Awakening to chemistry through storytelling and practical activities: middle school students interacting with pre-school children

Abstract

A storytelling approach has been seen as a powerful way to teach science and arouse interest and promote positive attitudes toward learning science in the early years. The purpose of our study was to determine how middle school students – Key Stage 3 (KS3) aged 12–14 in Portuguese schools – experienced learning chemistry through storytelling and how they, in turn, experienced creating stories using a storytelling approach with pre-school children. We aimed to perceive the appropriation of concepts of chemistry by the pre-school children through their drawings, the results collected during the pedagogical intervention and the recordings of the discussions between the pre-school children, the students and the pre-school teachers. The KS3 students were also given a self-assessment questionnaire as a way of assessing the pedagogical dynamics and the drive and motivation to learn chemistry. The study involved 53 children: 16 from KS3 and 37 from pre-school. The intervention took place during the KS3 students’ chemistry classes and during the pre-schoolers’ “storytelling moment”, a weekly 1 hour activity that took place at their kindergarten. We found that the use of a storytelling approach complemented with hands-on activities, as a strategy to teach acid–base content to KS3 students, contributed to their learning. Moreover, it was an important experience, which motivated them to write their stories and to prepare the activities for the pre-schoolers. We also found that the interaction of the older students with the pre-schoolers was profitable for both parts, since this type of activity promotes the acquisition of knowledge. During the “storytelling moment” and the hands-on activities with the pre-schoolers, we were able to witness that the younger students understood the concepts, enjoyed the interaction and felt captivated to learn science, through the questions they posed, the informal conversations and the drawings they made. This study showed us that the use of stories and hands-on activities is an effective strategy in motivating young people to learn chemistry.

---

Science in pre-school and middle school

Significant learning and scientific literacy have been an emphasis at secondary school, but the foundations for formal scientific education begin in pre-school. Given that, in Portugal, chemistry formal education begins in middle school – from Key Stage 3 (KS3), students aged 12–14 – we intend to underline the main purposes and challenges faced by science education in middle school and present some foundations that allow us to understand the ways and the motivation for connecting the pre-school level and the middle school level through KS3 students.

Science in pre-school education

Hollingsworth and Vandermaas-Peeler (2017) describe pre-schoolers as being active explorers who learn about the world around them through observations and communicational interactions with others during their daily routines and activities. For this reason, it may be advantageous to introduce science to students who are still in a primordial stage of development, where the understanding of several completely new concepts is taking place (Eshach and Fried, 2005; Dogru and Seker, 2012; McLean et al., 2015; Hollingsworth and Vandermaas-Peeler, 2017; Pendergast et al., 2017). Eshach and Fried (2005) present some reasons for teaching science to younger students, such as: children enjoy observing natural phenomena and actively engaging in searching for explanations for what they see; the contact with science makes children develop positive attitudes toward learning science in the future; early contact with scientific phenomena will make it easier for children to understand the concepts underlying these phenomena in the future; the use of scientifically accurate language, appropriate to the children's cognitive development, promotes a better understanding of scientific concepts; learning science allows for the development of scientific thinking.

Science is a way of understanding the world, and learning and categorizing science concepts takes place at an early age. It is agreed that preliminary concepts on science are provided by pre-schools (Dogru and Seker, 2012) and that further learning is supported in this early learning. Nevertheless, evidence shows that, at these young ages, most mental models about facts and phenomena are far from correct. Thus, improving previous mental models can be enhanced with the implementation of science related activities with children at pre-school education.

According to Skamp (2012) primary students like science when it is student-centred and this interest in science starts at a very young age. Likewise, even early childhood learners’ exploratory play might be focused on central science ideas. According to evidence young children can have reasonably sophisticated scientific understandings.

Pre-school and primary school are the key moments that trigger the emergence of the desire to learn science, which is central to prepare young people for a future that will need relatively high levels of scientific and technological literacy (Morais, 2015). Notwithstanding all the positive aspects in favour of early science teaching, the difficulty in evaluating the knowledge obtained by the students, at the end of each initiative, is considered an obstacle. Nevertheless, Chang (2012) states that children enjoy drawing and scribbling and that they use these drawings and scribbles to express themselves and to communicate their thoughts showing, through them, their levels of understanding. Thereby, drawings may be used as a tool for assessing the knowledge acquired by a child on a particular concept, as Piaget and Inhelder (1971) argue that drawings are expressions of the child's mental construction. Morais (2015) has also stated that the drawing works as a means of building knowledge and a means of communicating this knowledge. Through a drawing we are able to build and disseminate knowledge, which makes it a tool that promotes the students’ scientific literacy and, at the same time, allows the teacher to understand if the chosen strategy has led to appropriate learning of the addressed concept or phenomenon.

However, the lack of concentration of such young children is referred to as an additional obstacle to their learning in general, and to the learning of science in particular. Dogru and Seker (2012) argue that it is possible to overcome the lack of concentration by using original activities, which might be attractive to the students. Taking into account science activities in early childhood educational programs, the authors state that these activities can consider the possibility of working with the curiosity of children to boost them to make observations, to demonstrate their personal thoughts and help them to develop scientific skills and concretizing abstract concepts through their use in several daily life situations.

We may conclude that teaching young children has always been a difficult and challenging task, but hands-on activities are an effective way to actively involve and attract children to learn science because they allow children to obtain an immediate and, often, visual response from the activities in which they engage (Morais, 2015).

Science in middle school – KS3 education

It is crucial that students might value the importance of: being interested in the world around them; understanding scientific and technological advances in social, economic and environmental perspectives; engaging in the discourses of and about science; and making informed choices. Taking this into account, developing scientific literacy should be the focus of science education in the compulsory years of schooling (Hacking et al., 2001; UNESCO, 2001).

In Portugal, chemistry formal education begins in middle school (KS3) and is structured in order to enable students to: (a) become curious about the natural world and create a sense of interest in science; (b) acquire a general and broad understanding of the important ideas and explanatory structures of science as well as of scientific research procedures; (c) question human behaviour as well as science and technology environmental and cultural impact.

Regardless of the level of learning, it is not possible for students to acquire scientific knowledge only by experiencing everyday situations. The process requires a planned intervention of the teacher, who, in addition, has the responsibility to systematize the knowledge, according to students’ age, learning level and school programs. The chemistry teacher frequently faces the challenge of teaching a subject which is believed to be difficult and not so attractive (Sirhan, 2007; Dwyer and Childs, 2014). Several authors suggest that this complexity stems from the fact that chemistry knowledge is constructed by the combination of three dimensions of reality: macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic (Johnstone, 1982, 1991; Bowen, 1998; Ardac and Akaygun, 2004). Faced with this reality, the teacher will have to be creative and implement pedagogical strategies that might lead the students to a better learning of this science. Moreover, humanizing science education might help students to appreciate science as a human and value-laden activity (Sjöström and Talanquer, 2014) in which values such as objectivity, curiosity, intellectual honesty, humility and commitment to human well-being are essential. Storytelling can be considered a way to humanize the teaching and learning of science. The ideas to be learned and discussed can be included into the plot of a story. The narrative form has the potential to increase pupils’ curiosity, to develop a sense of wonder, and to help students remember and understand better (Hadzigeorgiou, 2005).

