Working group: Unni Eikeseth, Annette Lykknes, Tom Nurmi, Helena Bichao, Camilla Berge Vik

The Science and Children’s Literature Working Group researches the teaching of science through children’s literature in grades 1-10, in both Norwegian and English-language contexts, to address pedagogical approaches to discipline-specific scientific ideas (biodiversity, chemical elements, etc.), nature of science (NOS), and scientific literacy.

We begin with the observation that hunting for inaccuracies and misconceptions (Sackes et al, 2009) in scientifically themed literature may limit readerly engagement with scientific concepts; instead, our group focuses on how scientific processes are represented through narrative fiction and visual art to generate scientific inquiry and ultimately scientific literacy in young readers. Looking at what happens between fact and fiction, the group’s collaborative work models interdisciplinary reading practices to produce critical frameworks for the teaching of science via literary-visual texts.

Our current project provides a case study of the group’s interests by examining the didactic potential of Elin Kelsey and Soyeon Kim’s Wild Ideas: Let Nature Inspire Your Thinking (2015) for science teaching through a synthesis of visual methodology (Rose, 2001), poetics (Culler, 2006), and complexity (Sierschynski, 2014; Louie & Pughe, 2014), building on preexisting methodologies for science story analysis (Klassen, 2014). We’re interested in how Kelsey experiments with the relationships between illustration and text, narrative and science, and form and content to encourage curiosity and creativity in student readers. The book explores the power of observation to spark imagination, questioning, and eventually activism, while also developing capacities for problem solving across disciplines, species, and scales.

Future projects include attention to astrobiology and the history of evolutionary science for middle-grade readers, with close readings of, for example:

• Ward, H. (2007). Snutt the Ift: A Small but Significant Chapter in the Life of the Universe. Templar.
• Sís, Peter. (2008). Livets Tre. Hermes Texts. [Originally (2003) The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin. Walker Children’s Hardbacks.]

References: Avsar Erumit (2022); Akerson (2019); Akerson et al. (2019); Mahzoon-Hagheghi et. al (2018); Kelly (2018); Emmons, Lees, and Kelemen (2018); Wallace and Coffey (2016); Sørvik, G.O. et al (2015); Hoffman, Collins, and Schickedanz (2015); Fang (2014); Akerson et al., (2011); Ansberry and Morgan (2010); Hug (2010); Mckee and Ogle (2005); Nixon & Akerson (2004); Crowther & Cannon (2004); Saul (2004); Yore, Bisanz, and Hand (2003); Thier & Davis (2002); Casteel and Isom (1994).
 

Working group: Working group: Helena Bichao (group leader), Camilla Berge Vik, Annette Lykknes

PhD student: Thao Dinh

Drawing to explore, model, represent and communicate scientific understanding and reasoning is inherent to scientific practice. The practice of drawing is intertwined with the history and nature of science in terms of how scientific knowledge is, and has been, produced and justified. When it comes to student learning, drawing has been shown to contribute to observation skill, enhanced recall, to make understanding explicit and to organize knowledge effectively, leading to deep learning.

Drawing is a language for thinking and learning, and therefore a language that needs development and support through schooling and across different subjects. To give drawing a central role in education, teachers need awareness of its value as a learning and didactical tool and be equipped with relevant knowledge and skills. This means drawing needs more attention in teacher education.

Questions we find interesting and work with:

• Do the processes of drawing help children to make sense of the world?
• What affordances does drawing have to empower students learning science concepts such as heat and temperature?
• What role can education have to support learning through drawing and learning how to draw?
• What knowledge and skills do teachers need in order to make use of drawing to learn science in their classrooms, and how can such knowledge and skills be developed through pre-and in-service training?
• How and why do teachers include drawing activities in science classrooms?

TBA

“Discovering the chemical elements: No simple stories” is a collective volume edited by Brigitte Van Tiggelen and Annette Lykknes (forthcoming from World Scientific, 2025).

History of science is full of examples of scientific discoveries, priority disputes related to such discoveries, and discussions on what aspects of a discovery that qualify for credit. In textbooks and popular accounts, however, discoveries are often presented as clear-cut and a point for sudden change of thought (or even as decisive for paradigm shifts), while insight into the context in which the discovery took place, the time involved in developing new knowledge, and the contributions by a range of actors of different rank, is often omitted.

This volume will focus on chemical elements and will offer well-researched case studies. Questions we seek to shed light on include: How the discovery process can be reconstituted through historical documentation, how one (or more) ‘discoverers’ found their place in popular historical accounts, and what stage in a discovery constitutes the ‘discovery’. We argue that discovery is a process that is being constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed while being narrated, irrespective of target audience.

Working group: Unni Eikeseth and Annette Lykknes

As a response to the need for teaching materials on the core element ‘Natural science practices and approaches’ in the Norwegian curriculum, we developed a digital learning resource about the discovery of elements and the history of the periodic system: Tidsreise grunnstoff The resource is informed by research in technological-pedagogical teaching methods, chemistry education and the history of chemistry. The resource contributes to diversity and inclusion by presenting a range of contributors from different cultures and in different roles and professions. We have also developed a teacher’s manual and worksheets for students. The learning resource is in the Norwegian language.

