potential for multi-dimensional teaching for ‘emergent

AbstractHow can pre-school teachers form science teachingin a landscape of increasing focus on academicallyoriented learning outcomes, without losing theunique character of pre-school pedagogies? Seekingto contribute to the discussion of what pre-schoolscience can be, we have analysed data fromactivities in fourteen Swedish pre-schools (forchildren aged 1-5 years), to examine if and howmulti-dimensional teaching may be combined withteaching for scientific literacy. The overall picture isthat elements of ‘emergent scientific literacy' can becombined with a wide range of teaching dimensions,such as empathy, fantasy and storytelling. Theseresults contribute important perspectives to whatpre-school science can be and how it can beresearched in a way that is suitable for the pre-school’s conditions. We suggest our analyticalquestions, and the dimensions displayed in ourresults, as a tool for teachers who plan or evaluatescience teaching in the early years.

Keywords: Early childhood education, scienceeducation, schoolification, aesthetics, emergentscientific literacy.

Introductionp A group of children and a teacher gather

around a drain on the side of the street,listening to the echoing sound of drops hittingthe water surface deep down.

p Teachers encourage children to touch and tastesnow and to listen to the creaking sound oftheir peers treading on snow-covered ground.

p A teacher helps children to build a nest for aplastic magpie, asking them to think of whatthe magpie might need to feel comfortable inits nest.

These three snapshots, from a pre-school forchildren aged 1-2 years, include severaldimensions: children’s sensory experiences (ofwater and snow), making (a bird’s nest), and caring (for a fictive organism). They also includeteacher-child interactions that relate to sciencecontent, such as sound, properties of snow andbirds’ living conditions. Yet, are they examples ofscience education?

We, the authors, are trained scientists/scienceeducators and have been schooled in the scienceteaching traditions of compulsory school andhigher education. However, in 2012 we beganresearching how science activities are shaped inSwedish pre-schools. Since then, we have beenoccupied with questions about what early yearsscience education can be, because we soonrealised that our school-oriented science standardswere not adequate to describe the activities thatwe encountered in pre-schools, such as thesnapshots above. Our questions adhere to ageneral ‘schoolification’ debate, dealing with theincreasing focus on academically oriented learningoutcomes in prior-to-school institutions and thetendency of compulsory school standards to put adownward pressure on prior-to-school education(Moss, 2008). Researchers have raised concernsthat schoolification threatens the characteristics of pre-school pedagogies: for example, the role ofcare (Gananathan, 2011) and play (Gunnarsdottir,2014) in pedagogy. When it comes to scienceeducation, Klaar and Öhman (2014) recognise the risk that a growing focus on conceptual

l Sofie Areljung l Bodil Sundberg

Main Article JES15 Summer 2018 page 20

Potential for multi-dimensional teaching for ‘emergent scientific literacy’in pre-school practice

This paper has also appeared in: Finlayson, O.,McLoughlin, E., Erduran, S. & Childs, P. (Eds.)(2018) Electronic Proceedings of the ESERA 2017Conference. Research, Practice andCollaboration in Science Education. Dublin,Ireland: Dublin City University.

ISBN 978-1-873769-84-3. Reproduced here with permission from ESERA.

knowledge may lead to subject-specific teaching at the expense of the subject-integrated, multi-dimensional teaching that often characterises pre-school pedagogies.

How can teachers form science teaching in alandscape where the focus on academicallyoriented learning outcomes is increasing, withoutlosing the unique character of pre-schoolpedagogies? Is there room for the type of multi-dimensional teaching displayed in the abovesnapshots when science education is implementedin pre-school? The answer could be yes, if weconsult recent studies of how Swedish pre-schoolteachers talk about their science teaching. Forexample, the teachers in Westman & Bergmark’s(2014) study indicate that ‘a child’s whole being,mind and body, are used in the learning process’(p.78), considering emotion and embodiedexperiences as prominent parts of scientificexploration. Further, Areljung, Ottander and Due(2016) show that teachers include imagination,individual taste, dramatising, as well asexperiments, in their talk of science activities.While these studies mainly build on teachers’ talkabout their practice, the current article attempts todisplay examples of multi-dimensional scienceteaching that are based on observations ofpractice. Here, we use the term ‘multi-dimensionalteaching’ to refer to a type of teaching thatintertwines science content learning with multipledimensions of children’s lives, such as emotions,play, physical experiences and aesthetic modes ofexpressions. Seeking to contribute to thediscussion of what early years science educationcan be, our aim is to examine if and how elementsof scientific literacy are combined with multi-dimensional teaching in pre-school activities.

