Young children's conception of the biological world

What are the components of children's biological-knowledge system before systematic teaching at school? Can this knowledge system be called naive biology? We propose that young children's biological-knowledge system has at least two essential components-(a) the knowledge needed to identify biological entities and phenomena and (b) teleological and vitalistic causality-and that these components constitute a form of biology. We discuss how this naive biology serves as the basis for performance and learning in socially and culturally important practices, such as health practices and biology instruction.