Supporting Conceptual Understandings Outdoors: Findings from the Tree Investigators Mobile Project

Abstract

This design-based research project examines two iterations of Tree Investigators, which supports science learning with mobile devices in an arboretum. Researchers coded videorecords of children and parents (n=40 people) to understand how digital augmentations influenced observation and understandings about trees. In Iteration 1, learners focused on tree identification; Iteration 2, learners focused on tree life cycles. We focus here on Iteration 2, where children completed a pre- and post-test assessment and participated in a photographic collage task to document a tree's life cycle. Findings suggested that a touch-screen conceptual organizer that provided a model of the life cycle, along with text and contrastive images, supported people's observations. The learners also collected photographic evidence of life cycle stages in a knowledge generative task. Increases in factual and conceptual knowledge of the life cycle were observed pre- and post-test; however, learners did not show consistent appropriation of new scientific vocabulary.