Read more here: Tidsreise grunnstoff | Læring om læring

Working group: Annette Lykknes, Unni Eikeseth, Festo Kayima, Per-Odd Eggen, Jonas Perrson.
STEMkey (Teaching Standard STEM Topics with a Key Competence Approach) was an Erasmus+ project (2020-2023) which aimed to transform future teachers’ approach to teaching standard STEM topics. To achieve that, we decided to rethink, reshape and redirect the delivery of fundamental STEM subject knowledge in the direction of key competence development. In STEMkey, 12 partners from institutions across Europe developed innovative teaching modules for initial teacher education to help future teachers connect standard STEM topics to real-life contexts, using an interdisciplinary approach. All modules can be downloaded from STEMkey – ICSE – International Centre for Stem Education.

At NTNU, we developed Intellectual Output IO7, follows a context-based approach to introducing the periodic system. Context-based chemistry teaching requires that students connect canonical science concepts with a real-world context, a connection that makes chemistry meaningful to students. It includes hands-on interaction with samples of elements, comparing their colors, weighing them, touching them. By selecting elements that the students might know from their everyday lives and disseminating about their applications in society– the activities connect the “inhabitants” of the periodic system, and thereby the system itself, to real-life contexts. By looking at mineral samples and selecting narratives about the elements that relate to their roles in health and nature, IO7 further connects the chemistry of the elements with other STEM subjects such as biology and geology.

IO7 also introduces 3D-models of the periodic system, as well as lesser-known 2D representations in circular and helical shapes. Even if the tabular form of the periodic system forms the basis in chemistry teaching, the 3D models and various 2D forms demonstrate that the periodic system is not just a table – it is a system with “hidden” information. The many possibilities for abstraction the 3D models offer will support not only the development of knowledge but also the development of both skills and positive attitudes towards the periodic system and its relevance in people’s lives.

In December 2017 the United Nations (UN) General Assembly declared 2019 the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. UNESCO, scientific societies, educational and research institutions, and other organisations came together for the IYPT. The activities related to the IYPT at NTNU were coordinated by the ScienceHumanities research group, and supported by the Department of Teacher Education, the Faculty of Natural Sciences (and its Departments of Chemistry, Material Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biotechnology and Food Science), and the Royal Norwegian Society for Sciences and Letters. Collaborators included The Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) and the Science Center in Trondheim (Vitensenteret).

A variety of activities were organised, for example Stjernestøv (“Stardust”), a “chemistry van” which has been equipped with samples of the chemical elements visiting schools in the provinces of Trøndelag; a periodic table app (currently in development); a scientific anthology, two special issues of journals, and articles; a popular science book and lectures for the general public; a web site; and two exhibitions at the Natural Science Library at NTNU, all covered variously by the press. Overall, the activities have aimed to disseminate knowledge on chemistry in general, to make sense of the periodic system and its elements in particular, and to use the history of the periodic system to show that science is a multifaceted, complex and collaborative pursuit, rather than the stand-alone achievement of individual geniuses.

Website for Periodesystemets år ved NTNU

Selected publications:

• Unni Eikeseth and Annette Lykknes. Periodesystemet: Fra alkymi til kjernekjemi (Museumsforlaget, 2019)
• Annette Lykknes and Brigitte Van Tiggelen (eds.). The Periodic System: The (Multiple) Values of an Icon: Introduction. Special issue of Centaurus (2019) [in press]
• Brigitte Van Tiggelen, Annette Lykknes and Luis Moreno-Martinez (eds.). The Periodic System: A History of Shaping and Sharing. Special issue of Substantia (2019)
• Annette Lykknes and Brigitte Van Tiggelen (eds.). Women in their Element: Selected Women’s Contributions to the Periodic System (World Scientific, 2019)
• Brigitte Van Tiggelen and Annette Lykknes. Celebrate the women behind the periodic system. Nature 565 (2019)
• Unni Eikeseth mfl. Hvordan bygger man en verden? Et hefte om grunnstoffer og periodesystemet
• Articles (in Norwegian) about the periodic system and our activities in the chemistry journal Kjemi
• Articles (in Norwegian) about the periodic system in the teacher’s journal Naturfag

Mirtachew T. Ali (2024): Laboratory experiences. Investigating the impact of supervised instruction in enhancing Year 12 upper secondary school pupils’ conceptual learning in and motivation for chemistry in Ethiopia

Summary of the thesis:

Science educators suggest active citizenry develops by equipping pupils with sound scientific knowledge and laboratory experiences. However, lack of qualified teachers, student-centred pedagogy, and low exam scores and motivation of pupils hinder the execution of effective laboratory work in Ethiopian schools. In response to these challenges, the thesis aimed at introducing a carefully designed laboratory instructional pedagogy, supervised laboratory instruction (SLI), and investigates its impact on enhancing Year 12 secondary pupils’ conceptual learning and motivation for chemistry in Ethiopia. The thesis addresses the overarching problem: How and to what extent does active engagement in the self-regulated learning (SRL) environment of SLI−based laboratory teaching and learning processes contribute to pupils’ learning and motivation in science, if at all?

This thesis was informed by an SRL ─ a process that aids pupils to control, monitor, and regulate their thoughts and behaviours to navigate their learning experiences. The main policy implication of the thesis’ findings for teachers’ change showed the existing instructional materials should be reformed and revised by integrating the SLI-SRL model into the current pedagogical courses.  The doctoral research employed a mixed-methods design, using rich qualitative and quantitative data obtained from teachers and pupils.

The 9th Norwegian Conference on the History of Science took place at NTNU in Trondheim. For more information, see here: Short Years, Long Years, and Round Years: Anniversaries in the History of Science - Museum for universitets- og vitenskapshistorie. Full program: Microsoft Word - Program 9th Norwegian Conference on the History of Science (ver. November 24).docx

See program here (PDF)