Scientific literacy and emergent scientific literacy‘Emergent science’ relates to a general idea of‘emergent learning’: that is, the idea that childrendiscern qualities that are essential to learningsomething in particular (Pramling & PramlingSamuelsson, 2008). One example is ‘emergentliteracy’, which is about discerning qualities such asthe fact that words consist of letters, or in whatdirection we read, which is essential to eventuallylearning to read (ibid.). When it comes to science,

the emergent learning can be about discerningmeaningful qualities of the science phenomenathat are under investigation. For example,experiences that help children discern howdifferent items sink or float are meaningful toeventually learning the abstract science concepts‘density’ and ‘buoyancy’ (Larsson, 2016).

What we are proposing is an ‘emergent scientificliteracy’ that builds on the ideas of emergentlearning (Pramling & Pramling Samuelsson, 2008).Scientific literacy has been used broadly in thelatest decades, by various stakeholders ineducation, to address what science educationshould consist of in order to foster citizensequipped for the contemporary society (Roberts,2007). Roberts has proposed that the concept‘scientific literacy’ could be understood somewhereon a continuum between two ‘visions’. Vision Ipoints at being literate in relation to specificcontent knowledge and processes within thescience community, while Vision II addresses theability to handle science-related situations in alarger, societal context. In this article, we focus onscientific literacy closer to Vision I: being literate inrelation to how the natural world works and inrelation to the scientific methods of gainingknowledge about how the world works.

Our reason for adding ‘emergent’ to ‘scientificliteracy’ is that we need a concept suitable to thepre-school’s conditions in order to meet our aim toexamine if and how elements of scientific literacyare combined with multi-dimensional teaching inpre-school activities. We propose that thecharacteristics of pre-school science practice mightgo unnoticed if we employ a school-orientedframework for distinguishing scientific literacy. In ‘emergent scientific literacy’, we include theemergent qualities of natural, chemical andphysical phenomena that children experience priorto grasping the scientific concepts. For example,we consider children’s experiences of pushing andpulling as emergent qualities prior to learning theabstract concept ‘force’ (Sikder & Fleer, 2015).Further, we include emergent qualities of scientificmethods, such as observing, posing hypotheses,making inference based on empirical studies, andmaking models and other representations. Sinceour research builds on data from Swedish pre-schools, the national context is outlined below.


The Swedish contextSwedish pre-school practice builds on the idea thatlearning, fostering and care are intertwined andequally important. As in many other countries, thepre-school’s responsibility for learning has beenstrengthened in the last decade. When it comes toscience, the curriculum states that pre-schoolshould strive to ensure that each child develop theirinterest and understanding of the different cyclesin nature, how people, nature and society influenceeach other, and science and relationships in nature,as well as a general knowledge of plants, animals,chemical processes and physical phenomena(National Agency for Education, 2011). Also, thechildren should be encouraged to develop an abilityto distinguish, explore, document, pose questionsand talk about science (ibid.).

In Sweden, 83% of all children aged between 1-5years are enrolled in pre-school and the commoncase is that teams of 3-4 educators work with agroup of 15-20 children (National Agency forEducation, 2016). The staff typically consist ofseveral professional categories, of whom anaverage of 40% are pre-school teachers (ibid.).Though the pre-school teachers have a specialresponsibility for education in Sweden, all staff areresponsible for both education and care.

Noteworthy is that Swedish pre-school is anexample of institutionalised science education forchildren from the age of 1 year. This is rare from aninternational perspective, where science educationmost often targets children from 3 years and older(Sikder & Fleer, 2015).

