Findings 1 - What reclaimed resources are used?

Our first research question was: 'What reclaimed resources are used?'

In order to find out what types of reclaimed resources were used, in the four participating early years settings, we undertook an audit of the resources accompanied by some photographs of provision (see the post for Research Methods 1, on 20th October - below).

What reclaimed resources are used?

An audit form was used to record the reclaimed materials in use within each of the four settings. For pre-listed items researchers either entered 'yes', to signify the presence of the item, or 'not seen', if the item did not appear to be present as a resource in the nursery. Additional items were added to the list as they were seen. The lists were then collated as one document, with a column for each of the four nurseries, to facilitate comparisons.

Using this tool we were able to discover the types of reclaimed resources in use in each setting and to make some comparisons between settings. The fewest reclaimed resources were recorded at the suburban private day nursery, with only 13 items noted. The largest number of items was recorded at the rural day nursery; 45 different types of material. This was similar to the town community nursery (41 items) and the city workplace day nursery (36 items). Overall 72 different types of item were noted.

The items common to all four nurseries were: fabric remnants; yarn, ribbon or string; catalogues, magazines and old comics; CDs; and car tyres.

Overall, various materials were used in different ways in each setting. The rural day nursery had access to items reclaimed via the agricultural industry, including tractor tyres. The town community nursery featured reclaimed furniture and toys. The workplace nursery collected a wide range of materials for use in indoor and outdoor craft projects, often sourced from parents. The suburban day nursery was supported by a neighbouring business providing fabric remnants and by families who gave items that their own children no longer needed.

The audit checklist was supplemented by photographs, such as the one above, which gave much more detailed information about the resources and their uses in the settings. In answer to our research question, at this stage of the data analysis we are able to say that a range of natural resources, food items, craft materials, and donated items are used in early years settings. The findings from observations and interviews provide further insights into how and why these items are used.

a workplace day nursery, in a university city; 

a small community nursery, attached to an academy school and neighbourhood centre, in a town;

a private day nursery sited in an affluent suburb of an outer London town;

and a private day nursery in a rural location, in Essex.

- See more at: http://4recrg.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/our-research-settings.html#sthash.iFKsW5R3.dpuf

a workplace day nursery, in a university city; 

a small community nursery, attached to an academy school and neighbourhood centre, in a town;

a private day nursery sited in an affluent suburb of an outer London town;

and a private day nursery in a rural location, in Essex.

- See more at: http://4recrg.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/our-research-settings.html#sthash.LYiC2YUC.dpuf

a workplace day nursery, in a university city; 

a small community nursery, attached to an academy school and neighbourhood centre, in a town;

a private day nursery sited in an affluent suburb of an outer London town;

and a private day nursery in a rural location, in Essex.

- See more at: http://4recrg.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/our-research-settings.html#sthash.LYiC2YUC.dpuf

Research methods 3 - semi-structured interviews

The third and final method of data collection that we employed in our study was interview. Having gained some information about the reclaimed resources that were available in the setting, and how the children were using them, this was an opportunity to talk with the nursery managers. Our main aim in conducting the interviews was to explore answers to our final research question: Why are reclaimed resources used?

The interview schedule that was drawn up had four headed sections. These were: children; staff; parents; and curriculum. Each section included open questions about recycled and reclaimed materials and how and why they were accessed and used.

The questions about 'children' related to the kinds of materials that children of different ages chose to use and their access to these. The final question was about children's concepts of the 'environment'.

The 'staff' section focused upon how staff accessed, stored and used reclaimed materials. We also asked about training relating to environmental education and knowledge about environmental issues.

The 'parents' section explored parental involvement in the collection and uses of recycled resources. We also asked about parental involvement in any environmental education.

Finally, in the 'curriculum' section, the managers were asked about their curriculum, the resources that they bought and found, and their rationale for the use of recycled materials. We also discussed education for sustainability and whether and how it was included within the curriculum.

The interviews were carried out at a place and time agreed with the managers, typically the manager's office. The interviews were audio-recorded, except in one case where notes were taken.

