The project responds to a need to involve teachers’ voices in research that concerns drawing in science education. Significant for the project is that it will be conducted in teams that include primary teachers, arts educators, and researchers in both science education and literacy. Three such teams will meet six times each over the project’s four-year period. The focus of the first four meetings is on developing and evaluating formative teaching interventions. Between meetings, teachers implement the interventions in their classroom, while researchers video record classroom interactions and document the students’ drawings, to inform analysis and the team’s further development of teaching.

Our analysis builds on a ‘social semiotic approach to multimodality’, considering drawing as one of many modes important to students’ learning in science. In the final two meetings, the team will discuss the researchers’ preliminary results.

Our ambition is that the project will contribute a pedagogical vocabulary and practical repertoire for teaching and assessing drawing in science class.