Methodology and methodsOur data were collected in fourteen different pre-school units in Sweden. We selected the pre-schoolsbecause they had reported that science was asignificant part of their practice. Three pre-schoolsvolunteered to join after a lecture held by one of theauthors. The remaining eleven were picked basedon their responses to a large-scale questionnaire.We visited the pre-schools on four to ten occasions(97 in total) in order to observe and document bothplanned and spontaneous science activities. We alsoconducted stimulated recall group discussions (12 intotal) and individual interviews (20 in total) with theteachers in these pre-schools.

We have previously used Activity Theory(Engeström, 1987) as a theoretical framework toanalyse how cultural factors interacted with theshaping of the science activities in these fourteenpre-schools. This meant that we studied thevideotaped activities, as well as group discussionsand interviews with teachers, to discern thefollowing seven elements: subject, object, tools, rules,community, division of labour and outcome (Sundberget al, 2016). Our analyses resulted in one ‘activitysystem’ for each pre-school, including descriptionsof the seven elements and how they interacted inthe teacher’s shaping of science activities. In thisarticle, we revisit the activity systems to respond tothe following analytical questions:

1. Were elements of emergent scientific literacyvisible in the activities?a) Emergent qualities of scientific methodsb) Emergent qualities of physical, chemical, or

natural phenomena 2. If so, what teaching dimensions were visible in

these activities?

In order to respond to the questions, we conducteda thematic content analysis of the material andcommunicative tools, the object (the purpose), andthe outcome of the observed activities. Forexample, we followed a pre-school whose scienceactivities were framed within a ‘rolling andspinning’ theme.

The teachers’ object was that the children learned‘as much as possible’ and gained many personalexperiences of rolling and spinning motions. Interms of material tools, they supplied children witha large variety of everyday objects that could spinand roll as well as ramps and other material whoseincline and surface the children were able to change.

In terms of communicative tools, the teachers usedgestures and verbal communication to drawattention to children’s achievements anddiscoveries, and to encourage children’s furtherexplorations. The pre-school’s activities includedrolling marbles through paint on a tray, treasurehunting for examples of rolling and spinning in thesurroundings, rolling car tyres up and down a hill,and rolling oneself down a hill. The overall outcomewas that children were afforded many differentexperiences of rolling and spinning motions.



In terms of elements of emergent scientific literacy(analytical question 1), we discerned the followingthemes through our content analysis of this pre-school’s activities:

a) Emergent qualities of scientific methods:Observing similarities and differences;comparing and contrasting how items roll,depending on the incline.

b) Emergent qualities of physical phenomena:Concepts enfolded in rolling and spinningmotion, such as friction, and the relationbetween the incline and the shape and speedof the rolling item or child.

In terms of teaching dimensions visible in theseactivities (analytical question 2), we discerned thefollowing themes:

p Fantasy and play: Treasure hunt for things thatspin and roll.

p Aesthetic modes of expression: Marble painting.

p Embodiment: Experiencing what it feels like toroll oneself down a hill and to roll a tyre up a hill.

p Systematic inquiry: Rolling marbles down rampswith different inclines.

FindingsBy analysing activities from all fourteen pre-schools in our data set, we have found examples ofthe following teaching dimensions in activities thatinclude elements of emergent scientific literacy:fantasy and play, empathy, aesthetic modes ofexpression, storytelling, embodiment/sensoryexperience, and systematic inquiry. In Table 1(overleaf), we present the results through examplesof common combinations of teaching dimensionsand elements of emergent scientific literacy.

The examples are selected from: the ‘rolling andspinning theme’ that we discuss above; thesnapshots presented in this article’s introduction;and three pre-schools that we will describe in moredetail below. In the table, we exemplify ‘emergentqualities of scientific methods’ with ‘makingmodels’ and ‘observing differences and similarities’.

Other examples, not included in the table, whichwe have identified in the pre-school’s activities are:repeated trials, changing one factor at a time,

posing hypotheses, drawing conclusions based onevidence, and making visual representations.

