Bert was a participant in the Understanding Science project. Bert was interviewed in Y10 and asked about the topics he had been studying, which included circulation in biology, static electricity in physics and oxidation in chemistry. He has talked about protons, electrons and atoms in both chemistry (studying atomic structure) and physics (studying static electricity), and was asked if this could also link with biology:
I: Do you think there are any links with Biology?
B: Yeah, well there are lots of atoms in you. And we did about the nucleus which we’ve been doing about in Biology. I’m not sure if there’s a link between it, but.
I: Ah, that’s interesting, so
B: ‘cause we did about plant and animal cells in Biology, so it’s got a nucleus....as I was saying about the blood cells and things. We were doing about the animal and plant cells and, you know, we were seeing what’s the same between them and what’s different.
…
I: So what’s the nucleus then?
B: It’s kind of like erm, the brain of the cell kind of. It’s, it’s what gets the cell to do everything, it’s like, the core of the cell.
I: Okay. And why is there a connection with Chemistry or the Physics then?
B: Because erm, we were doing, we were doing in Chemistry about the nucleus has the - neutrons and the protons in the nucleus, then around it is a field of electrons.
I: …So why is that a connection then? Why is that a connection between the Biology and the Chemistry and the Physics?
B: Well it’s just the nucleus comes under both of them.
I: Comes under both of them. So is it the same thing?
B: I wouldn’t have thought so, but because when I think of electrons and neutrons I think of electricity, which I don’t really think of in our, in our bodies but it could be perhaps. We haven’t been told about that.
So there is ambiguity in Bert's report: the nucleus comes up in chemistry and physics in the context of atoms, and in biology in the context of cells. Although the term is the same, so there is at least that connection, Bert "wouldn’t have thought" it was the same thing in these different contexts…but then "it could be perhaps" as they had not been told otherwise. (A possible subtext here being: surely the teachers would have pointed out this was something different if they were going to use the same word for two different things in science lessons?)
The use of the same word label, nucleus, for the rather different nuclei in atoms and cells has potential to act as a linguistic learning impediment (a form of associative learning impediment) as one meaning will likely be established when a learner meets the other use of the word. It perhaps makes matters worse that part of the meaning, the central component, is the same, than if the usage was clearly totally unrelated. Not only that, but for Bert, these were components of similarly microscopic entities (see below).
From the perspective of the science teacher, there is little basis for confusing the nucleus of an atom with that of a cell: obviously a cell is a complex entity with many components, each of which has itself a complex molecular structure - so clearly the atomic nucleus is on a scale some orders of magnitude smaller than a cell nucleus. However, the expert perspective is based on relating a lot of knowledge that the novice may not yet have, or at least, may not yet be coordinating. In Bert's case, he was only just starting to coordinate these ideas (see The cell nucleus is probably bigger than an atomic nucleus).
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Dr Keith S Taber kst24@cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
© Keith S Taber