Effectiveness of Representation Support to Promote Understanding of Heat Transfer through Model Manipulation and Animation Viewing: An Example of Interpretation of Convection Phenomena in the Fourth Grade Elementary School Science Course “How Things are Heated Up”

Abstract

To clarify the learning effect of classes using granular models, a model of concrete objects in which learners can represent and manipulate thermal phenomena dynamically, and an animation that shows the representational operations were created. Using these, we conducted a class on how water heats up (convection), analyzed the learners’ expressive manipulations to explain thermal phenomena, and investigated whether the convection concept was formed. The results indicated that some learners changed their convection concept into a scientific interpretation after the explanatory activity using the model and animation. Therefore, the results suggest that learning to manipulate scientific representations using animation with models is effective in promoting the elaboration of convection concepts.