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KinPilot How Things Work™/Connected ideas

Grades K–2

How can two pictures reveal a change?

A picture keeps a view of a moment after that moment has passed. A second picture can show the same place later. Together, the pictures let us notice changes that memory might miss.

H05 visual explanationOriginal fictional then-and-now park illustrations, not historical photographs. Then: one tree, one bench, two flowers. Now: one tree, 1 benches, 4 flowers. The flower count changed; the tree count stayed one. No cause is established.What changed? What stayed?Two invented park drawings · not old photosTHEN drawingNOW drawingLook at trees, benches and flowers.Changed: flower count. Same: one tree.

In the diagramWhat changed? What stayed?Two invented park drawings · not old photosTHEN drawingNOW drawingLook at trees, benches and flowers.Changed: flower count. Same: one tree.

Before-and-after pictures show visible changes. They do not always show what caused the change.

The park has two flowers in the earlier picture and four in the later one. Both pictures have one tree. Looking at the same features shows that the flower count changed while the tree count stayed the same.

Words help name exactly what changed: “more flowers” says something different from “a bigger park.” The pictures do not show who added the flowers. They also leave some places outside the view. Pictures can preserve useful clues while leaving part of the story to be learned another way.

Where these ideas lead

Illustrations simplify the real processes; any invented quantities or records are identified in the text.

Sources

  • Library of Congress — Teacher’s Guides and Analysis Tool
  • American Chemical Society — Testing Materials to Learn About Their Properties
  • American Chemical Society — The Secret Science of Bounce
  • Common Core State Standards Initiative — English Language Arts Standards: Language, Grade 1 (L.1.1.f; L.1.5.b)
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