Designbaserad studie om det fysikaliska fenomenet flyta och sjunka med förskolebarn. : "Vattnet har muskler" och myntet är "starkt"!

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge about how an investigative approach can be used as a valuable platform to develop preschool children's understanding of the physical phenomenon of floating and sinking. The participants were 4–5-year-old children from a preschool in Central Sweden. The study included the design of a teaching activity where the learning object was the physical phenomenon of floating. The children investigated the phenomenon in a practical experiment by using various items, such as bottle caps and oranges. The empirical data consisted of video recordings and field notes from the implementation which were compiled and analyzed qualitatively. Variation theory as a theoretical framework with a sociocultural approach was applied to interpret the ways in which the children expressed their understanding of the physical phenomenon. We identified two categories of children’s ways to communicate on the physical phenomenon. Where one is how do the children express themselves regarding the float and sink phenomenon based on their previous experiences and the other is how does children’s way of expressing themselves regarding the float and sink phenomenon change during a learning session based on investigative working methods. Each category consists of two subcategories that describe the different types of communication that children use to communicate their ideas. The subcategories in the first category describes children’s explanations (a) related to their previous knowledge, and (b) the everyday concepts children use to describe or explain the phenomenon. The subcategories in the second category includes (a) children's metaphors and (b) the correct scientific explanations. The results show that an investigative approach contributes to children's understanding of physical phenomena and lays the foundation for children's learning and development in science subjects. We hope that this study can contribute to knowledge in teaching physics in preschools and encourage others who work in preschool as well as preschool students to explore physics in children's everyday life.