Frottage art to learn about the different tree barksIn one pre-school, for children aged 4 to 5, theteachers brought crayons and sheets of paper tothe forest. The children were encouraged to do‘frottage art’, putting the paper on the trunk of atree and drawing gently with the crayon so that thestructure of the bark resulted in a pattern on thepaper. The children were also encouraged to touchthe surface with their own hands and to comparewhat the bark on different trees felt like.

In this activity, we identified the following elementsof emergent scientific literacy:

a) Emergent qualities of scientific methods: toobserve similarities and differences (betweenthe bark of different trees).

b) Emergent qualities of natural phenomena (the composition of a tree): the structure of a tree’s bark.

Further, we identified that the main teachingdimensions were aesthetic modes of expressionand sensory experiences.

Storytelling and examining figures sticking to awoollen blanketIn another pre-school, for children aged 1 to 2years, the teachers arranged for a storytellingmoment during a visit to the forest. The story wasabout a child going on a sleigh on an icy lake and,while reading, the teacher placed different toyfigures on a woollen blanket: for example, a smallsleigh and a plastic snowman. Since there wassome snow on the ground that day, the teachermade a real snowman too, adding it to the scenarioon the blanket.

At the end of the story, the teacher noticed thatthe snowman that was made of snow stuck to theblanket. Realising that this was something special,the teacher demonstrated several times how thesnow-snowman stuck while the plastic snowmandid not. She asked the children for suggestions ofother things that they wanted to test to see if theywould stick to the blanket. One child pointed atmoss on the ground and the teacher asked eachchild if they thought the moss would stick or notbefore she tested (it did not stick).


Table 1: In the table, examples of pre-school activities are inserted in cells that represent the elements of emergent scientific literacy and the teaching dimension discerned in the activity. The table builds onthe empirical examples provided in this article, not a comprehensive picture of possible combinations ofelements of emergent scientific literacy and teaching dimensions. Hence, the fact that some of the cells in the table are blank should not be read as this being an impossible combination in pre-school.

2. Teachingdimension

Fantasy and play

Empathy

Aesthetic modesof expression

Storytelling

Embodiment/Sensoryexperiences

Systematicinquiry

Makingmodels

Playing inside amodel of theinside of a tree

Creating a nestfor a magpie

Creating modelsof organisms inclay or papier-mâché

Observingdifferences andsimilarities

Lettercorrespondencewith a treefungus about itseating habits,compared to how the children eat

Storytelling usingfigures ofdifferentmaterial, whichstick/do not stickto a woollenblanket

Comparing whatthe bark ofdifferent treesfeel like

Rolling andspinning differentobjects, indifferentsettings, throughcontrolled trials

Physicalphenomena

Treasure hunt:finding thingsthat roll and spin

Rolling marblesthrough paint

The feeling ofrolling oneselfdown a hill orrolling a car tyreup a hill

Concepts tied to rolling andspinning motion,such as, friction,surface, inclineand shape

Chemicalphenomena

Properties ofsnow; tasting,touching andlistening to snow

‘Sticking ability’of plastic, snow,moss and wool

Naturalphenomena

Fantasy and playconnected to therelationshipbetween fungusand tree; how thefungi ‘eat’

Rejecting thenotion that a treefungus be cutdown from a tree

Frottage art:drawing on apaper put on atree trunk

Teacher telling storiesabout howmushrooms eat

Sensing thestructure of thebark of a tree

1. Emergent scientific literacy (examples)

a. Emergent qualities of b. Emergent qualities ofscientific methods science phenomena


p Emergent qualities of scientific methods:repeated trials, changing one factor at a time,observing differences, and posing hypotheses(regarding how different material stick to wool).

p Emergent qualities of chemical phenomena(properties of various materials): ‘stickingability’ of plastic, moss, snow and wool.

We identified that the main teaching dimensionswere storytelling and systematic inquiry.

Building a fantasy world around a tree fungus andexploring how fungi eatIn a third pre-school, for children aged 1-5, a groupof children had noticed that fungi grew on some ofthe trees in the forest. They ‘adopted’ one of thefungi, named it ’Musli’ and, over a long period oftime, they and their teachers developed animaginary world around the life of Musli and hisrelatives. The children showed empathy for thefungus, discussing whether Musli may be cold andbringing warm clothes to dress the fungus.

