Picturing evaporation: Learning science literacy through a particle representation.

Evaporation is mostly taught in primary schools through a water cycle representation. This has its limitations in explaining mechanisms and local effects such as drops drying in a closed room, condensation on cold surfaces, or how we smell liquids. In this paper we describe a classroom sequence of activities for Grade 5 students that explored the use of a particle model in conjunction with a range of representational modes, to explain evaporation phenomena. In interviews we explored with students their visual and verbal accounts of particles, modelling a process of teacher-mediated negotiation of multiple representations. From the evidence, we argue that difficulties in understanding evaporation are inherently representational, and that by engaging with the multiple literacies of science teachers can support significant advances in conceptual learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]