High-school students' ideas about the concept of "living-thing" and distinctive features of liveliness

Children must have a correct mental schema about the concept of for meaningful learning of many biological concepts, facts and phenomenon which have been in our lives since the first years of existence. In this study, it was attempted to determine high-school students’ mental schema about the concept of “livingthing”. For this purpose, some open-ended questions were asked to a total of 154 students between the ages of 14-15 who were studying at an Anatolian High School in Erzurum city center, and the obtained data were analyzed. In the data collection process, the students were asked to write the names of the first ten species that came to their mind first. Later, the students were asked to write what they think about living-thing and what is the meaning of “liveliness” according to them. The data obtained from written explanations of the students were analyzed and presented in tables and graphs. It is noteworthy that, the students mainly wrote the names of animal species to their lists and mammals were the dominant class among them. On the other hand, when students’ written explanations about the meaning of the concept of living-thing were analyzed, it was seen that their ideas were grouped under four major themes (physiological, mental, biological and existential features).