Representational tools and conceptual change: The young scientist's tool kit

We interpret the world and its regularities through representations and pro cedures that are a complex melange of formal experience, rules of thumb, an d naive concepts that precede formal education. These representational tool s give us the language in which we can think about science. Three propositi ons are argued: (a) that such tools are fundamental to scientific reasoning and science education; (b) that cognitive science has a great deal to say about how cognitive tools affect thinking and conceptual change, particular ly how the representations intrinsic to ordinary language relate to the sym bol systems of formal science and mathematics; and finally, (c) that cognit ive science may play a role in developing representational tools that make scientific information more accessible.