engleski

Children's Perspective in Play: Artist and Scientist

„Could it be different?! How do children research“ in collaboration with the association „Babin pas“ (rainbow) from Istria, is a project aimed at learning and researching the scientific process in creating knowledge of young and kindergarten children, experience and collaborative learning of children and adults. The inborn child curiosity and wish to learn is the expression of a child's searching of understanding how the world functions. These are the reasons why the focus of our research are those scientific fields which arise from children's questions. We have been researching sound, light, wind, air, water, but also thermodynamics, statics, optics. Science is not static, so children haven't been taught scientific facts. We enabled them an encouraging environment to gain experience in active experiment work, discussions and explanations, which helped them create their own truths and theories. Having this in mind, we can say that the recording of children activities and knowledge expressed in different ways, together with the analysis of the collected materials, has become daily practice and the key means for understanding children and planning further interventions. The value of this kind of documentation, as well as common reflections has been recognised by children themselves. For example, during the reviewing of one of the activity tapes, little girl Gaia (6, 9) said: „ It's pure luck, teacher, you recorded all this, because otherwise we wouldn't remember what we thought and said earlier.“ Children had the opportunity to express their own experiences in the research through various media, materials and techniques in creative workshops, working with artists, mathematicians, physicists and biologists. In this project, we used cameras and video cameras in the same way as brushes, colours and paper are used. Hence, together with the well known documentary purpose of these media, we showed that they can be used as means of individual creative expression. Children have constantly been filming and shooting, as well as the teachers who documented everything, and we have, with our selections of their photos and videos, and minimal interventions, put them on an exhibition. The exhibition consists of three parts: children works (selection of videos and photos), edited videos of educational activities of each kindergarten, as one part of the online learning community and the process which was going on throughout the year in a particular kindergarten and short documentaries from workshops. Beside that, part of the exhibition are also creative diaries (during the research) which have been kept by the teachers through the year. Their layout is very well presented and each step of kindergarten work can be seen inside, such as texts, photos and personal observations, dilemmas, as well as drawings and sketches and parents' comments. There is a sculpture presented at the exhibition made of ceramic parts of each child's work who participated in the project and it is presented by a common display „How children see science“ – a video which has sound effects as well. The video about the multimedia exhibition can be seen on http://vimeo.com/67833664. Reactions of parents of the children involved in the project: Eva's father Željko: It is a great pleasure to see children learn, develop and achieve knowledge in this way. In fact, I regret not being a child anymore to enjoy laws of nature and physics and experiments together with the rest. This was an exellent organisation by the children Science festival. Many thanks to everyone who participated in creating this beautiful event which will definitely motivate children to understand the world around them more easily. Patrick's mother Jasmina: This project has really succeeded in intriguing children and bringing them closer to nature. It is nice to see your child as a little scientist, but in a different way. His interest in shadows and water managed to bring fun and interest to the whole family. The exhibition was educational and amusing to both children and adults. I give my support to the project and the teachers because everything is useful, educational and it contributes to a healthy development and happy childhood of our children. Melani's mother Samanta: The project was very interesting for children and myself as a parent. The children presentation was the thing I liked most, together with their workshops where I could see the way my child was presenting and functioning during her presentation. It was nice to see my child proudly and significantly explaining small scientific research to her peers.

collaborative learning of children and adults

Znanstveni projekt "Kultura odgojno-obrazovne ustanove kao čimbenik sukonstrukcije znanja", Sveučilište u Rijeci, broj potpore: 13.10.2.2.01, voditeljica: izv. prof. dr. sc. Lidija Vujičić