Teaching chemistry using a storytelling approach, in which KS3 students are the recipients while being the proponents of stories and hands-on activities for younger students, could be a good way to reach KS3 students and to promote an interaction that would be beneficial to both parties, resulting in the acquisition of significant knowledge.

Using a storytelling approach in science education

Reading and telling stories is something familiar to everyone and, as such, can be a way to enhance the teaching and dissemination of science among various audiences (VanOrden, 1990; Folino 2001; Wally et al., 2005; Klassen, 2010; McLean et al., 2015).

The use of stories as a pedagogical strategy to teach chemistry was introduced by Wally et al. (2005). At that time the “Harry Potter” saga, by J. K. Rowling, was quite popular among young people, and these stories were considered as an opportunity to introduce chemistry to primary school students with the help of their older colleagues. The primary school students were enthusiastic about the project because, not only was Harry Potter a familiar character, but also they would be able to take part in scientific experiments. The older students, in turn, were volunteer university students, who stated that they enjoyed playing the role of teachers and that the experience made them realize how much more science content they knew in answering the questions that elementary students asked as they completed their experiments.

VanOrden (1990), in the article “Once upon a time in the land of chemistry: a case for fantasy writing in chemistry”, also argues that fictional stories can be used to promote the learning of chemical concepts, especially when the stories are imagined by the students themselves. In this study, the students were asked to write stories in which the actions of the characters were analogous to the behaviour of ions or molecules. Thus, the students were able to learn the chemical concepts presented in each story, as well as be creative and imagine new original stories.

Morais (2015) states that by encouraging younger children to question, to make predictions, to explore and to explain the phenomena, we are helping them to become successful science students in the future and believe that storytelling is a possible way to achieve this goal with younger children. To this end, Morais wrote a book dedicated to the learning of chemistry through stories where reality intersects with fantasy, emphasizing the importance and applications of science on a day-to-day basis. They carried out an experiment, based on the book, using storytelling combined with hands-on activities in a context of informal learning, and students appeared to have enjoyed the whole experience.

In our study, we taught acid–base introductory concepts to KS3 students using the storytelling approach, and then we challenged these students to create stories and practical activities in order to interact with the pre-school children and to promote chemistry knowledge.

According to Cooke (1991), when we challenge students to write we involve them in the subjects that they are exploring. Through this approach the students might learn how to identify patterns, how to interrelate ideas, and how to build their own knowledge. The need to use scientifically accurate language in stories and practical activities, and, at the same time, make them appropriate to the younger children's cognitive development level, promotes a better understanding of scientific concepts not only for the pre-school children but also for the KS3 students (Eshach and Fried, 2005). Even though pre-school teachers use the storytelling approach, in most cases, stories are not explored from a scientific perspective. In addition, the motivation for including KS3 students in this study, connecting middle school to pre-school, is based on the thesis that cognitive development does not result from a simple interaction with the physical environment, but that it is, in fact, mediated by social interactions with one or several other individuals. Doise and Mugny (1997) argue that social interactions may be responsible for new cognitive coordination, thus illustrating Vygotsky's proposition: “what a child can do today by collaborating with others they can do alone tomorrow” (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 104). By asking children to learn new and complex subjects from teenagers’ stories and not from an unknown adult, who might be perceived as a figure of authority, we expect to create a learning environment free from the effects of conformity or obedience. In addition, this educational experience will lead to changes in KS3 students’ usual social position, since their role and context are challenged, occurring what Bronfenbrenner (1979) called “ecological transition”. An ecological transition will happen when a KS3 student, at pre-school, presents his story and explains the hands-on activity to the pre-school children as if he was the teacher. Though there is some literature on the way students learn through storytelling (Van Orden, 1990; Folino 2001; Wally et al., 2005; Klassen, 2010; McLean et al., 2015), studies about ecological transition and about how creativity (e.g. role-taking and content creation) is perceived by students themselves are more necessary than ever. This shift has been stressed as paramount by scholars such as Livingstone (2010) to understand the challenges faced by contemporary education.

This study might contribute to the field of science education and, in particular, chemistry education, because it is not only focused on chemical knowledge (as a desirable final product of the learning process) but also on the process through which the KS3 chemistry students and pre-school children live their learning experiences, where the former creates content and takes the role of a teacher and the latter connects with elder children who are more knowledgeable.

Accordingly, we tried to answer to the following questions:

(1) What kind of stories and activities were developed and implemented by KS3 chemistry students with pre-schoolers?

(2) How did KS3 chemistry students live the experience of (i) learning chemistry through storytelling and (ii) creating stories and using a storytelling approach and hands-on activities with pre-school children?

(3) What chemistry concepts did the pre-school children use in their drawings?

Methods

Participants and setting

This study involved 53 students from two educational levels: 16 KS3 students, from one class, ages ranging from 13 to 14 years old; and 37 pre-school children, from 2 different classes, aged between 4 and 5 years old. All participating KS3 students were male, which was a coincidence, since they belonged to mixed gender classes (with 24 students, but just the volunteers participated according to the ethical principles described below). The interaction with the older students took place during 6 chemistry classes and with the pre-schoolers during the “storytelling moment”, a weekly 1 hour activity at their kindergarten for 2 weeks.

Procedure and materials

First, it is important to note that prior to its implementation, the School Director, the students and their parents (both KS3 students and pre-schoolers) as well as the teachers involved were informed about the research objectives – stressing the reason for which the research was important, to suggest how the probable participant will possibly be helping future teachers and/or students by participating in it (Taber, 2014). Bearing in mind the basic democratic principle that individuals have a right to make a free choice over if they want to contribute to a study or not (British Educational Research Association, 2011), students freely chose whether or not to participate in the research, and it was made clear that no sanctions would be applied against the non-participants. Additionally, parental consent was requested for students’ participation in the research. It was also made clear to the students, when relevant and appropriate, that there were no “right” or “wrong” answers or attitudes, in order to collect their most honest and sincere responses to all questions and challenges.

A Overall description of the pedagogical intervention. Table 1 shows an overall description of the pedagogical intervention project, in order to facilitate the understanding of the implementation process and how the data collected link to our research questions.

