In this study, we investigate how young students can make use of their own disciplinary drawings to support transitions between everyday and scientific discourses of water. The empirical data consists of video-recorded stimulated recall interviews with six student pairs (age 8 years), conducted six months after they had been introduced to a water theme that included disciplinary drawing techniques. During the interviews, we provided students with their drawings as recall material. To stimulate a stalled discussion further or to support a new line of thought, we also asked supporting questions and provided the students with plastic models of water molecules, and a bottle of water. To trace their reasoning over time during the interview, the empirical material was used to construct semantic profiles for all student pairs underpinned by Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Our findings show that most students used their drawings to bridge everyday experiences and scientific explanations of phenomena involving water. The plastic models and the water bottle however had varying effects, sometimes leading to adding a scientific discourse, and sometimes leading to off-topic reasoning. The students generally needed adult guidance to use their own drawings for navigating between everyday and scientific reasoning. However, our findings also show that some students were able to independently use their drawings to move between everyday and scientific discourse, in a way that suggests a gradual deepening of their understanding of the chemical properties of water. Based on these findings, we advocate for emergent disciplinary drawing, in combination with guided discussions, as an age-appropriate method for supporting primary students to navigate between everyday and scientific discourses in chemistry class. This approach could ensure that the educational value of students' creative efforts when drawing extends beyond the moment of creation, to also foster a richer language that can open for new ways of understanding and making sense of the world.

Research shows that preschool teachers' limited science knowledge may hinder high-quality science teaching in preschools. More science in preschool teacher education has been proposed as a solution, but it is unclear how science learning opportunities impact future science teaching practices. This study examines the effects of a three-year trial where a science-oriented preschool teacher program ran parallel to a regular preschool teacher program. 9-11 years after graduation questionnaires were sent to the former teacher students to assess their views on, and use of, science in preschool. Besides evaluating this trial, the questionnaires aimed to explore other factors associated with the number of science topics the teachers discussed with the children and the number of science activities they engaged in. The results show that teachers from the science-oriented program were more confident in talking about science and enjoyed science more than the other teachers, but the overall differences between the groups were small and not significant. The number of science topics primarily depended on personal factors (e.g. confidence and enjoyment of science). In contrast, the number of science activities depended on both personal factors (e.g. confidence in science) and contextual factors (e.g. inspiration from colleagues, parents, and children).

This article explores how teachers can support students' observational drawing skills in the biology classroom. The article is based on classroom data from a collaborative project involving primary school teachers, arts educators, and researchers. Together, we have planned and implemented classroom interventions, aiming to contribute knowledge about the pedagogical potentials of drawing in science. In this article, we analyse one teacher's way of teaching observational drawing to 8-year-old students. Our analysis reveals two main teaching emphases: (1) the interplay between observing and drawing and (2) the visual characteristics of natural objects, particularly the shape, colour, and specific details of different species. Our findings provide valuable insights for educators who seek to integrate observational drawing into science education. First, we highlight the significance of the teacher's content knowledge in biology, as it corresponds to the ability to guide students' attention to specific details in natural objects. Second, we show the pedagogical potential of providing explicit feedback during the drawing process in terms of encouraging students to make detailed and realistic drawings while also making them visually engaging. Lastly, we show that the teacher makes use of verbal, bodily, and visual resources to create a collaborative space for communication around student drawings.

Continuity between pedagogical approaches in prior-to-school and school teaching can be beneficial for an early start of education (OECD, 2017). In this study we use Legitimation Code Theory (Maton, 2020) as an analytical framework to explore science teaching continuity in terms of science-specific knowledge and discourse across three Swedish early years school forms: preschool (ages 1-5), preschool-class (age 6) and primary school, grade 1-3 (ages 7-9). The following research questions are in focus: 1) in what ways do activities and verbal teacher-student interactions, at each educational setting, move between degrees of context-dependent meaning (SG, the level of abstraction) and complexity and condensation of meaning (semantic density, SD) and 2) in what ways do semantic profiles vary, or align within and across Early Childhood educational settings? In our material, based on classroom observations, we identified three different types of semantic profiles: 1) the fragmented flatline, 2) the escalator, and 3) the semantic wave. The preschools demonstrated all three profiles. Preschool-class and primary school science teaching showed profiles of both the escalator and semantic wave. Points of concern in relation to a vision of a continuity in science education across EC school forms will be discussed. 

This article is about the pedagogical potentials and challenges of co-drawing in science education. It builds on video data from three primary school classrooms where students worked in pairs to draw some science content on a shared paper. Grounded in a sociomaterialist approach, we analyse how students, drawing tools, paper templates, visual resources, and science concepts collaborate during drawing activities. Our findings reveal that even though two students share a paper they do not necessarily negotiate their understandings of the science content they are asked to draw. For example, one student may shape a verbal and visual narrative about the science content with little input from the other, or negotiations may focus more on drawing techniques and composition than on understanding the science content. However, the article identifies a promising scenario in terms of science learning opportunities, when both students draw within a confined space on the paper. In such cases, it seems that science learning emerge while drawing and that both students are involved in a joint learning process.

