Felting Atoms: Embodied Material Practices for Understanding Atomic Structure

Description

This workshop presents a tactile, material-based, and embodied approach to chemistry education in which participants felt their own atom as a means of exploring scientific models of atomic structure. Through hands-on manipulation of wool fibres, participants work with the materiality, texture, and resistance of the material, gaining sensory access to how scientific models represent the internal organisation of matter. The slow, iterative process of felting makes visible how representations of atomic structure might be constructed, negotiated, and refined through practice rather than through abstraction.

Drawing on embodied perspectives, the workshop emphasises how sense-making may arise in the dynamic encounter between body, material, and phenomenon, consistent with Gallagher’s enactive account in which understanding emerges through situated bodily engagement rather than detached internal representation (Gallagher, 2023). Dewey’s pragmatist view further suggests that learning grows from inquiry-driven experimentation, where meaning is shaped through active transformation of materials rather than passive reception of information (Dewey, 1938). Research in chemistry education has shown how challenging it is for learners to coordinate macroscopic observations with highly abstract submicroscopic models - an effort that often exceeds their developing conceptual resources (Taber, 2013). In this light, the workshop explores the possibility that embodied, tactile engagement can support learners in navigating such conceptual complexity.

By working materially and sensorially with atomic models, participants will examine how tactile interaction might foster curiosity, connection, and deeper conceptual reflection—particularly in areas where traditional and canonical representational forms risk obscuring the structures they aim to explain.

Period	8 Jun 2026
Event title	Second International Conference on Embodied Education
Event type	Conference
Location	Emdrup, DenmarkShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International