The objective of this research is to improve our understanding on how concepts develop and to use this knowledge to facilitate the introduction of new instructional tools. Evolutionary maps (emaps) parse the internal structure of (concrete) conceptions and map how they are constructed from perception. More specifically, emaps consist in hierarchical structures of concrete conceptions derived from the integrations made available by the successive differentiation of percepts from the target knowledge domain. This methodology is based on a vast theoretical framework that includes theorists of conceptual change (e.g. Dissessa, 2002; Fischer, 2002; Karmiloff-Smith, 1992; Mandler, 1992; Mounod, 1993; Piaget, 1989), philosophers (e.g. Bunge, 1997; Merleau-Ponty, 2002) and neuroscientists (e.g. Damasio, 1994/2006; Edelman, 2000; Llinás, 2002). Emap development starts with the identification of those perceptual differentiations that are reckoned to intervene in the target knowledge domain and proceeds with the potential integrations.

The most revealing Emap developed to date (Navarro Pastor, 2009, 2012) refers to the day-night cycle. Its tentative development considers a number of possible differentiations, such as the lit sky vs. the dark sky, the presence or not of the sun in the sky, its position in the horizon or fully in the sky, and two dimensions of movement (vertical and horizontal). The corresponding integrations lead to the day/night concepts and succession, and to a number of possible trajectories, most of which were unknown to this author and (as far as I know) had not yet been described in the academic literature. Some of these are the traffic light “trajectory” (night, sun in the horizon, sun above, sun in the horizon), the yo-yo trajectory (the sun appears on the horizon, rises to its zenith, stays there and goes back down again), the horizontal trajectory (the sun appears up in the sky, moves horizontally, and disappears at the other side of the sky), the balance beam trajectory (the sun appears on the horizon, jumps above and follows a horizontal path until it falls back to the horizon), the goal trajectory (sun goes gradually up, moves horizontally and then goes gradually down) and the correct arch trajectory. The differentiations and integrations involved in the construction of the sun’s daily cycle are required for the development of the annual cycles—regularities in the value of the culmination of the sun and in the values of the azimuth and time of sunrise and sunset. This emap has also been developed and tested (Navarro Pastor, 2011).

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