Table 1 A comprehensive description of the pedagogical intervention project

Stage	Proponents	Recipients	Pedagogical strategy	Instruments and sources of data	Research questions
I	KS3 students	Pre-schoolers	Writing of the stories by the KS3 students and storytelling moment with the pre-schoolers	Stories and team hands-on activities	RQ1
			Preparation and execution of hands-on activities related to the stories
II	Pre-schoolers	KS3 students and teacher	Elaboration of drawings related to the scientific topics depicted in the stories	Drawings	RQ3
III	Chemistry teacher	KS3 students	Pedagogical experience lived by students	Questionnaire “Storytelling and the teaching of chemistry” (Appendix 1)	RQ2
				Direct observation

---

In the following sections, we are going to present in a more detailed way each stage provided in Table 1.

B Stage I: story writing and the hands-on activity preparation. According to the results of recent projects (for example, the TEMI project, founded by the European Commission, which intended to promote new pedagogical dynamics by challenging the students to solve different kinds of mysteries), introducing science concepts using mystery or surprising stories is a way to engage students in the learning process by seducing them to solve the mystery (Dittmar et al., 2015; Peleg et al., 2015).

In order to teach the concepts of acids and bases to the KS3 students, a search for stories was carried out. However, the search resulted in only small excerpts of stories or texts with the goal of communicating content, ignoring the mystery or the surprise that usually underlies the story. To solve this problem, we wrote a small story “The silence of a defendant”, which starts with the description of a normal day in the life of the Bourbon family where, through the dialogues between the various characters, examples of acids and bases emerge, easily found in daily life (see Appendix 2).

A supplementary laboratory activity was designed to follow the story, and the students were invited to play the role of a “forensic analyst” and analyse the samples referred to in the story, as they tried to unravel the mystery surrounding the death of Mr Bourbon.

The KS3 students were introduced to the story during the chemistry class by their teacher. They were then asked to carefully read the story and answer the questions in order to organize all the information presented by the text and to allow them to solve the mystery behind it. At this time, the students had not formally addressed the concepts of acids and bases. It was through the story that they were able to identify acids and bases as well as their characteristics. The subject would later be formally consolidated in subsequent lessons.

On completion of the first part of the educational experience, in which the KS3 students experienced learning chemistry through a storytelling approach using a story written by their teacher, we wanted to challenge them to experience creating stories and using a storytelling approach with the pre-school children.

Story writing and hands-on activity preparation by KS3 students for the pre-schoolers took place during six sessions of a 50-minute tutoring class, present in the students’ normal schedule, which was also taught by the chemistry teacher.

The KS3 students, divided into 4 groups of 4 students, wrote the stories and organized the hands-on activities on the topics: atmospheric pressure, states of matter and changes of state.

The chemistry contents to be addressed in the new stories, as well as the activities, to be prepared by KS3 students, were debated and selected by the students in the group and, later, approved by the chemistry teacher, taking into account the official learning goals set for pre-school education by the Department for Education (Ministério da Educação). This document stresses the importance of science in general, and biology, physics and chemistry in particular, as a driving force behind child development. In the document, it is said that meteorology knowledge (wind, rain, etc.) is a subject of interest for the children and that it should be treated in greater depth, in addition to observation and recording (Silva et al., 2016).

The chemistry teacher continuously reviewed the stories as they were written by the students to ensure that the used language would be suitable to the target audience and still be scientifically correct.

Once the final versions of the stories were written, the KS3 students started preparing the hands-on activities based on the stories and the subjects addressed.

After concluding the activities, the students used the potential of the ICT and prepared several digital resources (such as images, PowerPoint presentations and animations), which were later used as a support of the storytelling and laboratorial activities. The chemistry teacher checked and scientifically validated all the material produced by the KS3 students before it was presented to the pre-school children.

C Stage I and II: interaction between KS3 students and pre-school children. The interaction between the older students and the pre-schoolers happened on two separate days:

• Groups 2 and 3 presented their stories and activities in the first day, for 1 hour, to pre-school group A (18 children, 4 years of age).

• Groups 1 and 4 presented their stories and activities two days later, also for 1 hour, to pre-school group B (19 children, aged 5).

The pre-schoolers sat in a circle around the older students while the stories were read, complemented with projected images and animations. In the end, the pre-schoolers participated in the hands-on activities.

The KS3 students then requested the pre-schoolers’ teachers to organize a workshop where the younger students would have an opportunity to draw about what they had just experienced. A few days later they collected the drawings and examined them.

D Stage III: KS3 students answer a questionnaire about the pedagogical experience. Following the project's completion, the KS3 students were handed an anonymous and confidential questionnaire (see Appendix 1) where they were invited to give their opinion about the following aspects:

✓ Exploring the story “The silence of a defendant” – questions 1–3;

✓ Elaborating the stories and the hands-on activities – questions 4–5;

✓ Carrying out the project with the pre-schoolers – questions 6–8.

The questionnaire was answered through a 6-point Likert scale, with 1 meaning “completely disagree” and 6 meaning “completely agree”.

At this stage, some direct observation took place.

Data analysis. Data were collected in order to assess the impact of the project at three different moments:

(I) During the introduction of the acid–base concepts to the KS3 students by the chemistry teacher using the story.

(II) After the elaboration of the stories and hands-on activities by the older students, these materials were assessed by the teacher using categories that are going to be described below.

(III) After the storytelling and the hands-on activities with the pre-schoolers, the older students were given a self-assessment questionnaire about the pedagogical strategy adopted. Considering the small sample size of the present study and also the purposes of the current study, we did not calculate an internal consistency score. Thus, instead of using aggregate scores – which would depend on good reliability – we chose to analyse the descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) of each item as we are going to present. As to the content validity of the instrument, an initial assessment of the questionnaire face validity was conducted (Judd et al., 1991), having been complemented with a pilot study with some KS3 students that were not taking part in the study. Moreover, results appear to show good convergent validity (Judd et al., 1991) as they are in line with direct observations of the students’ behaviours. For example, they reported high interest which is coherent with their engagement in the activity which would not contribute to their grade. The pre-school children, on the other hand, were asked to describe their learning experience through drawings, representing the knowledge acquired with the stories and the activities that their older colleagues prepared for them. The drawings were subsequently analysed.