This presentation provides the findings of a formative intervention study where primary students were introduced to everyday and scientific aspects of water integrated with teacher supported disciplinary drawing activities. Six months after the intervention, video-recorded stimulated recall interviews were conducted with six student pairs. The analysis of students’ reasonings employed the semantic dimension of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to identify shifts between everyday and disciplinary discourse in relation to their own drawings and other recall material. Three distinct semantic profiles emerged from the analysis of student pairs’ reasoning patterns: 1)The adult-generated upshift escalator, where drawings facilitated temporary upshifts to a scientific discourse, 2)The adult-supported semantic wave, where both drawings and researchers’ questions supported an oscillation between everyday and scientific discourse, and 3) The student-generated semantic wave, where the students combined drawings and other recall material to support an oscillations between everyday and scientific discourse, gradually enhancing their understanding of the links between everyday (macro) and scientific (sub-microscopic) aspects of water. The implications of introducing disciplinary drawing in the primary classroom to support students’ knowledge-building in chemistry class will be discussed, along with the use of LCT as a tool to visualise these findings.

This empirical study explores the potential use of wonder as a pedagogical tool to enhance middle school students' understanding of evolution. Wonder is a so-called epistemic emotion that theoretically has been proposed to particularly support student’s learning and engagement in science. However, there are today few school-based studies that explore these suggestions, a research hole that this study seeks to contribute to with a formative intervention. The study is centered on one lesson, titled "Bird's Beaks," where 45 students investigated the role of intra-species variation in species survival. Empirical data from video recorded classroom observations and student group discussions were qualitatively analyzed to examine the impact of wonder on students' sense-making during the lesson. The findings demonstrate that it is possible to design evolution education that triggers students' epistemic emotions aligned with specific learning objectives. Interestingly, wonder was not one of them in this setting. The study highlights variations in the presence and expression of epistemic emotions among students and underscores the importance of creating an engaging learning environment, using imaginative teaching strategies, and promoting students' interactions to foster interest, comprehension, and engagement in science education. Possible implications of the results are discussed.

Swedish preschool science practice is confined to a unique educational setting where upbringing, care, and education are intertwined. This allows teachers to develop innovative cross-curricular and multidimensional science teaching. At the same time, society demands the digitalization of preschool practice, which has caused concern not only about negative effects on children’s well-being but also the risk of foregrounding digital over analog tools in multidimensional and child-centered preschool practice. The aim of this study is to analyze how preschool teachers at the forefront of digitalization integrate digital and analog tools when teaching science and how this integration affects their practice. The data comprises documentation of digitalized science activities provided by ten preschool teachers and transcribed recall interviews with four of the teachers. Thematic content analysis and a framework for analyzing seven teaching dimensions of preschool science revealed the use of digital and analog tools as drivers for multidimensional science education. The findings show that the teachers primarily use digital tools to reinforce social learning, inclusion, and agency during science activities. Digital and analog tools were used to complement one another in pursuing the boundaries of multidimensional science. However, the content of this innovative and digitalized science teaching remained primarily within biology, the traditional scholarly discipline in preschool science. We conclude that the digitalization of preschool science seems to be used to strengthen and diversify teaching within the boundaries of overarching traditional preschool practice where nature encounters and children’s interests and well-being are at the forefront.  

In this project, we investigate the pedagogical potential of making room for wonder in science teaching. Focusing on grades 4-6 (ages 10-12), we use formative interventions (Penuel 2014) where researchers and teachers collaboratively engage in iterative cycles of team meetings and classroom implementations to create teaching models for making room for wonder in science teaching. Our research question is: What emanate as important aspects for making room for wonder in school science context? Field notes from observations of the first intervention cycle with a 4th-grade class were analysed through content analysis, guided by theoretical frameworks of teaching for wonder (Trotman, 2014; Wolbert and Schinkel, 2021), and academic emotions (Pekrun, 2014). The results show that achievement emotions, linked to success or frustration during independent explorations prevailed among students’ expressed emotions during science class. Expressions of wonder, an epistemic emotion, were associated with lesson structures that provided sensory experiences and allowed students time to deeply engage with unfamiliar phenomena that for them lacked an immediate explanation. 

Many different emotions are described to influence students’ engagement and learning. In this study we focus on wonder because this emotion is, according to the literature, of particular interest in relation to engagement in the scientific work process. When transforming scholarly science to school science different types of knowledge and metacognitive attributes might be lost in this transposition process. However, no studies have yet focused on describing and comparing the perceptions of wonder in science among stakeholders. We used a Delphi study to examine views on the role of wonder in science practices, and science teaching from a range of important stakeholders of different areas of science and science teaching: scientists, science curriculum developers, and science teacher educators. Our findings show no major differences between the expert groups. All respondents were positive towards including wonder in teaching and their suggestions for content and lesson structures that make room for wonder in science education were very similar.