Technology education in primary schools must integrate sustainable development to provide young learners with the basic knowledge, skills, and values to understand, appreciate and contribute to a sustainable future. This integration prepares them for the challenges of a rapidly changing world, promotes responsible use of technology and fosters a sense of environmental responsibility from an early age. However, for this to happen, teacher education needs to adopt strategies that empower student teachers to seamlessly integrate sustainable development into technology education and equip them with environmentally and socially responsible attitudes. The aim of this study is to explore what needs to be addressed in teacher education to prepare student teachers to teach technology integrated with sustainability. The study is part of a project where to develop a teaching module that will prepare student teachers to teach technology in primary schools, with special attention to how student teachers develop relationships between technology education and sustainable development. The study includes 12 student teachers enrolled in a science and technology course. Data were collected in several steps, including focus group interviews, and written individual reflections by student teachers. Based on thematic analysis, we identified what student teachers experience as crucial to being able to teach technology with a sustainability edge. The results show that preparing student teachers to teach technology with a sustainability edge requires a multifaceted approach that integrates knowledge of technology and sustainable development with personal values, pedagogical competence, critical thinking competency, and the adoption of transformative teaching practices.

Recently, sustainable development practices have increased attention as climate change and environmental impacts have increased. Interventions to encourage sustainability awareness are developing, so fostering them through education is crucial. Evidence-based studies conducted in this field have suggested the use of different digital tools to promote environmental learning gains and to foster better sustainability awareness among students. Following the PRISMA method, we found 21 articles published between 2013 and 2023 showing an interest in the use of digital tools in environmental education to foster sustainability awareness among learners. Findings indicate that virtual reality tools and climate change topics are the most trending in this research area. Further, the results show a positive impact of the use of digital tools on students’ concern for the sustainability of the planet. © 2024 by the authors.

The close connection between communities and learning as a social and collective endeavour has led many scholars to consider communities of practice as a driver for solving complex problems. This paper takes up the literature on community and the concept of quasi-community in sustainable development and analyses a concrete case study—the so-called “lake and former SNIA factory” in Rome, Italy. The aim of the article is to investigate the emerging socio-technical interactions considering a quasi-community involved in an interdisciplinary regenerative sustainable development project related to the lake. The research design includes semi-structured interviews and observation during the interdisciplinary fieldwork visit. A thematic analysis with an inductive approach is proposed to reconstruct the socio-technical network as a potential learning experience for the actors involved. In the end, some educational and pedagogical implications and recommendations in the context of education for sustainable development are developed. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland

Background: There is a growing interest in the complexity of socio- materiality-making activities in educational and everyday settings. Indeed, maker-centered learning is considered as a socio-materially embodied process in which artifacts and social and emotional dimensions are interconnected. The making process is also found in everyday life when children engage in specific applications – like Minecraft, where they perform activities in a virtual environment.

Purpose: Starting from analyzing some episodes recorded with a child aged seven, this paper aims to better understand the maker process in a virtual setting with implications for digital literacy and sustainable development education.

Design and methods: A socio-material approach is privileged to analyze the data collected. Specifically, we will explore the maker activity as a socio-materially embodied process.Sample: The research question will be answered with the support of a case study of one child playing Minecraft. Thinking-aloud modality, observation, notes, and pictures are collected. Then, the verbatim from the semi-structured interview is collected in the same session. The entire session is audio-recorded.

Results: The three dimensions that emerged are: Resources to make digital objects; Digital Objects became Social Objects; Making digital objects became ground for literacy. From this ana-lysis, we can retrace digital literacy in the Minecraft maker activity and some final considerations for teaching in STEM.

Conclusion: In conclusion, students’ informal activity in a Minecraft setting could become a potential green environment to ground digital literacy. However, this process needs to be scaffolded and amplified with an enriched level of abstract process, critical, and inquiry attitude. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Lärarutbildningen ska ge lärarstudenter möjlighet att utveckla ämnesdidaktisk kunskap om bland annat ämnesinnehållet, kursplaner och bedömning, vilket de sedan ska kunna omvandla till praktiska handlingar i klassrummet. För att lyckas behöver lärarstudenter även utveckla sin förmåga att reflektera didaktiskt och kunna använda sin reflektion för att utveckla sin undervisning. Inom lärarutbildningen vid Högskolan i Halmstad har vi använt de tre didaktiska reflektionsverktygen Content representation (CoRe), Storyline, och Lesson Observation Tool (LOT) för att utveckla lärarstudenternas förmåga att planera, genomföra och reflektera kring undervisning i naturvetenskap med koppling till sin VFU. I denna artikel vill vi dela med oss av våra erfarenheter av denna arbetsmodell. Syftet är att ge en beskrivning av hur lärarstudenter och verksamma lärare kan ta stöd av de tre vetenskapligt baserade reflektionsverktygen för att planera, genomföra och utvärdera undervisning i naturvetenskap.