We are pleased with the overall structure of the interviews and the four foci. The interview data shows the unique responses from each of the four settings but it is also possible to make some effective comparisons. We would now like to refine the schedule further to give interviewees more scope to talk through all the evidence from the audit and the observations. We think that this would elicit some more in-depth answers about benefits for children's learning.

Why are reclaimed resources used?

Why are reclaimed resources used?

Research methods 2 - observation

In order to find out something about how reclaimed resources were used, in early years settings, we recorded short narrative observations of children playing with these materials.

The observations were non-participant and recorded subtly by the visiting researchers during daily free play in each of the four nurseries. It was a great way to capture naturally occurring behaviours. From the children who assented to be observed, and whose parents had given consent, the researchers looked for children who had chosen to play with reclaimed materials and recorded what they did.

There were observations of both adult-led and child-initiated activities, recorded indoors and outdoors, with children of different ages from young babies to four year olds. These included: play with Treasure Baskets and with plastic drink bottles filled with sensory materials; heuristic play; messy play; sand play with recycled cartons and tubes; dressing up; play with old phones; mud kitchens; junk modelling; and creating collages from fabrics.   

Like the audit tool (see previous post), the observation methods will benefit from refinement. For a further study we would standardise the approach to observing so that the observation records can be more easily analysed and compared. We have also become interested in observing the features of play with reclaimed materials and making comparisons to play with manufactured toys.

Observation is a topic that Paulette has researched and written about, including two books with colleagues: Child Observation for Learning and Research with Theodora Papatheodorou and Janet Gill; and Observation: Origins and Approaches in Early Childhood with Val Podmore.

Research methods 1 - the audit

The first step in our data gathering for this project was to audit the reclaimed resources in use in each of the four early years settings. The audit, carried out by the researcher and setting staff, took the form of a checklist. The checklist was prepared with lists of resources under headed categories representing different types of materials. The four categories were: natural resources; food stuffs; craft materials; and found / donated materials.

The researchers ticked where resources were seen, added items to the audit if they saw things that were not on the original list, and in some cases also annotated the audit form with additional information about the items. It was necessary to complete the audit together with staff in order to gain access to materials that were out of sight, e.g in storage cupboards, and to identify some equipment that was reclaimed rather than purchased. For example, in one of the nurseries, a sofa, tables, soft furnishings and a wooden climbing frame had all been found in skips or charity shops and given a new lease of life!

In every setting the checklist was accompanied by photographs of the resources in context. Such as this one:

The audit form offers a means of recording the materials in use within each setting. It is also useful for making comparisons of the amount and types of reclaimed resources between settings. Having grown to include over seventy items, our checklist would now benefit from further work to refine the original categories and so make it more user-friendly.

We are interested in hearing from people who want to try out the checklist in their own setting and / or to help us to improve and develop it as a tool for practice and research. If you would like a copy of the audit checklist then please let us know - via the comments box, below, or by email to our gmail account.

Our research study - the methodological approach

So, what methodological approach are we using? What are the theoretical bases for our research? How would we describe the research design? These three questions probably justify more than one blog post but we will try to summarise our answers to all three questions here.

Our methodology is qualitative and  interpretive, as befits an initial exploratory study of a research area. Our intention is to make sense of the ways that reclaimed materials are used in early childhood settings. We want to gain some understanding of the beliefs and attitudes of practitioners in relation to the uses of these materials in their settings.

This qualitative, interpretive methodology fits with the ecological, contextualist theories that underpin our research. We recognise that knowledge in the social world is created and recreated between people. Our sources of knowledge about reclaimed materials are the actions and voices of practitioners, and children, within their workplaces - accessed and developed through our interactions with them. We are aware, like Anne Edwards, that contexts shape and are shaped by those who participate in them[i]. We are beginning to explore the systems theory that those researching and writing about education for sustainability draw upon. 

Overall, our motivation for undertaking the study is to appreciate uses of reclaimed materials - as a first step towards researching and promoting education for sustainability within early childhood education.

The research design is a 'collective case study', as defined  in The Art of Case Study Research. In this book, Robert E. Stake differentiates intrinsic, instrumental and collective case study approaches. Intrinsic cases arise from curiosity and interest in the distinctive features of a particular case; whereas instrumental cases require the study of people or programs to answer a research question, in order to gain more general understanding of an issue. Collective case studies are instrumental in nature but allow for the study of more than one person or setting to contribute to the inquiry.

