Science in Preschool, Part 2

This is the second of two parts of an article describing how key ideas from A Framework for K–12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) might be enacted and applied in early childhood settings with young children with considerations to Developmentally Appropriate Practice. See Part 1 in the January/February 2024 issue of Science and Children.

Key Idea 3

A primary goal of K–12 science is to promote students’ evidence-based thinking.

The Message: Promote critical thinking by focusing on children’s science experiences, observations, and emerging ideas.

A primary goal of the Framework and the NGSS is to support students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Along with collaboration, communication, and creativity, these skills have been identified as essential to success in our increasingly STEM-oriented workforce.

Thinking critically involves the capacity to generate explanations about how and why things happen based on evidence. It includes the ability to revise one’s ideas when the evidence no longer supports them. Critical thinking is fundamental to problem solving and has implications for many of the personal, professional, and community decisions we make as adults. In our information age, it also impacts our ability to evaluate what we see, hear, and read and to distinguish fact from fiction in the media.

To strengthen their critical thinking, students need many opportunities to engage in an ongoing cycle of making claims, providing evidence, and giving reasons for their ideas. Let’s look at an example of what this might look like in an early elementary study of light (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Young children and physical science core idea.

During a first-grade light unit, for example, the teacher might engage students in the following claim/evidence/reasoning experiences:

• Sharing their initial ideas about where light comes from and revisiting them after multiple opportunities to collect, record, and discuss data from their explorations of objects that do and do not emit light.

• Comparing their observations of an object’s colors, shapes, and features in dim and bright light and making claims about how light affects what we can and cannot see.

• Engineering a model of a totally dark room with a shoebox; using it to test their thinking about whether they would see objects inside of it; and revisiting and revising their ideas based on evidence from their observations.

• Openly exploring how different materials (e.g., cardboard, tissue paper, clear plastic) interact with light and coming to consensus about how they might all test the objects in the same way (e.g., introducing the concept of a “fair test”).

• Sharing their ideas and evidence about how shadows are made before and after an open and more focused exploration of their own shadows outdoors.

• Evaluating the images of a story character’s shadows at different times of day based on their observations of their own shadows outdoors.

• Comparing their observations of the sizes and shapes of shadows they made indoors to their original predictions and talking about how and why their thinking changed.

DAP Considerations for Early Learning

Adapting an approach focused on supporting critical thinking and problem-solving in ECE science means using facilitation strategies that place children’s experiences, observations, and emerging ideas at the center of the curriculum.

What might this look like in a life science study focused on animals (see Figure 2)?

Figure 2 Young children and life science core ideas.

Centering our teaching on what children are doing, noticing, and thinking about may mean shifting our mental models of the teacher’s role away from a person who provides information and explanations toward a more multi-faceted and nuanced role that incorporates the teacher as stage-setter, facilitator, co-explorer, and reflection leader (see Table 1).

Table 1 The teacher’s multi-faceted role.

Stage-Setter	Facilitator and Co-Explorer	Reflection Leader
Collect photos of animals that inhabit the local environment around the school including small animals such as worms, pillbugs, and insects.	Share the photos to prompt discussion of children’s prior experiences with these and other animals. Have you ever seen an animal like this before? What do you know about this animal?	Draw out children’s ideas about what the different animals eat, how they move about, and where children think we might find them outdoors.
Provide materials for exploring the outdoor environment such as small spades, craft sticks, small containers, a camera/phone, and drawing and writing materials.	Co-explore with children in the outdoors and support them to observe, collect and record data about the animals they find by drawing and taking photos.	Share the drawings and/or photos at group-time and draw out children’s observations. What did the animal look like? What was it doing? Where did you find it? Why do you think it was there?
Identify an animal(s) that can safely be kept indoors and do some research on its needs using child-friendly resources; collect an appropriate container.	Share research resources with children and co-create a terrarium for the animal(s) using materials found in its outdoor habitat. Take photos of each step of the process and have children dictate and/or write the captions.	Using resources, draw out children’s ideas and questions about the animal’s needs and how we can meet them indoors. What questions do you have that we should look up in our book or on an animal website?
Place the terrarium in a safe location where children can easily observe the animal(s) along with related books and drawing, writing and/or modeling materials.	Support extended opportunities for children to observe, draw, or make models of the animal(s); encourage them to make increasingly detailed observations of its characteristics and behavior. and how it uses its body parts to eat and move about.	Invite children to make comparisons among different animals including ones they observe indoors and out and themselves. How do you think the worm’s body helps it burrow in the dirt? How would you move if your body was shaped like an earthworm’s body? How would you eat?
Make plans and schedule time for on-going outdoor explorations. Keep a bag of outdoor exploration materials handy.	Extend explorations to other parts of the outdoor area, encouraging children to look for and observe animals they find under the ground, and on and around trees and other plants.	Invite children to share their thinking about why different animals live and make their homes in different places. Why do you think a tree is a good home for a bird? Why is an underground home good for a worm?

