Primary science and conflicts of interests.

In this workshop we would like to discuss the importance of working with authentic cases which are related to everyday life at the same time as they involve conflicts of interest. We will also bring up the use of discussion as a pedagogical tool to engage and empower young children in environmental issues and help them develop action competence. Jensen and Schnack (2006) problematize environmental education. They emphasize that the task of the school is not to solve political problems. It is rather to mentally prepare students to take stand in societal issues in the future. We will present data from a pilot study from primary school in which 10 years old children are discussing global warming from an everyday perspective. The class was divided in five groups with four students in each. The discussions were audio-taped. Their task was to take stand for two among four different suggestions on how to lower carbon-dioxide emission. By this we want to show how students discuss a complex issue, how they make connections between a school task, their everyday life and the society, and what importance for the discussions these connections had. Two different themes stand out as important in the students’ discussions; a) effective ways to lower carbon dioxide emission; b) consequences for the students themselves and their families