This collective case study approach is chosen here in order to include different types of early years setting, from varying geographical areas, and so reflect something of the diversity of early childhood provision. The four settings within this study are not separate cases but rather each informs the shared, collective case to maximise what can be learned about uses and understandings of reclaimed resources.

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[i] Edwards, A. (2004) Understanding context, understanding practice in early education. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 12 (1) 85 – 101.

Our research study - the questions

Our qualitative study is designed around three linked research questions. In each of four settings, we set out to explore:

What reclaimed resources are used?
How are reclaimed resources used?
Why are reclaimed resources used?

The first question, of what resources are used, is simply about identifying the types of resources that are available and in use in each early years setting that can be considered to be 'reclaimed'.

The second question relates to pedagogical uses of the resources: how reclaimed materials are offered to children; and how children play with reclaimed materials.

The third and final question explores the importance and significance of these resources. We are interested in staff perceptions of reclaimed materials and the reasons behind their use. We are particularly interested in notions of education for sustainability.

Our research study - the settings

Four different early years settings, in the East of England, agreed to participate in this project. Two were approached because they were known to researchers for their sustainable practices, including use of reclaimed materials, and could therefore be described as a purposive sample; whilst the other two were selected principally on the basis of accessibility and convenience. We make no claim that these settings are representative of the wider population of early years settings in the localities or in England as a whole.

In brief, the settings, all of which cater for children from birth to four years, can be described as:

1. a workplace day nursery, in a university city; 
2. a small community nursery, attached to an academy school and neighbourhood centre, in a town;
3. a private day nursery sited in an affluent suburb of an outer London town;
4. and a private day nursery in a rural location, in Essex.

We are very grateful to the managers, staff and children in these setting for showing an interest in our project, giving us a warm welcome, and sharing their work.

Our research study - the researchers

In the previous posts we've outlined some of the sources that underpin our work. We are still looking for and finding ideas and inspiration - especially in the area of Early Childhood Education for Sustainability. If you see this blog and can recommend reading and research that links with our project please let us know via the comments - below.

The next few posts will report on our small scale study - the researchers, the questions, the settings, and our methods of data gathering. Finding funding for small-scale projects can be a challenge and we rely on the generosity of people who volunteer their time and efforts! Our university has some great schemes to support research and researchers, too. For this study the Early Childhood Research Group  applied for and were granted 'seed' funding from the Childhood and Youth Research Institute.  Paulette, Pat, Juljana and Gemma started work on the project. The summer studentship scheme, that offers eight week bursaries to aspiring researchers, enabled Sevgi and Rutendo to join in too.

The cooperative team approach fits with the ideals of education for sustainability - including participation and collaborative decision making. Six researchers seems a large team for a rather small study but it has enabled some great sharing of ideas so far - and we hope that the project will grow!

Inspirations for the research 7 - education for sustainability

So, why reclaimed resources? Our posts so far have been about the use of resources with young children but we do have an additional agenda! We are exploring Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) / Education for Sustainability (EfS) and what that might mean for early childhood education.

In higher education Education for Sustainability is on the agenda - supported by the  Higher Education Academy and organisations such as EAUC. Our own institution, Anglia Ruskin University, has an active Global Sustainability Institute. Many primary and secondary schools, too, are incorporating Sustainability and Environmental Education in the curriculum. Several are following an Eco-Schools programme.

An international workshop was held in Göteborg, Sweden, in 2007, as part of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). The debates and reflections are published as The contribution of early childhood education to a sustainable society edited by Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson and Yoshie Kaga. This UNESCO document highlights the importance of beginning education for sustainability in early childhood. Values, attitudes, skills and behaviours that are established early in life could be long lasting and lead to global change.

OMEP also campaigns in this area and their publications include a Special Issue of the International Journal of Early Childhood on Sustainable Development in Early Childhood (volume 41 number 2, 2009).

We are interested to find out more about current early childhood education for sustainability initiatives in the UK - so if you read this and are involved in practical projects and/or research please let us know!
 

