Engaging Young Children in the Exploration of the World Around Them
Science education is important for students’ development. But, on average, science activities in early grades occur only sporadically. How to change this picture?
On the one hand, science is about observing and exploring the world around us. It is about questioning, investigating, analyzing, and drawing conclusions. It regards knowledge and systematic ways of studying diverse subjects.
On the other hand, children are often curious, inquisitive and intuitive. They try to understand the reasons why some things happen, being quite often busy looking for answers to their questions. In other words, they seem to have a natural talent for science.
Incorporating science education in early grades intends to help youngsters to understand the world around them and improve their critical-thinking skills. However, only a small percentage of instructional time in kindergarten is devoted to teaching science. more
How to engage young children in more science-oriented activities? Some projects concentrate their efforts on making science education more accessible and integrated into the kindergarten curriculum.
The Scientific Literacy Project
The Science Literacy Project (SLP) has been developed by a team of researchers at Purdue University in collaboration with Indiana classroom teachers. It consists of a program including a series of science units which allow children to experiment with the scientific process, stimulating the interaction with other classmates and the participation of parents.
Each SLP unit combines classroom activities with theme-related books in order to create an active learning environment where children explore important scientific concepts, such as the difference between living and non-living things.
Besides, the family literacy materials provide a guide to the parents with respect to reading science books with their child. They “link the book to the classroom activities, the science topic in general, and to other school subjects such as mathematics.” This way, the parents can play an important role in the further exploration of science topics seen in each unit.
In the first “What is Science?” unit the children are introduced to the basic concepts used throughout the program,
• Science as the study of the natural world
• Science as something that everyone can do
• The scientific methodology: learning through “carefully conducted processes of inquiry”
More information on each teaching/learning unit and the outcome of the research (list of publications inclusive) can be found at the SLP website.
Integrated Science-Literacy Enactments Project
A similar initiative is the Integrated Science-Literacy Enactments (ISLE) project developed at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
The integrated units include various activities for the young students among which,
• Reading information books aloud
• Acting-out (drama) activities
• Literature circles
• Composition of their own illustrated books
The scientific content includes
• Matter unit in which students learn, for instance, what solids, liquids and gases look like, how they differ from one another and how changes of state occur.
• Forest unit that help students to learn about plants and animal, including topics such as where they live, what they eat or what they are eaten by.
More information available in the ISLE project website.
Science Everyday
In the Suite 101 article “The Science of Everyday Life”, Theresa Willingham suggests ways of getting children to love science by understanding how science is present in their lives. Everyday life examples show how parents can stimulate their kid’s appetite for science.
Early Science Education
Integrating the teaching of science with language makes it more appealing for teachers and allow the students to experience written language, for instance, as a means of recording observations and presenting scientific ideas.
Science is all around, present in many daily experiences. And early science education encourages inquiry and reflection, allowing young students to exercise the natural talent for science that exists in each and all of them. Therefore, at school and at home, children should be motivated to experience and understand the world around them.