Research project Fair share: to make mathematics and science relevant for sustainability
When is sharing equally different? In this project, we study how younger children think and create meaning around sharing resources. It's about how they look at it from a mathematical perspective, and from a climate and sustainability perspective.
Project description
Despite the fact that environmental issues have been on the agenda in Swedish schools since the 1970s, there is a lack of knowledge about how to reason about resource allocation. This is despite the fact that resource allocation is one of the most central aspects of both climate research and sustainable development research. This applies not only in Sweden, but also in other countries around the world.
The purpose of the research project is to study how young children think and create meaning about resource allocation, both from a mathematical perspective and from a sustainability perspective based on science. We focus on children from preschool up to the first years of school, which means that we can also study how their thoughts and meaning-making develop over time.
Resource allocation is an interesting issue to study from these different perspectives because they contain clear contrasts. In mathematics and division, for example, it is about sharing equally, while in sustainability issues, it is usually about completely different issues. There is a tension here that is not always obvious; When is sharing equally different?
No similar research has previously been conducted on such young children, which means that the project is at the forefront when it comes to understanding how children reason and deal with issues of distribution.
See more information about the project on the Swedish website