Forskning visar att användandet av förstärkt verklighet och virtuell verklighet i undervisningen kan skapa möjligheter att visualisera hur abstrakta fenomen ter sig och fungerar på ett mer detaljerat sätt. Detta möjliggör i sin tur att elever kan göra mer detaljerade observationer och analyser av fenomenen, vilket kan bidra till ökad begreppsförståelse och vilja att lära sig mer.

In this case study we explore the use of Augmented Reality (AR) as a pedagogical tool to promote student teachers learning about plants in a biology course module within teacher education. Traditionally, when studying plants in science education, flora books are used. However, digital technology has contributed to new ways of exploring plants, and AR is suggested as an important tool. This requires teacher educators who are familiar with AR and the pedagogical implications of using AR when teaching about plants. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate student teachers’ experiences of using the AR app Seek by iNaturalist during an excursion to identify and learn about plants, as well as discuss the pedagogical implications of integrating the app into a biology course module. The student teachers took part in the excursion using the app to practice plant identification. Afterwards, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three student teachers. A thematic analysis approach was used to explore the student teachers’ experiences when using Seek. The findings indicate that Seek increases student teachers’ awareness of plants, which promotes their interest and engagement in plants. The easy accessibility in their phone makes them use Seek in their spare time. The increased interest and easy access support learning. By knowing the name of plants, the student teachers establish relationships with plants, which increases awareness of the importance of caring for nature. Hence, Seek could be seen as a pedagogical tool that promotes student teachers’ learning and interest about plants. © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

In Swedish primary schools, technology teaching may appear different depending on what educational setting the pupils meet. Many pupils experience the subject of technology as taking part in practical making-activities without recognizing the technological knowledge involved, and many teachers feel uncertain of what and how to teach technology, especially concerning sustainability. Thus, it is necessary to pinpoint these issues within teacher education. This paper presents the first iteration of a Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) study on a teaching module that provides student teachers with theoretical and practical knowledge in technology education. The purpose of the study is to capture and understand how student teachers transform acquired knowledge and skills into Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) for teaching technology in primary school. Special attention is on how student teachers evolve relations between technology education and sustainable development. The study is designed and implemented in line with DBIR based on principles of collaboration and has strong connections between practice and theory (Fishman & Penuel, 2018). The participating researchers, also the teacher educators, have together with teachers at a municipal technological resource facility jointly identified underlying premises such as policy document statements; topics and content of value for all participants; potential participating schools; and reviews of previous research. The study includes 12 student teachers enrolled in a science and technology course. Data is collected in several steps including student teachers’ written individual reflections, their project assignments, their lesson plans, and focus group interviews. Based on qualitative content analysis, components of PCK are traced to elucidate the transformation of student teachers’ PCK for teaching technology with a sustainability edge. The results contribute to knowledge of what efforts, such as teaching module design features and connections to sustainability, should be made to develop student teachers’ PCK for teaching technology in primary school.

In this exploratory case study, we investigated children’s ways of experiencing virtual worlds, such as Minecraft, and how this may affect their understanding of nature, scientific phenomena, and sustainable development; that is to say, Minecraft was explored as a boundary object in children’s making activities with Minecraft. The research questions that guided the study are: In what ways may Minecraft act as a boundary object between children’s formal and informal learning about science and sustainable development? In what ways may Minecraft act as a boundary object when children build relationships with nature? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six children. A thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the interviews. This study shows that in the Minecraft context, the children gained a breadth of everyday experiences related to scientific phenomena and sustainability. Further, the findings indicate that children merged their experiences in the virtual world with experiences in the physical world. In this sense, Minecraft involves science and sustainability content that crosses the boundary between the virtual world and reality. Thus, we suggest that Minecraft bridged children’s physical and virtual relationships with nature; that is to say, Minecraft became a boundary object that allowed children to experience nature and encounter knowledge that they would not otherwise have been able to experience. © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Educational content with respect to programming and Programmed Technological Solutions (PTS) is commonly contextualised in practical activities such as analysing and designing PTS using instructional materials, e.g. BBC micro:bit. However, we still know little of how teaching regarding this content could be organised in order for students to progress in learning. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the synthesised results from two phenomenographic studies on ways students, aged 10–14, conceptualise PTS in order to shed light on PTS as a learning object, as well as what and how to teach about PTS in technology education.

The two included studies are conducted in a Swedish school context. The first study investigates the different ways students, aged 11–12, conceptualise PTS in the process of analysing structure and function in PTS. The second study investigates the different ways students, aged 10 and 14, conceptualise PTS in the process of designing and coding PTS. In the studies, the instructional material BBC micro:bit was used together with PTS from everyday life. The synthesised results have been further analysed from a learning progression perspective based on the phenomenographic view of learning. The results show variations in students’ ways of conceptualising PTS. In keeping with the phenomenographic perspective, learning can be described as students initially seeing PTS as an undifferentiated whole, which they gradually learn to discern from its structural and functional parts. However, in the processes, there is a complexity of conceptualising PTS in relation to the changing contexts of everyday life and the instructional material BBC micro:bit. Based on the results, it is suggested that students should initially learn to analyse the structure and function of existing PTS in different contexts. This will provide them with the necessary conditions to progress their learning in activities where they design and code PTS.