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This work investigated the processes of teacher informal learning focused on building positive teacher–pupil interaction. The conceptual framework “Teacher professional agency for learning” was mer...

Article, Pupils' conceptual change processes that have led to long-term changes in learning processes can be very challenging and interwoven with several issues. Meanwhile, school learning is often determined as fragmented, without providing connections to pupils' different life and societal contexts. In this study, Science, Technology, and Society (STS) instruction was conducted to enhance primary school pupils' conceptual change process with water-related concepts. Pupils (N = 41) studied water over four-week period and considered water-related concepts and phenomena in scientific, societal, and technological contexts. Before and after STS instruction, the pupils wrote the essays and based on an analysis of the essays, 10 pupils were selected for interviews. Prior the STS instruction, the pupils' conceptions of water were descriptive and were situated in regard to their everyday lives, and pupils considered their water-use subjectively. Pupils rarely were able to explain the relationships between the concepts or phenomena. After the STS instruction, the scientific explanations increased, and water was understood more globally, and different issues such as water states and water circulation were linked to each other. In this study, the pupils' conceptual change process mainly occurred as a reorganisation of conceptual hierarchies but also included some insights for the higher level changes. In addition, learning contexts seem to have crucial roles for the changes. The learning contexts supported the pupils to consider water as broad, interlinked phenomena. STS instruction dared the pupils to consider water phenomenon as a global issue., final draft, peerReviewed

The role of school teachers is crucial for promoting energy and environmental education in schools, and also instilling pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors among young students. However, studies are limited when it comes to analyzing teachers' perceptions and attitudes (PAs) related to the renewable energy technologies such as bioenergy from a cross-national perspective. The present study analyzed science teachers' PAs related to bioenergy based on data collected from schools in Finland and India. The sample size consisted of 50 science teachers from 10 high schools in these two countries. The study found that the majority of the science teachers had positive PAs regarding bioenergy in both of the countries. However, their willingness to pay more for using bioenergy did not appear to be very positive. In general, the positive PAs related to bioenergy among the science teachers should be encouraging for the educators and policy makers who are aiming to introduce renewable energy education in ...

The aim of this qualitative case study is to explore how the teachers, parents and children describe the advantages and disadvantages of preschool education when it is located in the comprehensive school context. In addition, the study aims to clarify which dimensions of the learning environment occur in preschool? The learning environment is defined in physical-aesthetic, psycho-social, and pedagogical-ethical dimensions. Accordingly, the school environment provided a socially rich learning environment for preschool children and allowed versatile relationships between the preschool children and the school's pupils. The physical proximity was beneficial to preschool teachers' co-operation with class teachers and other school experts. However, the physical proximity caused doubts which were related to parents' concerns about children's transportation, their long school days and the organisation of care in the school context. Many preschool teachers experienced that the school context lacked opportu...

WOS: 000319106300002, Development of modern bioenergy sector is an important step toward meeting societal demand for reducing CO2 emissions and supplying eco-friendly energy. Young students are the future decision-makers and they will play an important role toward transforming the present fossil fuel driven society into a renewable energy based society. The study aimed to explain young students' intentions to use bioenergy by considering their knowledge perceptions, and attitudes related to bioenergy in Finland, Taiwan, Turkey, and Slovakia. Data for this study came from a previous survey in these countries among 15-year-old 1903 school students. This study with the help of Principal Component Analysis revealed the dimensions of the students' perceptions of and attitudes related to bioenergy. One of the dimensions pro-environmental intention was used as the dependent variable in the Multiple Regression Analyses. Results indicated that students' intentions to use bioenergy were mostly guided by their perceptions of the socio-environmental aspects related to bioenergy. Individual level decision-making such as communicating and learning more about bioenergy was also important; however, with a low impact value. Results also suggested that the criticalenvironmental dimension had only minor influence on the students' intentions to use bioenergy. Students' level of bioenergy-knowledge especially those with a relatively higher level appeared to have a strong impact on their intentions to use bioenergy. Young students should be facilitated to become aware of bioenergy in order to influence their intentions to use it in the future., OKKA-saatio Foundation (Helsinki, Finland), The Authors are thankful to the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions, which helped to improve the manuscript. In addition, the authors acknowledge all the survey respondents, the schools and the municipal authorities in each country for their cooperation. Finally, yet importantly, the authors acknowledge the generous funding support by the OKKA-saatio Foundation (Helsinki, Finland).

This paper presents a case study of the process of conceptual change in six‐year‐old children. The process of conceptual change in learning about floating and sinking is described from two different viewpoints: how the children’s conceptions change during the instructional process, and how the social discussion during the experimental exploration can be seen in terms of the cognitive changes in the children. Based on qualitative analysis of verbal data, changes in the children’s conceptions were mostly epistemological and the children’s theories of flotation became more complete with respect to the scientific view. From the viewpoint of the conceptual change, conceptually orientated teacher–child interactions seemed to support the children’s cognitive progress in cognitive skills and guided the children to consider the reasons for the flotation.