Question

Can you think of any common "real-life" situations in which an understanding of conservation would allow a concrete operational child to react differently than a preoperational child?

Answer 1

Situation: Walk down an ecological path in an natural park during a field-trip.

According to Jean Piaget's (a Swiss psychologist widely known for his work on child development, and one of his land mark theories, cognitive development theory):

• a preoperational stage of development is characterized by the consolidation of language skills and a lacking of concrete logic thinking and also being unable to take the point of view of other people.
• In contrast, operational stage of development, children thinking still moves in a concrete plane,  children become much more logical and sophisticated in their thinking during this stage of development and are able to draw conclusions based on inductive logic, which is referred to as going from a concrete experience to a principle.

This being said, going back to our situation, a child in a preoperational stage of development walking down a natural park in a field trip with his family, but will probably be more concentrated on wildllife and general surrounding than on the importance of threes as shade providers, shelter food and other ecological services.

On the other hand, children in an operational stage of development in the same situation would be able to draw conclusions based on the importance of trees and the wide variety of ecological services they offer, and infer that places like the natural park (and other smaller, less complex parks) are important means of conservations.