Knowledge of air: A study of children aged between 6 and 8 years

The research described in the paper was aimed at verifying whether participation in physical experiments together with social interaction (with adults and school-mates) can favour children's developement of causal knowledge and their understanding of a physical complex problem. Children aged between 6 and 8 years were involved in a study of air and its properties. Tests show that exposing childrens of this age to a sequence of appropriate experiments which are carried out together with their class-mates, leads them to give up pre-causal explanations and to resort to physical ones.