The object of learning: preschool children develop their knowledge about scientific phenomena when visiting natural environments

The aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about how pre-school children aged four to five focuses their attention to scientific phenomena when visiting nature and the teacher’s role in further develop the children’s knowledge about the phenomena. Science is in the preschool curriculum in Sweden pointed out as an important area to develop children´s knowledge of. In this study learning is seen as a change in the learners’ possibility to experience the world in a certain way and it takes place everywhere. It can be both planned and unplanned.The framework used, variation theory, states for learning to occur, critical aspects of the learning object have to be simultaneously discerned and focused on. The learning object is seen as a capability and it can be defined by its critical features. When playing and interacting with others, a space of variation is constituted that decides what is possible to learn concerning a delimited learning object. When teacher´s make differences in the childrens earlier experiences visible it may contribute to, critical aspects that the learner has not been previously able to discern becomes visible. Childrens stay in nature is videotaped and a qualitative analysis seeks to discern how children pay attention to scientific phenomena and how the teacher can maintain children's interest of the phenomena and contribute to develop the children´s knowledge. In this presentation the very first findings of the analysis will be discussed.