Our welcome week stand

As we welcomed our new cohort of early childhood students for the 2013/14 academic year, we were keen to introduce them to our research project and provide them with an opportunity to explore how a range of reused and recycled materials can be used creatively. A variety of materials, including newspaper, egg boxes, cardboard boxes and plastic food containers were made available along with scissors and masking tape.

Students decided to work in small groups or pairs to select materials to build a city or use their creativity to build something else. In addition to developing their own practical skills, it allowed them to put themselves in the position of the child and consider how they might use such materials. 

Here is an example of a castle created by one group of students:

Another pair of creative students developed this rather stunning owl:

The focus on encouraging students to gain hands-on practice will, ideally, provide them with ideas to implement at their work placements and enable them to become more confident in planning activities that include a range of resources to support sensory development and tap into a child's imagination.

Inspirations for the research 6 - possibility thinking

A research study that involved looking at children's response to resources was a study by  Professor Anna Craft and her colleagues at a London Children's Centre[1].

Their study was influenced by the 5x5x5=Creativity project and practice in Reggio Emilia (see our post for 20th September below). The focus was on the use of adult initiated 'provocations' as stimuli for children's play. For four weeks, the researchers observed and documented  four year olds' responses to natural materials such as logs, leaves, stones (Group 1) or puppets and props (Group 2).
 
Evidence was found of 'possibility thinking'. This type of thinking is central to young children’s creativity as they constantly generate possibilities in their play. They ask ‘what if?’, and ‘what can I do with this?’ and so go beyond ‘what is’ to explore ‘what could be’. 

The study showed how creative practitioners could use resources as provocations to stimulate changes in practice and children’s experiences; there's a summary in a chapter on play and creativity that Paulette has written for the new edition of An Introduction to Early Childhood - due out early next year.

In our research, we are interested in the ways that reclaimed materials stimulate young children's 'possibility thinking'.

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[1] Craft, A., McConnon, L. and Matthews, A. (2012) Child-Initiated Play and Professional Creativity: Enabling Four-Year-Olds' Possibility Thinking. Thinking Skills and Creativity. Vol.7(1), p.48-61

Inspirations for the research 5 - stuff

In our previous posts we have written about sources of inspiration for using reclaimed resources in creative ways. Materials are important in early childhood classrooms but there is relatively little research to be found relating to their use. Several of the famous philosopher-pedagogues or 'pioneers' of early childhood education are well known for specific educational resources, notably: Froebel 'gifts';  Montessori materials; and Steiner Waldorf toys .

The only book we know of that specifically addresses the topic of resources is  Resources for Early Learning: Children, Adults and Stuff by Pat Gura, who is also well known for her work on blockplay.
The 'stuff' in the title takes different forms and includes found materials. The word 'stuff' is chosen to question the over-used term 'play material'. Pat Gura points out that almost anything can become a play material. An object or substance is play material for a long as the play lasts. Published in 1996, this remains a useful book. It challenges our preconceptions about resources that foster young children's learning. It inspires us to explore and unlock the possibilities of 'stuff' with children.

There are plenty of practical books about resources with suggestions for practitioners. Amongst our favourites are the Little Books series. On our specific topic of interest there is Linda Thornton and Pat Brunton's  Making the Most of Reclaimed and Natural Materials. We also like The Stick Book. 

Inspirations for the research 4 - loose parts

REMIDA is unique to the city of Reggio Emilia (see our 20th September post below) but there are innovative projects with reclaimed resources in the UK. The Midas Touch project in Liverpool involved young children, artists and early years educators taking part in creative play with recycled objects. Nick Owen, Laura Grindley and Michiko Fujii write about the opportunities that this project provided for creative development in Ioanna Palaiologou’s book Early Years Foundation Stage: Theory and Practice.

 

In Bristol the Children's Scrapstore have produced Play Pods. The theory behind Play Pods includes the concept of ‘loose parts’. This term was coined by architect Simon Nicolson, who wrote: “In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it”[i]. He argued that creative opportunities should be for the many, not an elite few, and that all children should have the chance to experiment and make discoveries. Children’s play with loose parts is also explored in the Sydney Playground Project.

