Science in Action for Infant Learning (SAIL)

This project will build on the exciting findings related to pupils’ enjoyment, understanding, language and enquiry, emerging from the current Physics in Action project. It will explore the use of embodied cognition to support junior primary school students in making sense of and understanding Science. To this end, parents, pupils and teachers will be involved in co-constructing these ’embodied cognition’ activities. Embodied cognition is best defined as actions which assist the brain’s cognitive processing (Glenberg, 2008). Brain studies show that those networks which control cognition are “linked in one way or another to sensory systems, motor systems and / or motivational systems” (Tucker, 2007, 59). For example, parents, teachers and pupils will be asked to engage in the actions associated with a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis – stretching their bodies, flapping their wings and noting various scientific and sensory processes in doing so.
Four participating schools will select strand units from the Junior Primary Science Curriculum (DES, 1999). Project leaders will show class teachers, parents and pupils how to construct and use embodied cognition activities for these selected strands. Based on this learning, teachers, pupils and parents will co-construct and implement their own embodied cognition activities across the junior science curriculum.