Life science, although a favorite of many preschool educators, presents some unique challenges for young children. Living things take a long time to grow and change and children are expected to observe them rather than act on them directly the way they can with inanimate objects. Life science also introduces several interconnected concepts including animal needs (e.g., for food, water, air, and space to live and grow); environments (e.g., where animals live and get their needs met); and structure and function (e.g., how animals use their body parts to obtain the things they need within their environments). At the same time, it is important to remember that young children are deepening their understanding of words such as animal (which they generally associate only with furry four-legged creatures), living, needs, and wants. It will take time and many experiences for children to fully grasp the meanings of these words as they deepen their understanding of the related concepts.

On the flip side, unless children have had a traumatic experience (e.g., been bitten by a dog or stung by a bee) they generally exhibit an affinity with all kinds of animals that is unparalleled in the adult world (one reason animal stories are so popular with this age group!).

Key Idea 4

Broadening participation in science and supporting students’ positive science attitudes requires connecting what students are doing and learning in school to their day-to-day lived experiences and interests.

The Message: Make Connections to Children’s Daily Lives that Enrich Their School Science Experiences

The Framework and the NGSS target equity as a primary goal of a high-quality science education. They center making connections between science and students’ daily lives as a critical inclusion strategy and essential for students from communities that have been historically marginalized in science. Although teachers cannot solve systemic issues of racism, ethnocentrism, and sexism in science, they can embrace culturally competent science teaching in an effort to push back against the explicit and implicit biases about who is capable of doing and learning science that Black, Brown, multilingual, and female students are subjected to in the world around them.

Culturally competent teaching incorporates many strategies, a few of which we illustrate below in the context of a second-grade Earth Science unit on landscapes (see Figure 3).

Figure 3 Young children and Earth/space science core ideas.

To strengthen culturally competent science teaching:

• Center students’ explorations on the urban, rural and/or suburban landscapes and landscape features familiar to them and their families and the animals and plants that can be found there.

• Recognize the funds of knowledge that students and their families bring to a landscape study (e.g. knowledge of plants and animals native to the local landscape; construction work that impacts the landscape) and engage adult family members as topical experts.

• Pursue authentic problems relevant to students and their communities, e.g. how changes to the local landscape might impact the lives of their families and the animals and plants that depend on it.

• Incorporate a variety of cultural and family discourse and sense-making strategies (e.g. story-telling, specific argumentation styles) and invite students to use familiar vocabulary and language structures to share their experiences and ideas about landscapes.

• Make diversity in the world of science work visible through first-hand interactions with people of color, multilinguals, and women who have jobs, careers, and interests related to studying, preserving, or modifying local landscapes.

DAP Considerations for Early Learning

Current research is clear that young children’s early science experiences, especially ones that occur in the context of family and community, are fundamental to sparking their early science learning, science interests and their positive self-identities.

Teachers can leverage the influence of the family to support children’s early science experiences both in and out of school. By initiating and sustaining reciprocal and respectful relationships with families, teachers can excite, educate, and empower all families to support their children’s curiosity, exploration, and thinking. Culturally competent science teaching in the early years requires the teachers to internalize three research-based ideas:

• All parents and primary caregivers want to support their children to be successful in school and in life.

