ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides some reflections on implications of the studies for policy and practice, including prescriptions for future work on the integrative study of children’s biological understanding in the context of the early education classroom. It discusses anthropocentric thinking with a biocentric form of moral reasoning in which the natural world has moral standing independent of its value to humans. The book demonstrates the value of interventions using storybooks that have been designed to counteract the cognitive biases that interfere with the development of scientifically informed reasoning about natural phenomena. It suggests that young children are sometimes capable of generating accurate explanations of unobservable biological phenomena despite limited guidance from adults. The book examines children’s responses to questions about values, obligations, and rights concerning endangered species.
