Research Project: Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle'

'Reduce, re-use, recycle: researching uses of reclaimed resources for play in early years settings.' 


is a research project carried out by Paulette Luff with Gemma Ryder, Pat Austin Sevgi Emre, Rutendo Matamba and Juljana Mandra.

The aim of the project is to explore the use of reclaimed resources as an aspect of early childhood education for sustainability. It is a small-scale qualitative research project focusing upon recycled and re-used materials as play resources within local early years settings.  We are interested in: how and why reclaimed resources are used in early childhood settings; how these materials are presented to children; and the affordances of these as play resources. The study is underpinned by a review of literature, aiming to identify contemporary understandings of early childhood education for sustainability and research into uses of materials and resources with this age group. Data collection includes: audit of resources; detailed narrative observations children playing with reclaimed resources; and semi-structured interviews form of dialogues with practitioners. Data analysis takes the form of descriptive and analytical coding to identify categories and sub-categories.

The project commenced in Summer 2013 and several early childhood settings have been visited and data collected to explore how children are using reclaimed resources and what skills they are acquiring and / or developing. Interviews with setting staff allow us to investigate what their understanding is relating to sustainability and environmental education and how it links to their curriculum; what resources are provided and how the children are using the materials and resources provided. Additionally, resource audits have been compiled to investigate what settings use to support learning and development and where they collect and store these resources.

A project blog has been set up to record the project's progress and discuss issues in relation to environmental education and sustainability in early childhood settings. This can be found on http://4recrg.blogspot.co.uk/ .

Welcome To Our New Blog

The Early Childhood Research Group is an aspirational and active group of academics and researchers, including undergraduate and postgraduate students, from Anglia Ruskin University (in Chelmsford and Cambridge, UK). We are based in the Department of Education and the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education. We are from varying backgrounds with expertise and experience in different aspects of early childhood. On the pages of this blog, we plan to introduce ourselves and write about our ideas and ideals and our current work.



Our logo was designed by Anna Luff for our first international research conference, in April 2007, where we explored the concept of relational pedagogy. Some of the contributions to the conference are published in the book Learning Together in the Early Years edited by Theodora Papatheodorou (the inspirational leader of our research group up until December 2011) and Janet Moyles (our Professor Emerita) both of whom continue to stimulate and support our work.