Telling Insect tales: Assessing the Effectiveness of Educational Stories

The paper reports on a research project aimed at conveying scientific concepts to children through educational stories, dealing with different aspects of insect life, and assessing the success of this strategy. Each fictional story was constructed to be scientifically correct. The texts were illustrated with drawings suitable for children, but also scientifically accurate to facilitate comprehension and identification of the insects in their natural environment. Each story was supplemented with educational information, in which scientific concepts were defined in age-appropriate language. The results of learning were verified on children 8-10 years old attending cooperating elementary schools in Northern Italy. The results achieved showed that most of the children understood the scientific concepts simply by listening to and reading along with the stories. The problems encountered by children with text interpretation and learning procedures were discussed and some suggestions were made for the creation and use of educational stories for teaching science. It was concluded that this tool requires collaboration between researchers in scientific subjects relevant to the concepts that have to be conveyed, educational specialists and school teachers. It has to be emphasised that, in the wide field of scientific knowledge, entomology can represent an ideal field for this educational tool, because to most childern insect are mysterious, fascinating creatures with unusual behaviours and fantastic forms.