The categorisation of the materials created by the students, such as the stories written by the KS3 students and the drawings created by the pre-school children, was carried out according to five categories, which were obtained through an expert discussion, – aesthetic sensitivity, scientific and technical accuracy, originality, suitability to the goals and personal appropriation (Table 2) – and later analysed. Though rated on a scale from 1 to 5 by the chemistry teacher and by a “blind judge” (a chemistry teacher not involved in the study) in order to reach a higher level of objectivity, given the qualitative focus of the present research, this heuristic procedure gives place to a qualitative, meaningful description of the stories and hands-on activities created by the students, according to previous reported categories. The question is not to assess learning, but rather the way students have built their stories and hands-on activities to deliver scientific knowledge to younger children. Only via a qualitative approach, we can extract insights about the process of writing and delivering stories with chemistry.

Table 2 Description and some examples of items addressed in each category

Category	Description	Examples of items addressed
Aesthetic sensitivity	Careful, pleasant and appellative presentation of the materials	• Visual consistency
		• Simplicity of design
		• Colour balance
		• Legibility – presentation quality of graphics, texts, and images
		• Style consistency and formatting
Scientific and technical accuracy	Coherent organization of contents	• Relevance of the titles and the adequacy with the corresponding sections
	Language simplification without compromising scientific accuracy	• Absence of scientific errors or omissions of relevant information
		• Lack of grammatical or other errors
		• Clear, objective language, without useless or incorrectly stated expressions
Originality	Innovative and creative materials and approaches	• Create affective scenarios
		• Create mystery and challenging adventures
		• Use analogies and comparisons
		• Use hands-on materials that are easily accessible on a daily basis
		• Recall innovative approaches (such as gamification)
Suitability to the goals	Committed to the themes to be addressed and suitable for the target audience	• Content appropriate to the intended audience
		• Adequacy of contents in relation to learning objectives
Personal appropriation	Expression of scientific contents addressed in the pedagogical activity experienced	• Correct evocation of scientific contents learned
		• Use of new concepts in new contexts
		• Picture the experiences lived in the drawings made, through the representation of objects, persons, actions, etc.

---

The “blind judge” and the chemistry teacher autonomously encoded all the materials produced by the students and later compared both their analyses. The different assessments were validated by a group discussion (verbal validation). The engagement of the students, their behaviour, and the effort put into the creation of the stories and activities were also assessed through the observations and records of the teacher.

Presentation of results

The stories and the hands-on activities created by the KS3 students (RQ1)

The stories created and the hands-on activities developed by each KS3 student group constitute themselves a result of this project. Taking this into account we present them in Table 3 and we added some descriptive information that allows a better understanding of the stories and the activities (see Appendix 3).

Table 3 Stories and the hands-on activities developed by each of the KS3 students group

KS3 group	Story	Activity
1	I. The Adventure of Gutin, Tânia and Carlos	A. Game about the states of matter
2	II. Antonieto's day	B. Homemade thermometer
3	III. John and chemistry	C. The water cycle
4	IV. The life of an Eskimo	C. The water cycle

---

The categorisation of the stories and the hands-on activities created by the KS3 students was carried out according to five categories already presented in Table 2.

Most of the stories created by the KS3 students are simple and creative compositions, given the target audience (students from pre-school education), but reflecting special attention to scientific and technical accuracy. In general, the stories presented the absence of scientific errors or omissions of relevant information and lack of grammatical or other errors, reaching the desired level of scientific and technical accuracy. Both stories and subsequent hands-on activities show originality – through the creation of affective scenarios, mystery and challenging adventures – and aesthetic sensitivity because they have good quality of visual elements such as graphics, texts, images and adequate use of colours and formatting, the stories having a high level of visual consistency. The stories and hands-on activities are suitable to the learning goals proposed and revealed KS3 students’ personal appropriation of the contents that they wanted to explore with pre-school children.

The stories “The Adventure of Gutin, Tânia and Carlos” (group 1) and “The Life of an Eskimo” (group 4) show a very good integration between the scientific content and the plot of the story. The stories were creative, often resorting to the use of personifications, for instance: “When Tânia [the turtle] and Carlos [the crab] reached Gutin's [the penguin] home they were very surprised”, in the story “The Adventure of Gutin, Tânia and Carlos”; “his only companion was the wise dolphin Tobok” in the story “The Life of an Eskimo”. This writing style, which is very common with cartoons, appeared to be very dear to the target audience. In addition, their content was appropriated for the intended audience.

In the story “Antonieto's day” (group 2) the main character wondered how a scientist makes the weather forecast because he wanted to go to the beach and didn’t know if the next day would be or not a hot sunny day. So, the story's plot showed in a clear and objective language Antonieto's adventures to find how scientists make the weather forecast. KS3 students used new learned concepts such as temperature in a new scenario to answer Antonieto's wonder.

Finally, the plot of the story “John and chemistry” (group 3) took place in John's kitchen where different changes of matter could be found. The changes of matter found were the starting points to explore some properties of the states of mater that were described in a dialog between John and his mother, presenting no relevant scientific errors and applying some scientific contents previously learned by KS3 students.

The stories seem to promote the explanation of ideas and concepts and the hands-on activities, in turn, allow the use of information in new situations and drawing connections among ideas.

Group 1 described the states of matter in their story. To complement it, the students imagined and designed a game of cards with images of several common materials for the pre-schoolers to identify the physical state. This activity was very original since KS3 students used gamification as an innovative approach to discuss the properties of the states of matter. These cards presented simplicity of design, colour balance, legibility and style consistency. Because of that we considered that this activity meets the desired aesthetic sensitivity.

Group 2 wrote a story focused on the weather forecast applying the concepts learned in a new context. In their intervention with the pre-schoolers, they built a homemade thermometer, using daily basis materials such as a glass and a straw to build a thermometer to explain the concept of temperature which, as well as the atmospheric pressure, affects the weather forecast. The device created was not able to measure the exact value of the room temperature, it only allowed it to be evaluated whether the temperature had increased or decreased. In this way, the pre-schoolers could check that, when they placed the jar on ice, the membrane got a concave surface causing the plastic tube to move upwards. On the other hand, when they placed the jar on boiling water, the membrane got a convex surface, causing the plastic tube to move downwards (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Qualitative “thermometer”.

This apparatus was sensible to temperature and atmospheric pressure changes. However, the change in the air pressure inside of it made the membrane move. But once we put the apparatus into boiling water and into ice, the effect of eventual changes of atmospheric pressure was not significant during the activity and the objective of building a qualitative thermometer was achieved.

Groups 3 and 4 wrote stories about changes of state. Their option was accepted because every group has addressed this topic with different strategies and presented their story to different pre-school classes. The groups collaborated in the construction of a colourful model demonstrating the water cycle. The students used materials that were easily accessible on a daily basis such as an aquarium, water and building blocks. With this, they created a system to emulate planet Earth: water at the bottom of the tank, representing the river or the sea; building blocks representing the land; and a film covering the top representing the clouds (where water vapour condenses and precipitates). The assembly was kept under the Sun for several hours and some water went from liquid to gas. The water vapour condensed when it came into contact with the film and originated droplets of water that got bigger and bigger. When the film was overloaded (i.e., when “the clouds” were saturated with water), it was found that the drops of water began to fall both on the land and on the water at the bottom of the aquarium (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Model of the water cycle.

