Monday, March 12, 2012

Conservation

I have a younger sister who is taller than me, and an older sister who is shorter than me. A lot of people get our ages mixed up, most of these people are children. Children have a tendancy to think that whoever is the biggest is the oldest, which most of us know is not necessarily true. This ties into the idea of conservation. Conservation is the ability to understand that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same even when their outward appearance changes. Consider this, you put the same amount of water into two different glasses. One of the glasses is really short and fat. The other glass is tall and skinny. When you ask your child which glass contains more water, what do you think they will say? The tall one of course! They answer this way because they have not developed this idea of conservation. In their little brains they think that the taller one has more, just like people think that my younger sister is older than me just because she is taller. Children develop this ability of conservation between the ages of 7 and 11. This is just one little step in their development, but it makes a big difference!
Kelsea Bedford

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed reading your post. You did a great job of explaining the meaning of conservation and used great examples. It is interesting that children automatically think this way. Even if they were to watch you pour the water into the two containers they would still say the taller one.
    -Jordan Howe

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  2. That is so true. That happens all the time when I have my nephew over to eat dinner. I make sure that we have the same amount so he doesnt get upset but he still does. It is because some of the pieces are bigger and some are smaller. I tell him that I used the same spoon for serving the food and I did the same amount. It is the same with pop! He is a greedy little fool when it comes to that but i make sure we have the same and it has to be a small amount because he will go crazy if I give him too much. But yet he wants more so he says that I have way more than him. Maybe he is being sneaky or maybe it is conservation. Who knows.

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