Mit Lehm auf dem Weg zu den kleinsten Teilchen

Chemistry and nature - in the view of many people this is not necessarily connected. And yet, especially learning in nature offers many chances to learn science - also for chemistry. In this context, the presented work analyses to what extend the topic loam can support the learning of basic chemical concepts. The focus is on chemical learning in primary school, because direct contact to the real environment is particularly important for learning at this age.
As methodological framework the “Dortmunder Modell fachdidaktischer Entwicklungsforschung“ is chosen which was developed to design new learning environments in step with actual practice. Since there is only little reseach concerning the potential of loam for chemical learning, an explorative study following a qualitative research design is presented.
At first an overview of the technical basics of the topic is given. The focus lies on the properties of loam and observable chemical reactions. Subsequently former approaches are described in an educational analysis. Furthermore a first structuring with regard to content is described taking the "Perspektivrahmen Sachunterricht" and "Basiskonzepte für den Chemieunterricht" into account. Afterwards, a study dealing with primary school children’s conceptions of the properties of loam is presented. The focus of the investigation lies on the analysis of problem-centered interviews and teaching experiments.
The results suggest that, in particular, dealing with the plasticity of loam offers a high potential for chemical learning. Based on children’s conceptions an initiation of the basic concept structure-property-relations seems to be possible. Furthermore potential problems concerning learning with loam are revealed. A further accomplishment of this work is a new conception of the learning topic loam based on children’s ideas and containing a stepwise development of the structure-property-concept. For each level activities to support learning are presented.