Biology, Scientific Practices, and Everyday Life Situations Within an Entertaining Mesozoic Era Setting for Young Children
摘要
Cartoon-based educational entertainment or edutainment seems interesting for biology education research. This chapter reports on a study concerning a PBS edutainment series for young children, the ‘Dinosaur Train’. The series was developed by a scientific team and uses an informed Mesozoic era setting, with a train traveling in Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous through a time tunnel, to entertain preschoolers while introducing scientific concepts and practices blended with concepts of everyday life. Our research questions are which biological concepts, scientific practices, and everyday life concepts are presented to young children through the series and how. Our NVivo analysis included coding the contents of thirty conveniently selected episodes to subcategories of biological concepts, scientific practices, and everyday life concepts and recording their frequencies. According to our findings, the series introduces appealingly essential biological concepts related to (a) interaction (ecosystem, adaptations), (b) evolution (e.g., biodiversity, fossils), (c) organisms’ distinction (e.g., carnivores-herbivores-omnivores, evergreen-deciduous), and (d) biological functions (e.g., growth). It presents scientific practices (e.g., making observations, making/testing hypotheses) as knowledge construction tools and encourages children to use them for understanding nature. Finally, it discusses concepts like emotions, diversity or friendship, which are valuable for a fulfilling life. The results are thoroughly discussed in the chapter.