The hands-on activities were, in some cases, directly connected with the story, and in other cases they were more related to their scientific content. For example, for “states of matter” (group 4) and “changes of state” (group 3), the students conducted a laboratorial activity where they portrayed the water cycle using a model built by both groups.

Although their story was not about the water cycle the topics addressed in their stories were related to the changes of state which occur in the water cycle. The practical activity implemented by group 2 was the construction of a thermometer, which was in accordance with the contents of their story where the main character also decided to build an artefact for measuring the temperature.

Questionnaire answered by the KS3 students and direct observations (RQ2)

Chart 1 shows the students’ answers to the questionnaire (see Appendix 1). As can be seen in Chart 1, virtually all questions show an identical and positive median (5 points), with the exception of the question about the perceived difficulties whose median is 4.

Chart 1 KS3 students’ answers to the questionnaire.

For the first four questions, the values vary between 3 and 6. The interquartile range lies between 4 and 5.5, with the exception of question 2, whose interquartile variation lies between 4 and 5. Questions 5 to 8 deserve an individualized analysis. Question 5, in addition to presenting the lowest median, as already mentioned, shows a wider range of results, from 1 to 6, which covers the entire range of the scale. The interquartile range lies between the values 3 and 5. Question 6 shows a minimum in the first quartile (i.e., 4), whereas the third quartile corresponds to 5.5 and the maximum value to 6.

Questions 7 and 8 present the lowest interquartile variation and denote the presence of extreme values (outliers) or presumably extreme values. Thus, question 7 has an extreme value, 3, coinciding with the first quartile to the minimum value and to the median (5), the third quartile to 5.5 and the maximum value to 6. For its part, question 8 presents a lower presumably extreme value, 3, and a minimum value, 4. The interquartile range lies between 4.5 and 5 (coinciding the median to the third quartile). Also note that question 8 has a presumably extreme value, 6.

Given the results, we consider it appropriate to make a more detailed description and comparative analysis between questions 2 and 5 and questions 7 and 8. Comparing questions “2. Motivation for chemistry” and “5. Perceived difficulty” we tried to understand if difficulties encountered by the KS3 students in the production of stories and hands-on activities for the younger students are correlated with the motivation of the students for these strategies.

In turn, with the comparison between question “7. Young children's enjoyment and understanding” and question “8. Young children's motivation” we wish to ascertain whether the motivation of the pre-school children is correlated with the understanding of the contents presented.

The analysis of Chart 2 shows us that most of the students answered yes to the second question, thereby revealing that they considered the stories as a nice approach to motivating them to study the acid–base topic in the chemistry classes. The students also said, during informal chats, that they would like to study chemistry through storytelling, which is consistent with their answers to the questionnaire. Nevertheless, they were divided about the writing activity, as 13 students confessed that they had difficulties in writing the new stories (Chart 3).

Chart 2 KS3 students’ answers to question “2. Motivation for Chemistry”.

Chart 3 KS3 students’ answers to question “5. Perceived difficulty”.

Yet, these difficulties do not seem to interfere with their motivation to continue the project because question 4 (Chart 1), where they were asked if they felt motivated to write the story, was answered with a yes by the vast majority of students.

Questions 7 and 8 were intended to assess the opinion of the students about their experience with the pre-schoolers. These questions aimed to assess whether the KS3 students enjoyed playing the role of a teacher to the younger students; if they had perceived that the pre-schoolers had actually assimilated the chemistry concepts and the motivation for the learning of chemistry that they wished to convey.

Their answers showed that they were inclined to evaluate it as a very positive experience. In question 7 (Chart 4) students rated their performance with the maximum value, thus stating that they felt that the pre-schoolers enjoyed the project and understood the message that they attempted to deliver through the stories and practical activities.

Chart 4 KS3 students’ answers to question “7. Young children's enjoyment and understanding”.

In the last question (Chart 5), the students were once again self-confident about their performance and answered affirmatively to the question “Do you think that you have motivated the younger students to study chemistry?”.

Chart 5 KS3 students’ answers to question “8. Young children's motivation”.

As a rule, the analysis of the KS3 students’ answers to the questionnaires shows us a tendency to consider the experience as positive, both for their learning as chemistry students and for the pre-schoolers.

The only less positive aspect suggested by the older students was the difficulty that they experienced in writing a story with scientific content and appropriate to the age of the audience, which can, perhaps, be attenuated if similar strategies are used with greater frequency.

These data must, nevertheless, be evaluated with prudence since there were only 8 items in the questionnaire.

We may reinforce from the direct observations, made throughout the process of writing the stories and designing the practical activities, that this project has motivated and has awakened the interest of the KS3 students. It is also important to emphasize the enthusiasm and responsibility expressed by these students knowing that they were working on a project to teach science to younger students. Most of the KS3 students were more at ease with carrying out the hands-on activities because they had already been involved in the first part of the project – the storytelling – and, therefore, they felt more comfortable interacting with their audience.

The drawings of the pre-school children (RQ3)

The pre-schoolers were always very interested and curious regarding our presence and the activities developed, being very attentive during the reading of the stories and interacting with enthusiasm with the speakers at the end.

As for the practical activities, the pre-schoolers were also very receptive. They interacted in a very dynamic way with the activity and with the older students.

An overall examination of the pre-school children's drawings allows us to say that all students, regardless of their age, were able to illustrate at least one element related to the scientific content of one of the stories or activities. There is, however, an apparent trend: the younger students (Group A – 4 years old) always chose to represent the characters of the stories, while the older students (Group B – 5 years old) showed a larger variety of elements. Most of the illustrations of group A refer to the water cycle activity related to one of the stories read in this class. The drawings of group B are very homogeneous in terms of content, because all students, except one, have portrayed the Eskimo from the story “The life of an Eskimo” written by group 4.

More than half of group B students have chosen to draw a thermometer, which was present in the practical activity of group 2, while the other students highlighted the environmental problems addressed in the story of group 4, as the melting of ice worldwide (representing liquid water), and pollution, through the representation of industrial plants and a black cloud appearing in one of the illustrations of the story (Fig. 3). The drawings by group A (4 years old) also show consistency in the illustrations, as most of the students drew the water cycle (Fig. 4); some of them chose to draw only the precipitation process, while others have represented a distinction of the states of matter (Fig. 5) and only one student represented the process described in the story “John and chemistry”, placing the juice in the freezer and the freezing of the juice (Fig. 6). The texts shown in the pre-school children's drawings were recorded by their teachers at the request of the students themselves.

