This study focuses on the role of play and imagination in the fostering of ecological literacy in education. The aim is to explore how playful learning activities in ecological fieldwork in adult education could support ecological literacy and what aspects of ecological literacy might be afforded. Theoretically, the study draws on the work of Donna Haraway, employing her concept of becoming-with, and symstories. The research questions are: (I) What characterises the forest encounters emerging in playful pedagogical activities during fieldwork? (II) What stories of encounters unfold in the participants’ conversations about the playful pedagogical activities afterwards? The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a folk high school course on nature connectedness. Twenty students participated in the course which ran part-time over a full year with activities one weekend a month. The data consist of video- and audio recordings during an overnight field trip. During the field trip, various play and awareness activities were intertwined with reflections and practical tasks. The play activities were both physically and emotionally challenging. The results reveal how the inhabitants of the forest become partners with the course participants and the teachers in fieldwork. The play activities included aspect of vulnerability and afforded possibilities for the participants to imagine new worlds.

Den här studien fokuserar systematiskt undersökande inom ramen för skolans fältundervisning i biologi. Tidigare forskning visar att fältundersökningar inom skolämnet biologi ofta utgår från deskriptiva kunskapsintressen, till skillnad från mer experimentella undersökningar som är vanliga i skolans naturvetenskapliga undervisning. Fältundersökningar är alltså en central biologisk praktik som eleverna behöver möta för att utveckla förståelse för biologi som vetenskap. Syftet med studien är att undersöka i vilka avseenden fältundervisning i ekologi kan bidra till att stödja elevers förståelse för biologiämnets fältpraktiker, som en del av skolans undervisning om systematiskt undersökande. Den övergripande forskningsfrågan är: Vilka kunskapsintressen framträder i samtal mellan elever vid fältstudier i biologi på högstadiet? Studien genomfördes i årskurs 9 på tre olika högstadieskolor inom Kunskapsskolan Sverige. Elevernas samtal under arbetet i fält dokumenterades med film och ljudupptagning, transkriberades och analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Analysen av elevernas samtal kan sammanfattats i tre kategorier. Dessa är kartläggning av arter, metoddiskussion och resultatdiskussion och beskriver de val och utmaningar som eleverna ställdes inför under det praktiska fältarbetet. Kategorierna visar också vilken typ av fältpraktiker som eleverna får möjlighet att delta i under fältstudierna i ekologi. Till exempel behöver eleverna både kunna identifiera och bestämma arter, behärska olika metoder för själva genomförandet, veta hur arbetet bör dokumenteras och dra slutsatser utifrån både mätbara resultat och om mer övergripande ekologiska samband. Studien kan vidare fungera som ett stöd för lärare hur man explicit kan adressera dessa fältpraktiker i undervisningen – inför, under och efter genomförande av fältstudier.

Teachers interpret and enact policy of various sources from national steering documents to local policy and curriculum resources. This study targets the curriculum resource of Naturvetenskap och teknik för alla (NTA), a resource developed to strengthen middle school science education in Swedish schools. This study examines how use of NTA mediates teachers’ didactic considerations when navigating issues of standardisation and professional autonomy. The research question targets how teachers achieve professional agency in this process. This study is based on case studies with four teachers using observations and semi-structured interviews. Theoretically, the analysis is guided by the ecological model of teacher agency. The findings show that the teachers adapt resources to reflect their instructional goals and objectives, and their students’ needs. The results reveal that the NTA resource both contribute to and constrain teachers’ agency but also that the teachers emphasise the projective dimension when reflecting on their work.

The understanding of sustainability issues and preparedness to take action towards a sustainable future involves abilities to navigate between past, present, and future. This paper explores how the use of imaginary transitions in time – in the form of historying, and futuring in process drama – may afford student understanding of the wicked problem of plastics. The study draws on a design-based research study on process drama in upper-secondary school chemistry teaching which was conducted in collaboration with two teachers. During the process drama, the students and teachers travel in time to explore the uses of plastic; the motives and needs for using plastic as well as the consequences of plastic use in the form of plastic pollution today and in the future. The collected data consist of video- and audio recordings, which were analysed through qualitative content analysis that discerned how the students connected the temporalities, and which dimensions of the plastic problem were made visible in the temporal movements in the process drama. Our findings indicate that the temporal transitions made visible several dimensions of the plastic issue, and contributed to adding layers of complexity to the issue of plastics.

Introduction: Within the technology education research field, aesthetics has primarily been treated as either related to artifacts, design processes and innovation, or as related to students’ enjoyment, appreciation, and participation in technology and technology education. This study focuses on the role of aesthetics in technology learning more specifically the learning of programming. Previous research has pointed to aesthetics as important for the learning of programming, e.g., that programming activities in higher education typically involve experiences of frustration. While previous research is primarily based on student reports, there is a need for further exploration of processes of learning to program. The aim of this study is to explore the role of aesthetics for student learning to program in and what these processes may mean in relation to a disciplinary aesthetics of the technology subject.

Methods: The study was part of a design-based study with the overall purpose to develop the teaching of programming in lower secondary school. Data was collected from a programming task designed and implemented in school-year 9 (the students were aged 15–16) in Technology in two lower secondary classes. In total, three teachers participated in the implementation. The students pair-programmed Lego robots that should perform specific movements, such as following a curved line. Each group recorded their coding process along with audio, resulting in videos that documented the gradual evolution of their programs. These videos, capturing the real-time programming and associated student and teacher conversations, serve as the data for this study. In order to analyze the role of aesthetics in classroom conversations a Practical Epistemology Analysis was applied.

Results: The results show that aesthetic judgments were important for orienting learning toward (1) the movement of the robot and (2) the ways to be in the programming activity. During the programming activity, the students expressed feelings of frustration but also joy and humor.

Discussion: The findings concur with previous research and contribute to further understanding the role of negative and positive aesthetic experiences in the teaching and learning of programming. The importance of the objects of aesthetic experience found in this study are discussed as part of a disciplinary aesthetic of programming.

Fieldwork in ecology education does things. By employing Donna Haraway’s concept becoming-with companion species and Cathrine Hasse’s emotional collectives to explore fieldwork practice on a bog in Sweden, a piece of the doings will be told. The aim of this study is to explore how ecology fieldwork affords emotional engagement and facilitates growth of ecological literacy in the emotional collectives of students, teachers and nonhumans to become-with each other. The study is based on an overnight field trip with upper-secondary students experiencing black grouse lekking and the ecology of a bog. The empirical material consists of video and audio recordings. In the study, becoming-with is operationalised through the notion of emotional collectives. The result shows three orientations of becoming-with: mimetic, anthropomorphic and fact oriented. Overall, this is a story of fieldwork as a practice of producing companion species; how becoming-with companion species works in practice, how companion species come to matter as emergent ecological literacy.

Denna studie fokuserar hur praktiknära forskning kan bidra till att utveckla lärarprofessionens kunskapsbas; genom att undersöka vilka slags kunskapspro-dukter som genereras i didaktisk undervisningsutvecklande forskning där lärare och forskare arbetar tillsammans. Datamaterialet består av vetenskapligt publice-rade artiklar från forskningsmiljön Stockholm Teaching & Learning Studies (STLS). Genom en innehållsanalys har fyra (i−iv) kategorier av kunskapsprodukter identi-fierats: (i) Beskrivningar av kunnanden, (ii) Undervisningsdesign, (iii) Didaktiska exempeloch (iv) Metodologiska redskap. Beskrivningar av kunnandensynliggör vad som kännetecknar kunnanden inom olika ämnesområden. Undervisningsdesign preciserar relationer mellan undervisningens utformning och elevers lärande. Didaktiska exempel innefattar rika beskrivningar av undervisning och elevers lärande som grund för didaktisk reflektion. Metodologiska redskap fokuserar på att kombinera och pröva metoder för planering och analys av undervisning. Resultatet kan ses som en typologi över vilka olika slags kunskaper som praktiknära forskning kan bidra med.

This article reports from a study of what messages concerning industry–society–environment are communicated to secondary students when they participate in webinars with representatives from the petrochemical industry. The webinars are conceptualised as part of an arena for governing science education and the messages as companion meanings. Empirically, the study is set in a context of online webinars on the topic of careers in the petrochemical industry. The webinars target students across the European Union (EU). The analysis reveals two main themes of companion meanings concerning what relations between industry–society–environment are communicated: a) the petrochemical industry as safeguarding modern life, and b) the petrochemical industry as essential for the solving of environmental problems. The companion meanings conveyed are not at all neutral but instead a means to influence the attitudes and choices of young people. The themes are discussed in relation to the overall democracy and citizenship aims of education. That the webinars claim to address the topic of careers and that they are part of an initiative sanctioned by a governmental authority (the EU) might contribute to teachers and students lowering their guard in relation to potentially biased messages. 

This study is about the use of contemplative practices in forest fieldwork and how such practices could support the growth of ecological literacy. Ecological literacy is explored by employing Donna Haraway’s notions of becoming-with and companion species. The study is based on fieldwork with a group of adult learners attending a folk high school in Sweden. The participants are followed as they encounter and are becoming-with species of the forest. The empirical material consists of video- and audio-recordings. The results provide a narrative of forest encounters, environmental concerns and dreams about the simple harmonic life. The forest fieldwork thus provides a site for elaborating a more inclusive ethics and teaching strategies where nonhuman-human relational aspects become center to ecological literacy. The results suggest that folk high school environmental education could be used as a source of inspiration in disrupting the practices of compulsory science education.

This study targets a special form of educational drama called process drama, as a potential means for enabling student engagement with wicked problems. The overarching aim is to explore how process drama may afford student agency in dealing with wicked problems in upper secondary chemistry education. It is a design-based study with two cycles of intervention in two schools. A process drama plan was designed to focus on the wicked problem of plastic pollution. The interventions were video- and audiotaped and thereafter transcribed. The data were analysed using a combination of qualitative content analysis and a sociocultural framework of the two dialectics agency|structure and margin|centre. The analysis resulted in three themes regarding how plastic pollution and plastic use was explored in the process drama. The students participated in a constant flow between margin and centre where different spaces for students’ agency was afforded. In brief, our main finding is that process drama enables students and teachers to participate in a variety of ways in the exploration of wicked problems, and talk about plastic pollution and plastic use, while drawing on knowledge and perspectives of science as well as values and societal and social science perspectives and knowledge.