Understanding Starts in the Mesocosm: Conceptual metaphor as a framework for external representations in science teaching

Abstract

In recent years, researchers have become aware of the experiential grounding of scientific thought. Accordingly, research has shown that metaphorical mappings between experience-based source domains and abstract target domains are omnipresent in everyday and scientific language. The theory of conceptual metaphor explains these findings based on the assumption that understanding is embodied. Embodied understanding arises from recurrent bodily and social experience with our environment. As our perception is adapted to a medium-scale dimension, our embodied conceptions originate from this mesocosmic scale. With respect to this epistemological principle, we distinguish between micro-, meso- and macrocosmic phenomena. We use these insights to analyse how external representations of phenomena in the micro- and macrocosm can foster learning when they (a) address the students’ learning demand by affording a mesocosmic experience or (b) assist reflection on embodied conceptions by representing their image schematic structure. We base our considerations on empirical evidence from teaching experiments on phenomena from the microcosm (microbial growth and signal conduction in neurons) and the macrocosm (greenhouse effect and carbon cycle). We discuss how the theory of conceptual metaphor can inform the development of external representations.

Keywords:

• Embodied cognition
• Conceptual metaphor
• External representations
• Mesocosm

Acknowledgements

We thank Reinders Duit, David Treagust and the editors of this special issue for valuable and critical comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Their comments and suggestions enabled us to improve the quality of this contribution. Any remaining inadequacies are ours.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Note that the scale Johnstone proposed is different from the one Vollmer proposed (cf. Table 1). Johnstone calls the perceptible level macroscopic, while Vollmer points to the perceptible world as the mesocosm.