On one occasion, the teachers placed a letter ‘fromMusli’ on the particular tree for the children to find,to introduce the question of what and how thefungus eats, in comparison to the children. In lateractivities, the teachers told the children about howthe fungus injected thin threads into the trunk of thebirch tree, and that nutrients were transported fromthe birch to the fungus through these threads.

Following up on the ’food question’, the teachershelped children to roll a big piece of paper into acylinder, making room for as much as three childrenon the inside. The children then drew directly on thecylinder-shaped paper what they thought the insideof the tree might look like, hence creating a model ofa tree trunk. Since it was big enough for children to fitinside it, the tree model became a site for playing.

On one occasion, the teachers brought a fungus(not ‘Musli’!) to the pre-school for the children totouch and observe. Afterwards, the children madetheir own papier-mâché models of the fungus.Previously, the children had demonstrated that itwas unthinkable to cut Musli or some of hisrelatives down from their trees, because it wouldbe too cruel.


p Emergent qualities of scientific methods:making models (of the inside of a tree) andobserving differences (between how fungi andchildren ‘eat’).

p Emergent qualities of natural phenomena(the relation between fungi and trees): howfungi ‘eat’.

We identified many dimensions of science teaching:fantasy and play, empathy, aesthetic modes ofexpression, storytelling and sensory experience.

DiscussionThe results contribute important perspectives to thediscussion of what pre-school science can be,showing that elements of emergent scientificliteracy can be combined with a wide range ofteaching dimensions, such as empathy, fantasy andstorytelling. In the studied pre-schools, there are noobvious signs of ‘schoolification’ in terms ofcompulsory school standards imposing a ‘downwardpressure’ on pre-school education (Moss, 2008).Rather, the teachers seem to have found ways ofshaping science activities that are in line with themulti-dimensional pedagogies characteristic of pre-school practice (Klaar & Öhman, 2014).

We put forward our analytical questions, and theteaching dimensions displayed in Table 1, as apossible tool for teachers to plan or evaluate theirscience teaching; what emergent scientific literacyare the children afforded, and what teachingdimensions are part of the science activities?Recognising that the concept ‘emergent scientificliteracy’ captures elements in pre-school scienceteaching that would otherwise go unnoticed, wealso suggest the concept as a methodologicalcontribution to this field of research, supportinganalysis and descriptions suited to the conditionsof pre-school practice.

The multi-dimensional science teaching thatcharacterises the studied pre-schools implies that‘a child’s whole being, mind and body, are used in thelearning process’ (Westman & Bergmark, 2014,p.78), which in turn caters for solid engagementand learning in science. Still, our analysis does notcapture what the children learn. Therefore, if


teachers use our analytical approach to plan andevaluate their science teaching, it needs to beaccompanied by a plan of how to capture andsupport children’s learning. We stress this sinceresearchers have pointed out that pre-schoolchildren are often left to discover the surroundingworld on their own, lacking the instructionnecessary to make scientific meaning of theirdiscoveries (e.g. Fleer and Pramling, 2015). Further,research has shown that teachers’ science learninggoals are obscured as an effect of their prioritisingother goals (Sundberg et al, 2016) or as an effect ofteachers’ will to address every child’s comment orto address fantasy and play in their communicationabout science content (Gustavsson et al, 2016). This article points at the potential of multi-dimensional teaching for emergent scientificliteracy in pre-school. However, in order forlearning to take place, teachers need to hold on totheir science learning goals and help children tomake scientific meaning of the emergent qualitiesof science phenomena that they experience.Otherwise, the emergent scientific literacy riskssuffering defeat in the multi-dimensionalcompetition of everyday life in pre-school.

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AcknowledgementThe research presented here is part of a largerproject funded by the Swedish National ResearchCouncil (VR-UVK). The authors would like to thanktheir partners in the project, Kenneth Ekström,Karin Due, Christina Ottander and Britt Tellgren.

Sofie Areljung and Bodil Sundberg,Örebro University, Sweden.E-mail: [email protected] and from August2018: [email protected]


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