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[i] Nicholson S., 1971. How NOT to Cheat Children - The Theory of Loose Parts. Landscape Architecture, 62: 30-35

Inspirations for the research 3 - REMIDA

Treasure Baskets and heuristic play are great examples of uses of reclaimed resources from the UK (see our 18th September post below). We are also interested in work with varied and multi-sensory materials in the famous preschools of  Reggio Emilia; places where materials and media of different kinds are seen as potential ‘languages’ through which children can express their ideas and understandings. This view of children as capable thinkers with many means of communication is expressed in Loris Malaguzzi’s poem 'The Hundred Languages of Children'. In the city REMIDA (translated as King Midas) is a creative recycling centre where teachers and members of the community can access materials and children can work with artists to turn unwanted items into treasures.

A wonderful book that describes a similar approach, in a US classroom, is Beautiful Stuff: Learning with Found Materials written by Cathy Weisman Topal and Lella Gandini. They document a project where young children were each given a paper bag and asked to go home and fill it with items for the studio area in their classroom. The children collected broken jewellery and watches, ribbons, feathers and all manner of recycled bits and pieces from home. They then sorted, ordered and explored the materials and used their discoveries to create a variety of images and objects. The book has sparked projects in many other early childhood classrooms. You can see inspirational examples, with beautiful photographs, in the blog Transforming our Learning Environment into a Space of Possibilities .

Inspirations for the research 2 - Treasure Baskets

Elinor Goldschmied devised the Treasure Basket as a means of providing babies with everyday objects to be explored. The objects chosen for the Treasure Basket are 'found' items made from natural materials - no plastic things or manufactured toys are included. With an adult carer close by and attentive, although not interfering, a baby or small group of babies can investigate the contents of the basket using all their senses and their developing manipulative skills.

The contents of a Treasure Basket can absorb a baby's attention for up to an hour, or even more. This engagement is also seen when toddlers become involved in heuristic play - selecting and experimenting freely with found materials and developing understandings of the world around them. Observations of children show that this type of play involves concentration, decision making and rich sensory experience plus opportunities to practise hand/eye coordination and fine motor control.

Treasure Baskets and heuristic play have been part of early years training and practice for more than twenty years and so, in our research, we anticipate that one key use of reclaimed materials in early years settings will be as provision for this type of play activity.

Inspirations for the research 1 - beginnings

This small-scale research study was inspired by Kay Fisher, Director and Editor of Essential Childminder who is studying for her MA at Anglia Ruskin University. She told us about her experiences replacing conventional toys with reclaimed resources from a local scrap-store.

Kay's ideas started us thinking about attitudes to resources. Are there many reclaimed and recycled resources in contemporary early years settings and classrooms? Do teachers and other early childhood educators reuse and recycle materials? Where reclaimed resources are used is this merely to save money or for other reasons? How do children respond to and use such materials?  With all these questions - and more - our project was born!

Introduction

This blog has been started to document findings from a small-scale project designed to explore how reclaimed resources are used to support children’s learning in local early years settings. The project is being organised by the Early Childhood Research Group at Anglia Ruskin University with funding from the Children and Youth Research Institute (CYRI).

Our research stems from an interest in early childhood education for sustainability and is also inspired by work in the REMIDA recycling centre in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where reclaimed materials are used as a basis for creative activities with children. We are aware that there is a long tradition of using recycled resources in early years education. In our experience, early years practitioners collect boxes, kitchen roll tubes, egg cartons, yogurt pots, shiny sweet wrappers, off-cuts of material, cotton reels, and anything else that could be used for creative play. Similarly they encourage parents to contribute unwanted items from homes and workplaces that could be used with the children and often frequent scrap projects to source additional resources.

We are interested to find out more about practice with reclaimed resources in early years settings. We would like to know: What resources are used? How do children play with reclaimed materials? What do adults consider to be the importance of these resources? With this in mind, we have been visiting nurseries and doing the following, with staff:

• Looking at the reclaimed resources in the setting and creating an inventory / list;
• Observing children using the reclaimed materials and documenting what they do;
• Discussing the inventory and observations with nursery managers and hearing their ideas about the uses of reclaimed materials in early years settings.

This information is currently being gathered together and analysed to begin to answer our questions about how and why reclaimed resources are used in early years settings.