Creativity and imagination have been treated as indispensable preconditions for helping humanity to be able to tackle the problems we face (Sandri 2013). Innovative energy systems and innovation in waste management or transportation has, for example, been developed through novel ideas (cf., Editorial board of IJDCI 2013). Education for sustainability has been developed to enhance thinking and acting in ways that will safeguard the future wellbeing of people, species and our planet (Davis 2010). Therefore, we are interested in how the process of imagination works specifically when children anticipate and treat with care something that concerns them that have connections to science and sustainability issues. The need of nurturing imagination seems pivotal within science education due to the fact that in our shared society, the unpredictability of a tomorrow might seem inconceivable.

In several writings on aesthetics and education the educational philosopher Dewey has drawn attention to imagination (1925/1958) rather than creativity or fantasy and thus emphasizes that this concept should not be dismissed as a fixed entity that is held by a person or as a romantic, mysterious, chaotic or irrational property (Garrison 1997). Imagination can preferably be described as a resourceful way for all human beings to see and feel when composing an integral whole within an experience (Dewey 1934/1980). Human activates are inevitably intertwined with imagination where the desire for the yet unknown is current. To be imaginative includes re-encoding and bringing about change and an active “dissolution of old objects” (Dewey 1925/1958, p. 220). However, imagination implies a “search for ideas that can possibly reconstruct the situation” (Garrison 1997, p. 96), leading to new consequences.

An insightful case study by Glenn Mackey (2012) on young children’s decision–making that touches upon sustainability concerns exposes the various ways in which children act for the environment. In this research where a child, for example, is troubled with the fact that the Antarctica’s extreme, cold climate might kill the baby penguins. Through the child’s imagination an innovative, plastic machine is constructed in order to rescue the penguin chicks. The research interest in creativity and imagination connected to early childhood education for sustainability or SSI (Sadler and Zeidler 2005) is, however, not always explicitly outlined or addressed. Nevertheless, a few noteworthy empirical works are produced that touch upon imagination and creativity. For example, Christina Siry and Isabelle Kremer’s (2011) research revealed that young children’s ideas on science phenomena were fairly sophisticated. They characterized the children’s inquiry as a non-linear, creative path where new scientific ideas were collaboratively constructed.

In conclusion, creativity and imagination have received attention when science and sustainability are on the agenda. Nevertheless, the research contributions on this subject are few and the concepts used are sometimes quite hollow and mainly rhetorical. Hence, this article strives to empirically investigate imagination as an unscripted process and thoroughly scrutinize how this process emerges, develops and what consequences it will bring to the given situation. 

Imagination has an important role in children’s meaning making concerning science and sustainability and not in the least when humanity is forced to deal with complex problems. The specific aim of this study is to empirically scrutinize how the children’s process of imagination emerges, develops and what consequences it will bring to the situation. We closely examine:

1. Which experiences are used when new imaginative products come into blended existence?

2. How are different blends transformed as the children involve themselves in cooperative processes of imagination?

3. How are the overall uttered aims of the activities jointly transformed through the children’s process of imagination? 

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