Naturvetenskap i förskolan
En intervjustudie om förskollärares tankar och arbetssätt
The aim of this study was to investigate how preschool teachers think about preschoolscience, what they consider science to be and how they deal with specific curricular objectivesrelated to science.Science is a part of our everyday life, it is a prerequisite for understanding everydayphenomena and how the world is working. Nevertheless it is often dropped in favour of othersubjects in Swedish preschools.The eight preschool teachers participating in this study are all working in the samemunicipality in the western part of Sweden with children aged 1- 5 years. The method used inthis study was interviews. The interviews were recorded to facilitate the transcriptions.The results show that preschool teachers find that science is an important subject that shouldbe introduced to the children early on in life. They also show that preschool teachers considerscience to have a preventive effect on the learning to the children, and it is needed for them tounderstand everyday processes and phenomena. When working with the curricular objectiveslinked to science, the result show that preschool teachers perceive nature as an asset todevelop the children?s knowledge and interest for scientific concepts. Factors that impact thework with science in preschool could, according to the educators, be lack of knowledge, thechildren?s age or their attitude towards the subject.Conclusions that can be drawn from this study are that preschool teachers draw on thechildren?s interests when teaching science. They also find it important to use the correct termsat an early stage.