Brain breaks are often used during lessons to replenish childrens' attention, but children may respond differently to the variety of brain breaks they are offered. Therefore, two studies were conducted to identify both teachers' current use of brain breaks (Study 1) as well as the types of brain breaks children prefer (Study 2). Study 1 consisted…

Collaborative drawing is a multimodal approach to examining problems within small groups of individuals when the perspectives of multiple stakeholders should be considered. Collaborative drawing can be useful for helping students visualize and analyze a challenging problem from different world views and provide opportunities to confront, discuss,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of student-generated drawing and imagination on learning recall, learning transfer, and cognitive load, and also students' attitudes towards the learning strategies when learning a computer-based science text, compared to learning with provided pictures. The study used three groups: drawing…

The pollution of land, water, air, noise, light etc. threatens people, plants, animals and ecosystems. Environmental literacy is at the heart of environmental education, and environmentally literate people are expected to be aware of how to help solve environmental problems such as pollution. The purpose of the present study is to explore 5th…

Construction of developmentally appropriate tools for assessing the environmental attitudes and awareness of young learners has proven to be challenging. Art-based assessments that encourage creativity and accommodate different modes of expression may be a particularly useful complement to conventional tools (e.g. surveys), but their efficacy and…

This constructivist study investigates 225 student drawings and explanations from three different schools in the midwest in the US, to identify seventh grade students' mental models of the greenhouse effect. Five distinct mental models were derived from an inductive analysis of the content of the students' drawings and explanations: Model 1, a…

The use of drawing in the classroom has a contentious history in the U.S. education system. While most instructors and students agree that the activity helps students focus and observe more details, there is a lack of empirical data to support these positions. This study examines the use of three treatments (writing a description, drawing a…