Keith S. Taber
Sophia was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. Sophia (then in Y7) had been burning materials in science. She had burnt some paraffin in a small burner (a glass burner with a wick). Her understanding of the process was not in terms of a chemical reaction, but at a more 'phenomenological' level:
So what happens to paraffin when it burns then?
It keeps on burning… but you, you can put it out easily as well…. we just blew it out…
I see, but otherwise it just carried on burning, did it? Did it carry on burning for ever, if you don't blow it out?
No, 'cause it would run out.
What would it run out of?
The paraffin.
So where does the paraffin go then?
(There was a pause, of about 4 seconds. Sophia laughs, but does not offer answer.)
And what happens to the level of the paraffin in the burner?
It gets lower and lower.
So why's that, what's happened to it?
'cause you are using all of it up, when it's burning.
So it get all used up does, it – so what happens when it's all used up?
You have to refill it.
So for Sophia the burning of paraffin is not seen in terms of basic chemistry (what happens to the substance paraffin during the process of burning?), but rather she seems to interpret what she has seen in terms of everyday ideas – stuff, such as fuels, get used up – if we use it, we no longer have it.
The final question in this sequence ('what happens when it's all used up') is not treated in scientific terms (e.g., from the perspective of the conservation of matter, there is an issue of where the 'stuff' what was the paraffin has gone), but in practical terms: when we use up the fuel in the burner, we need to refill it to do more burning.
Here, understanding in 'everyday' or 'lifeworld' terms seems to dominate her thinking: the familiar idea that things get used-up obscures the scientific question of what happens to the matter in the fuel. Presumably, her teacher wanted her to focus on the scientific perspective, where burning is combustion, a type of chemical change, but it appears her life-world perspective acted as a grounded learning impediment – an existing way of thinking about a phenomenon that is taken for granted and obscures the scientific perspective.
The everyday way of understanding the world could be called the natural attitude. It seems that for Sophia it is 'just natural' that fuels get used up, and so there is nothing there to explain. Arguably, the work of a science teacher sometimes involves persuading students to seek explanations for things they had considered 'just natural', and so not in need of explanation.
