Children’s Encounter with Friction as Understood as a Phenomenon of Emerging Science and as “Opportunities for Learning”.

The purpose of this study is to examine the possibilities for children aged 2-6 years to learn about the natural science phenomenon of friction in two Swedish daycare facilities. The children's insight into friction is assessed to hold potentials for learning opportunities for emergent science, and this is why the study analyses the children's encounter with the phenomenon in play activities and in social everyday situations.

The study shows that the children encounter friction in everyday situations at the daycare centre through free play and during meal time. The study concludes that the early childhood educators can use these everyday situations to gain more knowledge about the children's actual understanding of the phenomenon of friction as well to draw the children's attention to the phenomenon of friction thereby leading to a more explicit understanding of this. This can be done by inspiring the children to play new types of games, in which friction is a central part. However, the early childhood educator's possibility to use these everyday situations to increase the children's learning of friction depend on whether the early childhood educator acknowledges and recognises the children's activities as a potential learning opportunity with regard to this phenomenon. In this context, the study indicates that the early childhood educator's lack of knowledge with regard to recognising situations with a natural science learning potential prevents the early childhood educators from understanding the children's perspectives and their intention. In general, the early childhood educators are very focussed on communicating to the children how to treat objects carefully and correctly. In contrast, they are less able to see and embrace how to support the children's emergent building of knowledge about and interest in nature.

The data was collected in two Swedish daycare centres which do not have an explicit focus on natural science. The data material consists of video footage of a total of four children (two boys and two girls) aged 2-6 years recorded over a 10-day period. Each child was recorded individually for a full day at a time. A total of 14 hours of video material was produced, covering a total of 244 sequences. A total of 95 sequences were identified as relevant for the purpose of illustrating the phenomenon of friction.

Larsson, J. (2013). Children’s Encounter with Friction as Understood as a Phenomenon of Emerging Science and as “Opportunities for Learning”. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 27 (3), 377-392.