NSTA Journal Inquiry

How do you integrate science into young children’s learning effectively?

Science is a subject that if done in the correct manner, can be an enjoyable time for

students in their classroom while teaching them crucial exploration skills. However, you

shouldn’t just wait to introduce science until they are required to be tested on it and throw them

into it without any prior experience. That is where my question of how to integrate science into

young children’s learning effectively came from. From what I’ve found throughout these

articles, children as young as kindergarten and even preschool can be introduced to science in an

effective way that is enjoyable and preparing them for their future science classes.

It is very important to relate science activities and experiments to topics that the children

will relate to because that is when they get the most interest and ultimately understanding out of.

It is also important to address common misconceptions young children may have involving

science or the topic you are introducing before you actually start the lesson to make sure they are

taking new information in instead of blocking it out because they think they know something

else. A good way to figure out the class’s viewpoint on a topic is to engage the students in a

student led discussion where they take turns saying things they know and the teacher writes them

all down on sticky notes. As a class, they then sort the sticky notes into categories branching out

of the topic, clumping common themes together and discussing whether the statement is true or a

misconception. This also gets the class involved in actively searching for answers that they have

questions about or aren’t sure of by using resources given to them. The teacher could have them

help search on the computer or look through books on the topic to determine the answer. Even

students at a young age are inquisitive and can engage in helping explore questions even if they

aren’t fully ready to participate in higher level thinking or experiments.

 Since science isn’t required to be taught at these young ages, participation in discussion is

a good way to assess them while also introducing them to this interactive, engaging subject.

Discussions are also a good way for the teacher to gauge their prior knowledge which is helpful

for teachers regardless of if the student is being assessed or not. Another method that could be

introduced to this age level of students is showing them the tools that scientists use and giving

them the opportunity to record their data. These tools include graphs and tally charts that aren’t

too complex but still visibly shows the children how to organize their data that they collect as a

class. Teaching the students to collect data in this science setting builds their data recording

skills as well as infuses their skills to other subjects like math.

Teaching these young children skills that can be crossed into other subjects will help

them in the long run. There are many skills that can be introduced in an early setting but since

they aren’t required until a later age, these skills are being held off. Teachers need to be aware

that they could develop the skills without completely altering their lessons or reworking their

whole teaching style. Learning science skills early will interest kids about the topic before it is

necessary which makes them ahead of the game for when it is being tested. Kids are very

observant and ask many questions so these early level science skills that are very crucial to

science, can be used at early levels. Since kids already do these things frequently, they just need

some guidance from a teacher to point them in the right direction and facilitate a starting point to

get them to access what they know and what they want to know. Young kids are curious

thinkers and we, as teachers, just need to give them the opportunities to explore and ask

questions just like in many other areas of study throughout their school age career. Science

builds many crucial skills and should be addressed as much as possible to early school aged kids

who are curious and inquisitive and just need some direction.
 I enjoyed investigating this topic because my placement this year is in a preschool setting

and I was very interested to see what types of sciences they could participate in and how the

most effective practices to teach it would be. In our class, we constantly are discussing how to

formulate good questions which these articles focused a lot on. Encouraging these young

children to ask questions about the topic in front of them is a skill that they will be able to build

on in everything else they do and it is essential to teach it at young ages. In the future, if I work

with young children, I would love to use the idea presented in one of the articles about the

student guided discussion where they can talk it out between themselves and them use research

platforms to decide if their prior knowledge is true or a misconception. I also would always

encourage the students to ask questions based on whatever topic we are exploring. I think simple

experiments that are interesting for them and could teach them just a little bit of a science

concept would be fun to do in my future classroom if I had young students because it would

build a love for science in them and make them want to learn and ask questions. I still wonder

what types of experiments and investigations would be effective to use with preschool to

kindergarten age.
 References

Ashbrook, P. (2005). What can Young Children do as Scientists. Science and Children,43(1), 24-

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Ashbrook, P. (2011). The Early Years: Recording Data with Young Children. Science and

Children,48(5), 22-23. Retrieved September 27, 2018, from

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Nelson, S., & Sander, J. (2009). Science Conversations for Young Learners. Science and

Children,46(6), 43-45. Retrieved September 27, 2018, from

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