• Everyday family routines and activities provide a rich context for children’s science inquiry and learning.

• All of us are subject to explicit and implicit biases that influence how we view individual children’s science aptitudes and abilities as well as how we view their families’ capacities to support them.

Authentic teacher/family partnerships rely on two-way communication with teachers and families learning from and with each other. It is up to the teacher to ensure that these communication pathways are open in both directions, particularly for families who feel less confident about engaging with schools, school staff, or science for any number of reasons. Table 2 looks at some composite examples of what this might look like in preschool.

Table 2 A composite example of parent/teacher partnership activities that support children’s science learning across contexts.

Teacher	Interviews or surveys families at the beginning of the year including questions about family routines, activities, hobbies, and interests; stresses the importance of the family’s role in supporting child’s curiosity and science learning, interests and confidence.
Family	Recognizes teacher’s emphasis on learning about their child and family and teacher’s approach to them as partners in their child’s science learning. Begins to think and talk with child about science-related topics.
Teacher	Makes connections for children to home activities and routines that are science-related; regularly informs families about the science children are doing and learning at school through clear and accessible channels of communication.
Family	Interacts and talks with their child about their school science activities and preferences.
Teacher	Hosts an informal science event for families that includes family co-exploration, and related story-telling and drawing activities; emphasizes family connection, interaction and conversation as primary goals.
Family	Connects with their child around science explorations and interests and is excited by child’s engagement and knowledge; shares stories with their child about their own early science experiences and interests.
Teacher	Shares clear exploration messages in families’ primary languages related to specific topics of study such as, “We can explore how to make tall towers with different objects” or “We can investigate sinking and floating” with suggestions for home explorations that “fit” with family routines and materials.
Family	Supports experiences at home that connect to school and make children’s school experiences more meaningful (building with plastic cups or dominoes; sinking and floating objects in the tub or local pond).
Teacher	Leverages children’s home experiences to deepen classroom conversation; creates visual displays of children’s school explorations with descriptions of what children are doing and learning; invite families to share photos and videos from home with clear instructions on how to upload.
Family	Talks with their child about the visual displays and engages in more specific conversations with child about their school experiences; creates and shares photos and videos of home explorations and interactions with teachers.
Teacher	Display the visuals from home and use them to extend and expand classroom conversations about what children are doing, observing, and thinking about related to a current topic of study.
Family	Views the displays on parent/teacher nights or during school events and talks about them with the teacher; expresses pride in their child’s accomplishments; encourages other parents to engage in home/school science experiences.
Teacher	Solicits families’ perspectives on what children are gaining from their home and school science experiences in order to continually inform and increase the effectiveness of their family engagement approaches and strategies.

Engaging with families around science takes time. Many families come with their own uncertainties about science and don’t view themselves as capable of supporting their children’s science learning. Others may understand that science is important but not view it as important learning for their own children’s future life or work experiences. Family engagement, just like teaching children, begins with initiating and sustaining positive relationships.

For many teachers at all levels, embracing the vision of the Framework and the NGSS represents a paradigm shift in what science is and how it is best taught and learned. Early childhood educators have the additional challenge of enacting this vision in ways that honor the unique developmental characteristics and ways of thinking that young children bring with them to the classroom. They also work within systems that have the potential to expand or limit their opportunities to veer from traditional early childhood curricula and instruction practices to use approaches and strategies that more closely align with the powerful ideas in these documents. My colleagues in the ECSIF and I applaud states, districts, and programs that seek to provide all early educators with the administrative and professional learning supports that will strengthen their understanding of this vision and enable them to apply it in ways that build on and intersect with their deep knowledge of developmentally appropriate practice.

Acknowledgments

The idea for this two-part article emerged from a conversation among members of the NAEYC Early Childhood Science Interest Forum (ECSIF) and they have been invaluable in supporting it to completion.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cindy Hoisington

Cindy Hoisington ([email protected]) is an early childhood science educator at Education Development Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, who develops science professional learning and resources for children, families, and teachers with a focus on learners in under-resourced communities.