Summary:This paper reports on a longitudinal study of pupils′ understanding of ecological processes, with emphasis on how their conceptions of matter influence the development of their understanding of those processes. A class of 25 Swedish pupils was followed from age 8 to 15 in an interview study using the revised clinical method. The pupils′ ideas were challenged by cultivating plants in closed transparent boxes and investigating leaf litter. Initially, the pupils expected the plants to die and constructed a ′use up model′ in their minds to explain how water and air were consumed. When they saw plants survive they used a ′cycle model′ to explain how the organisms maintained life-supporting resources. Some pupils thought that water, air and oxygen were formed during the cycle. Many pupils thought that soil is the ending place for matter in decomposition, with the result that the Earth would increase in size. Other pupils constructed explanations as to why the size of the Earth does not change, such as matter disappearance, displacement, modification, transmutation and chemical/biological interaction. Pupils′ ideas about the transformations of matter can be explained by their limited conception of the gaseous state.
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