Fig. 3 Pollution and the characters of the story “The life of an Eskimo”. [(A) “bad cloud”; (B) “ice breaking up”; (C) “eskimo”; (D) “dolphin”; (E) “sewage”; (F) “sky”; (G) “acidic cloud”; (H) “thermometer”; (I) “world”].

Fig. 4 Water cycle – precipitation process. [(A) “The aquarium with the water cycle”].

Fig. 5 Differentiating the states of matter. [(A) “The rain in the liquid state”; (B) “The building block in the solid state”].

Fig. 6 Freezing of the juice. [(A) “The girl put the juice in the freezer and it was in the liquid state”; (B) “Then the girl went to see the juice and it was in a cube. It was in the solid state”].

Discussion

In this article, we described a combined strategy for teaching and learning where: (i) the formal teaching of chemistry of KS3 students is completed with the production of stories and chemistry hands-on activities; (ii) storytelling and hands-on activities are completed with the illustration of the stories and of the activities through drawing trying to arouse interest in chemistry of pre-school children.

In this work we have developed and implemented a pedagogical strategy which took place in two different moments with different factors as shown in Fig. 7. First, the chemistry teacher created a story and a group of hands-on activities to teach acid–base concepts to the KS3 students as a role model of the pretended dynamics. Then, KS3 students created their own stories and planned the respective hands-on activities in order to replicate the model dynamics with pre-schoolers. On the other hand, the younger students, supported by the pre-school teacher, created drawings related to the KS3 students’ intervention. Finally, these drawings came to the chemistry teacher who proceeded to their content analysis.

Fig. 7 Schematic model of the implemented pedagogical strategy.

Although we had only a small sample, we can say that this study gave us good indicators, which are consistent with the literature (VanOrden, 1990; Folino, 2001; Wally et al., 2005; Klassen, 2010; McLean et al., 2015), for the use of storytelling (both the writing of the stories and the reading of the stories) complemented with hands-on activities as an effective pedagogical strategy to motivate children to learn science in general and chemistry in particular.

Therefore, answering our research questions, it was possible to verify that the implementation of the story “The silence of a defendant” and the execution of its laboratorial activity, which involved the concepts of acid, base, acid–base indicators and pH scale, had a good reception by the KS3 students and contributed to their learning. In addition, due to older students’ questionnaire answers and to their engagement in proposed dynamics, we could infer that this pedagogical strategy had a positive impact in their learning of chemistry contents. We also believe that this starting point – the use of a story to learn chemistry – was important for motivating them to write their own stories and to design activities targeted at the pre-school children.

The stories were original and creative emphasizing particular scientific-related contents. For instance, the story “The Adventure of Gutin, Tânia and Carlos” (group 1) describes a dialog among Gutin, a penguin, Tânia, a turtle and Carlos, a crab, about the states of matter and the changes of state that were found in their daily life. The story “The life of an Eskimo” (group 4) presents a plot that climate changes have a central role in the adventures of Dimitri, the Eskimo, and Tobok, the dolphin. The group 2 story, “Antonieto's day”, focuses on weather forecasts highlighting the concept of temperature. The last story, “John and chemistry” (group 3), like “The Adventure of Gutin, Tânia and Carlos” describes an adventure of John and his friends in the kitchen where the changes of the states of matter were explored. As discussed before, in KS3 students’ stories, in general, no relevant scientific errors were found and new scientific content previously learned by KS3 students was applied.

Despite the stories being creative and reflecting special attention to scientific and technical accuracy, they are simple compositions which are understandable due to the target audience. However, there are some aspects that needed to be improved. For instance, these stories don't show a traditional narrative structure composed by beginning/inciting moment, middle/climax and the end/moment of last suspense, as represented in Fig. 8, which could have helped with charming and keeping the public's attention.

Fig. 8 “Traditional Narrative Structure” today, also known as Aristotle's Arc and Freytag's Triangle (Madej, 2008).

We have seen that the interaction of the KS3 students with the pre-school children was beneficial for both the older students, who had to research the chosen theme and embody the role of a teacher during the presentation, and the pre-schoolers, who benefited from “teachers” who used more accessible language and resorted to simpler and familiar examples.

Morais (2015) states that “children's drawings have long been studied from different theoretical perspectives and scientific areas”. In fact, among a younger audience, a multimodal approach that includes drawings brings countless advantages to the learning process. The children's drawings were analysed through a content analysis technique “since it is not limited to the analysis of the texts but also addresses the analysis of the drawings, including science-related topics” (Araújo et al., 2015). Despite the fact that we have developed other research studies using drawings to understand the learning of science-related concepts by young audiences (Araújo et al., 2015; Morais, 2015), we did not find a specific taxonomy to apply to scientific drawings’ analysis that allows us to compare the elements represented in their drawings with their cognitive stage in order to get more comprehensive conclusions.

In spite of that, we were able to draw the conclusion that the communication and transmission of content have benefited from the choice of younger speakers and an even younger audience once it was found in all drawings of pre-schoolers some scientific elements related to the storytelling or to the hands-on activities.

This gives us good indicators that some scientific knowledge was transmitted from older to younger students. Furthermore, it should be noted that, in line with Wally et al. (2005), we have also found that this type of activity is an opportunity for the young “teacher-students” to realize that they actually do know more about science than what they might have thought, given the way they responded to the questions of the pre-school children about what happened in the stories and about the practical activities carried out. Projects like this, where KS3 students interact with students from pre-school, also contribute to enhance the experience of the school community, giving a positive and cohesive image of the community.

This idea is corroborated by the high motivation of the pre-school children's teachers in the involvement of their students in activities related to science, which was a valuable contribution to the implementation of our project. We also found that the students were enthusiastic about the project, although they encountered difficulties in acknowledging the scientific content present in the stories. These difficulties may be related to the novelty effect of the project and to the short duration of its implementation. So, there is a need to further improve the storytelling and the related hands-on activities to better communicate science, in general, and chemistry to a young audience attending not only their cognitive skills, social representations, and context but also to the very own specificities of this science (Morais et al., 2018).

Future projects

The project was positively received by both the pre-school children and their teachers, who even asked us to return to their schools with other themes or with implemented versions of the same themes.

