might also include 'The Moons Revenge' by Joan Aiken and Alan Lee. This engaging and magical narrative is achieved using vivid, yet mysterious pictures that go beyond what is written and promotes logical deduction. Hence stories can stimulate the imagination and thinking processes beyond the readers’ actual experiences.

By heightening the emotional response of the reader to the characters and the content of the story, so they are better able to identify with the story's perspective. This development of empathy involves the activation of the mirror neurone system which then ‘mirrors’ the understanding from the story to themselves as if they had been there and it then becomes an embedded part of their knowledge and understanding.

Neuroscientists have also found that retelling (or reading) stories and jokes involve the creation of cerebral interconnectivity and neural systems. As a result of this processing, the punch line is understood, or the characterisation is taken beyond the literal word and ‘new’ meaning and understanding is made. This ‘realisation’ of the joke is similar in approach to that of a ‘eureka’ moment when a solution is seen in a scientific or mathematical problems.

The key point here is for teachers to intentionally put children in someone else's shoes through the use of story and in this way they can practice out ideas and feelings as if in a real socially bound situation. It is then but a short jump to propose that through rich 'storyness', using analogy, metaphor and other cueing devices, certain story types are able to stimulate a complex neural system in the brain and in doing so help develop higher order thinking capabilities such a causality, seriation and deductive reasoning.

This evolving understanding of how the brain works draws on the research evidence from neural-imaging which has shown that the same neural systems are drawn on for very different cognitive abilities such as spatial, verbal, language, logic, mathematics and memory (Geak 2009 p 94) and why it is likely that narrative seriation and logical reasoning can be enhanced by undertaking related but very different activities such as reading quality story books.

Bibliography

Adey, P., Robertson. A., Grady. V. (2001) Let’s Think. A Programme for Developing Thinking in Five and Six Year Olds. nfer Nelson.

Alexander, R.J. (2008) Towards Dialogic Teaching: Rethinking Classroom Talk. (4th edition) Dialogos

Geared, .J. G. (2009)The Brain School. Educational Neuroscience in the Classroom. McGraw Hill

Harlen, W, (2010) Principles and Big Ideas of Science Education. Association for Science Education.

Below is a list of some KS1 books used by Warwick University Primary PGCE trainees. They were set the challenge to ‘use a book as a hook’ for the development of science enquiry (Sc1) from a KS1 type book. They designed and trialled these sessions in classrooms and then presented their ideas to each other using ‘Prezi’ and saw the possibilities associated with using KS1 books for KS2 science! To learn more about using Prezi see: