I den här boken ges konkreta förslag på hur man kan arbeta med naturvetenskap i årskurserna F-6. Läraren ska kunna erbjuda lärandesituationer där eleverna kan skapa sig grundläggande förståelse för energi, materia, ekologi, människokroppen, krafter och vårt solsystem.

In this paper we focus on the use of a combination of socio-scientific issues (SSI) and simulations. We have developed an augmented reality (AR) simulation called Transformer. The SSI narrative in Transformer concerns an electric transformer station situated in an area close to a planned new campus. Students’ task is the issue if it is advisable to build a campus area. The simulation is organized as a role-play. The students take part in groups, playing one of five different roles. The aim of this study is to explore students’ ways of using knowledge in relation to the AR simulation. We investigate how students integrate science and other knowledge in the debate constituting the final part of the role-play. The study is a part of a research process, guiding the researchers to further develop Transformer. The study showed that students justified their positions using scientific evidence and information collected through their own efforts outdoors in the real and actual environment where the AR simulation was situated. Students kept the controversy that existed between the different roles alive throughout the debate and stayed focused on the issue in question. We argue that this is due to the situated context achieved through the simulation.

With the purpose of developing new methods in science education, the authors combine a socio-scientific issue and game-based technologies from augmented reality games into an intervention activity called Transformer. The authors design the intervention, collect and analyze data, and present results using the three elements from the theory of transformational play (Barab, Gresalfi & Ingram-Goble 2010) namely: engaging and stimulating roles, scientifically relevant content and complex and societally significant context. In Transformer, 20 upper-secondary students engage in a role-play concerning the project of building a school campus area close to a transformer station. The students explore the actual area using simulation-based mobile technologies to collect information through interviews with virtual characters, virtual measurements, and own observations. Collected information is synthesized into arguments concerning the appropriateness of building the campus area. The Transformer activity is based on SSI (socio-scientific issue), a pedagogical model aiming at developing students’ competences to make well-informed decisions through engaging them in complex societal issues. Data from the intervention are collected with multiple methods using questionnaires and interviews. The analysis illustrates expressions of immersive role play and active and engaged students who enjoy the opportunity of working in groups with a challenging task outside the class room. For some roles, however, there is room for improvement in the outdoor part of the intervention. We argue that this design perspective makes it feasible for a teacher or team of teachers to stage a multi-disciplinary engaging intervention that is constructively aligned with the students’ and teachers’ own practices and that addresses curricular goals.

This paper reports on a longitudinal study on how student teachers' understanding of the greenhouse effect developed through a teacher education programme in mathematics and science for grades 1-7 (age 7-13). All student teachers, who were accepted to the programme one year, were followed trough 2.5 years of the programme for seven terms. The student teachers took science courses in which they were taught about the greenhouse effect. They answered a questionnaire three times (n=60, n=49, n=47 respectively) in which they judged if a number of statements, about the investigated phenomena, were correct or not. In the last two questionnaires they also responded to an open-ended question about the greenhouse effect. The results show that a majority of the student teachers developed an adequate understanding of the greenhouse effect during the teaching programme. Several of the students developed further in the second science course. However a rather big group of students with poor understanding did not develop any further in the second science course and no one demonstrated full understanding. Different ways of collecting data and categorising responses affected how the students’ understanding was interpreted, which also is discussed.

Climate and energy issues are part of our everyday life. Children's understanding of energy concepts and energy transformations is often insufficient. In Malmö, Sweden, a small science center, Klimat-X, tries to capture the students' fascination and interest and give them the opportunity of building their knowledge of scientific concepts concerned with energy and climate. Examples of experiments are described and the educational problems they are designed to address will be discussed. A pilot study on the influence of the experiments on students' understanding has been carried out. The students get a deeper understanding of energy chains, they see possibilities and not only problems in energy economizing and they find the experiments funny, interesting and instructive. It seems that Klimat-X could be a starting point for reflecting upon scientific issues that have an impact on decisions made in everyday life.

The human body gets its energy input from food and gives an energy output in the form of mechanical work and heat. In the process, carbon dioxide and water vapour are released. In an experiment this process can be analysed in several ways. A person is placed in a thermally insulated box of a little more than 1 m3. The temperature, the relative humidity, the carbon dioxide concentration and the oxygen concentration are measured continuously by a data logger for 5 minutes. From the measurements you can analyse and calculate the thermal power of the body in several ways, taking into account the sensitive heat, the latent heat and the chemical energy released. The experiment can also be used as the basis for discussions on indoor air quality in e.g. a classroom and the global greenhouse effect.