Engaging young children in informal reasoning about the socio-scientific issue of climate change by means of ironic sketches

Abstract

Humorous ironic television sketches can be an approach to make children think about the socioscientific issue of climate change. However it is not known whether children aged 8 to 12 can comprehend the irony in above mentioned sketches and whether they stimulate children to engage in informal reasoning to form their own opinion on a topic such as climate change. In this study 122 children aged 8/9 or 11/12 participated in a survey, and 16 in additional individual interviews to reach in depth insights by means of triangulation. It was found that 8/9 year-olds three to four times more often failed to comprehend irony, as they mostly pick up the literal text, whereas 11/12 year-olds rely on contextual factors. Both 8/9 and 11/12 year-olds appreciated the irony in the sketches, yet preferred action and logic humor respectively. After watching both sketches, 77% of children changed their initial opinion on climate change resulting in a small positive shift (climate change considered to be no problem) on group level. Children were found to engage in all steps of informal reasoning, by evaluating and incorporating arguments from sketch’s characters into their own. All children used multiple arguments, mostly from Everyday life, Self-interest and Environmental perspectives in their argumentation. Humorous ironic sketches can be an excellent approach to engage children in informal reasoning about socio-scientific issues, especially when discussions are held afterwards to reflect on the sketch’s (ironic) arguments presented.