5 year-old pre-school children showed a high attention span and great curiosity about all science-related topics. Thus, it seems advisable that all this curiosity and enthusiasm might be used, and enhance the contact of these youngsters with science, while at the same time, providing them with tools that will be useful when they formally study these subjects later in their life. We believe that it would be advisable to follow a pre-school class during a whole school year with projects in the chemistry area. It would allow the younger students to realize the importance of teamwork, to develop critical thinking as well as giving them a taste for science. We believe that it would be a very advantageous project for all the players and that it could contribute to the deconstruction of the image that most students have about chemistry, when they reach KS3, that it is a difficult discipline with a high failure rate.

As for the KS3 students, since they claim to be motivated about writing stories, they could be involved in the project of writing a book with stories that would allow communication and dissemination of science among younger students. This would encourage the students to keep their teamwork and to enhance their scientific literacy and their creative thinking and the writing of scientifically accurate but also simple and engaging texts.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts to declare.

Appendix 1: Questionnaire “Storytelling and the teaching of chemistry”

How to answer to the questionnaire:

This questionnaire aims to find out your opinion about learning chemistry with storytelling, combined with educational and creative hands-on activities. This also aims to find out your opinion about your experience as a pre-school “teacher”.

There are no right or wrong answers, all that is required is that you give your personal opinion and be honest and sincere.

The questionnaire is confidential and the participants will remain anonymous.

Please answer the following questions checking (✗) the value that best corresponds to your opinion, in a scale of 1 to 6 (where 1 means completely disagree and 6 means completely agree).

1. Do you think that teaching chemistry with storytelling makes the classes more dynamic?	1	2	3	4	5	6
2. Did teaching chemistry with storytelling motivate you to study chemistry?	1	2	3	4	5	6
3. If it was up to you, would you choose to learn chemistry with storytelling?	1	2	3	4	5	6
4. Did you feel motivated to write a story suitable for pre-school children?	1	2	3	4	5	6
5. Did you find it difficult writing the story?	1	2	3	4	5	6
6. Did you have fun presenting your project to the pre-schoolers?	1	2	3	4	5	6
7. Do you think that the pre-schoolers enjoyed and understood the activities that you prepared for them?	1	2	3	4	5	6
8. Do you believe that you were able to motivate the younger students to study chemistry?	1	2	3	4	5	6

Thank you for your cooperation!

Appendix 2: Excerpt of “The silence of a defendant”

“So, said Mr. Bourbon feeling enthusiastic: did you know that we just dressed our salad with acetic acid? Yes, vinegar is an acid. – he said feeling happy for his new knowledge. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law looked at the plate suspiciously.” The mystery in this story arises with Mr Bourbon's death and with the consequent police investigation trying to identify the culprit. “We found in the room several substances which can lead to the possible killer. We will send them to the laboratory and have them analysed. Meanwhile, please go to the living room, one at a time, so that we might collect your testimonies – the inspector said. The interviews were short and emotional. José Bourbon stated that, at the time of the crime, he was in the bathroom taking a shower (sample 1 – soapy water), and that his wife was still in bed. His eldest, Manuel Bourbon, said that he was in the kitchen drinking a glass of milk (sample 2 – milk) and his wife said that she was brushing her teeth (sample 3 – mix of water and toothpaste). As for the employees, Mr Amílcar reported that he was picking lemons (sample 4 – lemon juice) and Mrs Benilde said that she was unclogging a pipe in the kitchen sink (sample 5 – pipe cleaner solution). Before leaving, the detective announced: – We will do whatever we can to find the culprit as soon as possible, meanwhile we ask Mr Amílcar to hand us his boots so that we can collect a soil sample for analysis (sample 6 – mix of water and soil). (…)”.

Appendix 3: Descriptive information about the stories created and the hands-on activities developed by KS3 students

Their titles and a brief synopsis are presented below:

○ Story I (Group 1): “The Adventure of Gutin, Tânia and Carlos” – In this adventure, Gutin, the wise penguin, explains to his friends, Tânia and Carlos, the various states of matter through the examples that are found throughout the story.

○ Story II (Group 2): “Antonieto's day” – One day, the main character of this story, Antonieto, wanted to go to the beach, but he did not know if the weather would be good enough, so he searched the Internet to find out the temperature forecast for that summer day and he wondered how thermometers worked. So, he searched again and found out how to make his own thermometer.

○ Story III (Group 3): “John and chemistry” – John was a curious boy who, one day, at dinner, wondered why the juice turned solid after some time in the freezer. So, his mother informed him about the states of matter and the changes of state that can occur on a day-to-day basis.

○ Story IV (Group 4): “The life of an Eskimo” – Dimitri, the Eskimo, and Tobok, the dolphin, were two friends. During the story, Tobok explains to Dimitri the danger that the melting of ice worldwide represents to his species and asks him to beg the humans to stop pollution.

○ Activity A: “Game about the states of matter”, designed by the students in group 1, whose story was “The adventure of Gutin, Tânia and Carlos”. These students created a card game about the states of matter. Each card in the game had the image of a different material and the younger students were challenged to identify the physical state of the material shown in the image. This activity allowed the younger students to classify the materials as solids, liquids and gases as well as to identify characteristics of the different states of matter.

○ Activity B: “Homemade thermometer”, developed by the students in group 2, whose story was “Antonieto's day”. The students in this group helped the younger ones making their own thermometer, which consisted of a glass jar with a transparent membrane that sealed the opening, so that air would not enter or come out of the jar. They glued a small plastic tube on top of the membrane. When the temperature rises, the air inside the glass expands, and so does the membrane, forcing the plastic tube to move up. On the other hand, when the temperature falls, it creates a lower pressure under the membrane and the plastic tube moves down. The pre-school children were able to witness that, by placing the jar in boiling water and in ice.

○ Activity C: “The water cycle” developed by the students in group 3, whose story was “John and chemistry”, together with the students in group 4, whose story was “The life of an Eskimo”. These two groups of students built an illustrative model of the water cycle. The model consisted of an aquarium filled with water with a film sealing the opening.” During the execution of the tasks KS3 students identified the physical states of water and the changes of state which occur during the water cycle comparing them with the phenomena described in the stories. For example, story III refers to the water changing from liquid water to water vapour, and the pre-school children were able to witness the evaporation and the condensation of water through the illustrative model of the water cycle. The model allowed the students to simulate a closed system that, when subjected to heating, would produce water vapour that would later condense, producing rain. A poster on the water cycle accompanied the activity, allowing the students to compare the phenomena observed in the model with the phenomena that occur in Nature. It should be noted that throughout story IV a hands-on activity dealing with pollution and climate change could also have been implemented. However, we chose to focus on the changes of state, as this science topic had been explored by the KS3 students.

Acknowledgements

José L. Araújo is supported by the FCT grant: SFRH/BD/132482/2017. The authors gratefully acknowledge all relevant suggestions from Luciano Moreira, who greatly contributed to improving the quality of this work.

