Piaget presented his studies of conservation as evidence of the illogical thinking of young children.

Question

a. What did he mean by the term conservation?

b. Describe one of his conservation tasks and the kinds of responses that children in the preoperational and concrete operations stages are likely to give.

c. Describe a specific way in which a child's ability to conserve is essential for learning ineither mathematics or science.

Answer 1

a. Conservation is the recognition that if nothing is added or taken away, an amount stays the same regardless of alterations in shape or arrangement.
b. The student's response might describe conservation of liquid (e.g., the water-glasses task described in Chapter 5), conservation of weight (e.g., the balls-of-clay task described in Chapter 5), conservation of displaced volume (the immersed-clay task describe in Chapter 5), conservation of number, or any other conservation task with which the student is familiar. Responses of preoperational children reflect a lack of conservation (e.g., "One has more than the other"), whereas those of concrete operational children reflect an awareness that amounts are still equal despite changes in appearance.
c. There are a number of possible responses to this question. Following are two examples:
• In mathematics, conservation of number is essential for an understanding of numbers. Children must realize that "4 is 4 is 4," no matter how the four items are arranged.
• In science, students studying the concept of weight must understand that weight stays the same regardless of physical transformations. For example, gas that is heated expands but still weighs the same as it did before.