Browsing by Author "Torvinen, Kathrin"

For the students' future, it is important that today's teaching prepares them for their future challenges and gives them tools to solve those. There will be a need for creative thinking, courage and cooperation skills. The curriculum of Finnish schools has defined a broad range of skills which are important in the future of students. Teaching should be planned from the point of view of learning process and extending the boundaries of school subjects. In the context of integrating teaching, we talk about phenomenal learning, which is based on holistic phenomena of the real world. The basis of phenomenal learning is the principle of exploratory learning, where learning starts by exploring problems and finding answers and solutions to them. The focus of the thesis is a quasi-experimental study to explore which color shades are generated when using beetroot and peels of mandarin and red onion as a source of color, how those colors will withstand washing and light exposure and what kind of possibilities for exploratory, phenomenon based learning following the aims of transversal competences defined by the integrated curriculum the project provides. The main results of the experimental part of the study show that the use of rhubarb leaves as a mordant has darkened the color result with all the dyeing colors tried. This is explained by the fact that rhubarb causes a dark background color, which shows strong in light dyes with little redness. The colorfastness of beetroot towards light and washing is poor. The colors achieved by the use of mandarin peels are light yellow and red onion is a source for green or brown shades, depending on the mordant used. Those colors have a good fastness to light and laundering. The differences are found are a good starting point for phenomenon based exploratory learning. Performing dyeing and dyeing tests themselves touch many areas of expertise and educational goals. The use of bio waste as a source of colors, colors and woolen material offer a variety of opportunities for teaching following an integrated curriculum, exploratory learning, phenomenon based learning and improving transversal competences. The project can be expanded according to the teacher's goals, depending on the subject and topic, or following the pupils' interest. In this way learning can be expanded in various ways.