Quantity/potential-related elementary concepts in primary school teacher education

Primary school teachers need a training in physics robust enough to enable them to understand phenomena and new and complex situations they encounter as well as to answer the children questions and to design teaching activities. In initial teacher education, it must also be taken into account the limited scientific and mathematical background of students enrolling in university courses. Starting from an analysis of the misconception to construct a formal knowledge that teachers need to make then non-formal to teach children, is ineffective. One more appropriate way seems to be based on research in the fields of cognitive sciences that focuses on the simple structure of imagination that are used to interpret everyday phenomena. The contents of the Physics course of the Degree in Primary Education of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia have been structured in or¬der to highlight the common conceptual structures, and the specific differences, between the various contexts of the discipline. The elementary concepts such as quantity, storage, capacity, potential, current and resistance have been clarified, differentiated and built qualitatively though rigorously through a series of examples taken from everyday experience and known contexts. Analogy was introduced in the study of fluids, electricity, motion and heat, as a result of the use of the same elementary concept to interpret phenomena and processes. In this contribution we present the structure and the contents of the course according to this approach, and the results of the analysis of the worksheets about motion filled by students.