Acknowledgements List of Figures and Tables 1 Beginning the Journey into Early Childhood Science Education Research: Beyond Alternative Conceptions  1 Introduction  2 Beginning the Journey  3 Concluding Remarks and Future Directions Paper 1: Children’s Alternative Views: Alternative to What? 2 Conceptual Play: New Research Agendas Driven by Policy Changes for Play-Based Settings  1 Introduction  2 National Reviews and Imperatives for Early Childhood Science Education  3 International Imperatives Shaping Early Childhood Education  4 Concluding Remarks and Future Directions Paper 2: ‘Conceptual Play’: Foregrounding Imagination and Cognition during Concept Formation in Early Years Education 3 Building an Evidence-Based Model for Early Childhood Science Education: The Place of Emotions in Science, Motivating Learning into Play, and the Teacher in Play Relations  1 Big Research Problems Need a Suite of ARC Discovery Grants  2 Bringing in Emotions and Drama into Science  3 Motives and Motivating Conditions  4 Leaping Forward …  5 Going Back …  7 Thinking Differently about the Problem: Teachers Inside of Children’s Play Paper 3: Affective Imagination in Science Education: Determining the Emotional Nature of Scientific and Technological Learning of Young Children Paper 4: The Demands and Motives Afforded through Digital Play in Early Childhood Activity Settings Paper 5: Pedagogical Positioning in Play–Teachers Being Inside and Outside of Children’s Imaginary Play 4 Conceptual PlayWorlds: New Model of Practice for Supporting Early Childhood Teachers in the Intentional Teaching of STEM  1 An Educational Experiment and a Conceptual PlayWorld as an Intervention  2 The Five Characteristics of Conceptual Playworlds  3 Conclusion Paper 6: Conceptual Playworlds: The Role of Imagination in Play and Learning Paper 7: Scientific Playworlds: A Model of Teaching Science in Play-Based Settings Paper 8: Conceptual PlayWorlds as a Pedagogical Intervention: Supporting the Learning and Development of the Preschool Child in Play-Based Setting 5 Conceptual PlayLab for Early Childhood STEM: Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship Scheme  1 Engaging with Social Media – Making and Curating Content  2 Video Productions  3 Halfway through the Five-year Period of Funding 6 Agentic STEM Practices: From Role-Playing “As If” Engineer/Scientist to Imagining This As a Career  1 Mentoring in the Academy …  2 Building the Legacy and Circling Back …  3 Where Are We at Now?  4 Future Imagining in Engineering  5 Engineering PlayWorlds  6 Looking Forward Paper 9: When Preschool Girls Engineer: Future Imaginings of Being and Becoming an Engineer Index