References

1. Araújo J. L., Morais C. and Paiva J. C., (2015), Poetry and alkali metals: building bridges to the study of atomic radius and ionization energy, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 16, 893–900.
2. Ardac D. and Akaygun S., (2004), Effectiveness of multimedia-based instruction that emphasizes molecular representations on students' understanding of chemical change, J. Res. Sci. Teach., 41(4), 317–337.
3. Bowen C. W., (1998), Item design considerations for computer-based testing of student learning in chemistry, J. Chem. Educ.75(9), 1172–1175.
4. British Educational Research Association, (2011), Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, London: British Educational Research Association.
5. Bronfenbrenner U., (1979), The ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6. Chang N., (2012), The role of drawing in young children's construction of science concepts, Early Child. Educ. J., 40(3), 187–193.
7. Cooke V., (1991), Writing Across the Curriculum: A Faculty Handbook, Victoria, Australia: Centre for Curriculum and Professional Development.
8. Dittmar J., Ostersehlt D., Affeldt F. and Eilks I., (2015), TEMI teacher professional development in Germany: background, program and first results, in Lavonen J., Juuti K., Lampiselkä J., Uitto A. and Hahl K. (ed.), Electronic Proceedings of the ESERA 2015 Conference. Science education research: Engaging learners for a sustainable future, Part 14 (co-ed. A. Berry & D. Couso), Helsinki, Finland: University of Helsinki, pp. 2307–2312.
9. Dogru M. and Seker F., (2012), The Effect of Science Activities on Concept Acquisition of Age 5–6 Children Groups, Educ. Sci. Theor. Pract., 12(4), 3011–3024.
10. Doise W. and Mugny G., (1997), Psychologie sociale et développement cognitif, Paris: Armand Colin.
11. Dwyer A. O. and Childs P., (2014), Organic Chemistry in Action! Developing an Intervention Program for Introductory Organic Chemistry To Improve Learners’ Understanding, Interest, and Attitudes, J. Chem. Educ., 91(7), 987–993.
12. Eshach H. and Fried M., (2005), Should Science be Taught in Early Childhood? J. Sci. Educ. Technol., 14(3), 315–336.
13. Folino D., (2001), Stories and Anecdotes in the Chemistry Classroom, J. Chem. Educ., 78(12), 1615–1618.
14. Hacking M., Goodrum D. and Rennie, L., (2001), The state of science in Australian secondary schools, Aust. Sci. Teach. J., 47(4), 6–17.
15. Hadzigeorgiou Y, (2005), Humanizing the teaching of physics through storytelling: the case of current electricity, Phys. Educ., 41(1), 42–46.
16. Hollingsworth H. and Vandermaas-Peeler M., (2017), ‘Almost everything we do includes inquiry’: fostering inquiry-based teaching and learning with preschool teachers, Early Child Dev. Care, 187(1), 152–167.
17. Johnstone A., (1982), Macro and microchemistry, Sch. Sci. Rev., 64, 377–379.
18. Johnstone A., (1991), Why is science difficult to learn? Things are seldom what they seem, J. Comput. Assist. Learn., 7, 75–83.
19. Judd C., Smith E. and Kidder L. (1991), Research Methods in Social Relations, 6th edn, Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
20. Klassen S., (2010), Introduction – Stories in Science Teaching, Interchange, 41(4), 311–313.
21. Livingstone S. (2010), Children and the internet: great expectations, challenging realities, Oxford: Polity Press.
22. Madej K., (2008), “Traditional Narrative Structure” – not traditional so why the norm? in NILE 5th International Conference on Narrative and Interactive Learning Environments, Edinburgh, Scotland, pp. 6–8.
23. McLean K., Jones M. and Schaper C., (2015), Children's literature as an invitation to science inquiry in early childhood education, Aust. J. Early Child., 40(4), 49–56.
24. Morais C., (2015), Storytelling with Chemistry and Related Hands-On Activities: Informal Learning Experiences To Prevent “Chemophobia” and Promote Young Children's Scientific Literacy, J. Chem. Educ., 92(1), 58–65.
25. Morais C., Araújo J. L., Oliveira S. and Moreira L., (2018), Chemistry in a primary school: storytelling and hand-on activities about water, in Book of Abstracts of the ECRICE 2018 – 14th European Conference on Research in Chemistry Education – EuCheMS – European Chemical Sciences, Warsaw, Poland, pp. 17–18.
26. Peleg R., Mamlok-Naaman R., Katchevich D., Yayon M., Hofstein A. and Fortus D., (2015), Introducing chemistry teachers to mystery inquiry-type skills, in J. Lavonen, K. Juuti, J. Lampiselkä, A. Uitto and K. Hahl (ed.), Electronic Proceedings of the ESERA 2015 Conference. Science education research: Engaging learners for a sustainable future, Part 14 (co-ed. A. Berry & D. Couso), Helsinki, Finland: University of Helsinki, pp. 2555–2563.
27. Pendergast E., Lieberman-Betz R. and Vail C., (2017), Attitudes and Beliefs of Prekindergarten Teachers Toward Teaching Science to Young Children, Early Child. Educ. J., 45(1), 43–52.
28. Piaget J. and Inhelder B., (1971), Mental Imagery in the Child: A Study of the Development of Imaginal Representation, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
29. Silva I. L., Marques L., Mata L. and Rosa M, (2016), Orientações Curriculares para a Educação Pré-Escolar, Lisboa: Ministério da Educação/Direção Geral da Educação.
30. Sirhan G., (2007), Learning Difficulties in Chemistry: An Overview, J. Turk. Sci. Educ., 4(2), 2–20.
31. Sjöström J. and Talanquer V., (2014), Humanizing Chemistry Education: From Simple Contextualization to Multifaceted Problematization. J. Chem. Educ., 91(8), 1125–1131.
32. Skamp K. (ed.), (2012), Teaching primary science constructively, South Melbourne, Victoria: Cengage Learning, 4th edn.
33. Taber K. S., (2014), Ethical considerations of chemistry education research involving ‘human subjects’, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 15(2), 109–113.
34. UNESCO, (2001), Basic learning needs for living together in the face of globalization, in International Conference on Education (ICE), Forty-sixth session: education for all for learning to live together: Contents and learning strategies – problems and solutions.
35. VanOrden N., (1990), Once upon a Time in the Land of Chemistry: A Case for Fantasy Writing in Chemistry, J. Chem. Educ., 67(12), 1052.
36. Vygotsky L. S., (1962), Thought and language, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
37. Wally M., Levinger E. and Grainger D., (2005), Employing Popular Children's Literature To Teach Elementary School Chemistry, J. Chem. Educ., 82(10), 1489–1495.

---