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This research is a comparative study of Finnish and Australian science curricula in early childhood education (EC). The study aims to figure out the constructivist components of the science curriculum in two countries as well as locate the similarities and differences in the rationale and aims, contents, learning outcomes, learning activities, teacher’s role and assessment. The curriculum analysis framework developed by Van den Akker (2003) was used as a methodological framework for the curricula analysis. Based on the theory-driven content analyses, findings show that both countries have several components of constructivist curriculum, but not always clearly focused on science education. The Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) integrates children’s science learning within their five specific learning outcomes, whereas the Finnish national core curriculum for early childhood education and care has no defined learning outcomes in general. The Finnish curriculum more clearly than EYLF encompasses science and environmental education as a learning domain, within which children participate in targeted scientific activities to gain procedural knowledge in specific environmental-related concepts. More focus should be turned to the teachers’ role and assessment, which are not determined in science context in both countries. This international comparative study calls for the need of a considered EC curriculum framework that more explicitly has science domains with specifically defined rationale, aims, content areas, learning outcomes and assessment criteria. The implications lie in providing early childhood educators with tangible and theoretically solid curriculum framework and resources in order to foster scientific thinking in young children.

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

This paper presents findings from an on-going international study (Australia and Finland) of preschool teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical practices in the integration of technology to engage young children in learning science. Scarcely used in early childhood education research, this study is framed using Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) theory. Case studies presented in this paper are undertaken with data collected from three preschools in Australia. Participant observation of teachers’ (N = 7) and children’s play experiences, and semi-structured interviews, revealed that teachers occasionally used iPads and some apps within their intentionally constructed science investigations, both for teacher-initiated research and for communicating with parents via children’s journals. Teachers were not adverse to, but rather accepting of embedding technology as a pedagogical affordance and keen on planning for multimodal science-based experiences. The findings of this study imply the need for a pedagogical shift, wherein teachers’ technological pedagogical knowledge improves in how and when to sensibly integrate technology for children’s engagement in scientific inquiry, rather than relying on hands-on experiences alone. Implications lie in more closely aligning teachers’ TPK and related practices with science content knowledge by co-researching together with children and foregrounding both teachers’ and children’s perspectives.

This paper briefly presents emerging ideas for research about integrating computing educational practices, such as inquiry-based STEAM workshops merged with digital fabrication, into teacher education to foster student teachers' professional agency. Potential outcomes and benefits for both fields are discussed.

Creative Little Scientists was a 30-month (2011-2014) EU/FP7-funded research project focusing on the synergies between early years science and mathematics education and the development of children’s creativity, in response to increasing interest in these areas in European educational policy. Using a variety of methods, including desk research, a teacher survey and classroom-based fieldwork, the research provided insights into whether and how children’s creativity is fostered and appropriate learning outcomes, including children’s interest, emerge. Based on these and ongoing collaboration and dialogue with participants and other stakeholders the project proposed recommendations for policy and teacher education. This paper presents these recommendations and the research on which they were based. Throughout the study, mixed methods were employed, combining quantitative approaches used in surveys of policy and teachers’ views based on a list of factors, alongside qualitative approaches employed in case studies of classroom practice. A strong conceptual framework developed at the start of the project guided data collection and analysis, as well as the presentation of findings and the development of policy recommendations, thus ensuring the latter’s strong and consistent relationship with the relevant theoretical knowledge, the comparative research, analysis of classroom practices and the production of guidelines for teacher education.

The discourse on science education during the current decade has continuously referred to the significance of cross-curricular twenty-first century skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, design and engineering skills, creativity, and ICT literacy (Craft, 2005, pp. 56–57; Webb & Rule, 2012, p. 379). The worldwide debate of educational stakeholders has highlighted the need to revive and reinforce the above-mentioned skills and competences for the next generation to complement their content-based school learning.

This article considers the knowledge students (ages 6, 10, and 15 years) have of animals from a cross-cultural perspective. Students from six countries (Brazil, England, Finland, Iceland, Portugal, and the United States of America) were asked to free-list as many animals as possible and state where they had seen or learned about the animals. The results were analyzed and they indicate that 1) Students are aware of animals. 2) Students are more aware of mammals as examples of animals. 3) There is a globally shared folk biological knowledge of animals. 4) Students learn about animals during socio-cultural interactions. The educational implications are discussed., CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, UM (FCT R&D 317)