A BASIS FOR TEACHING SCIENCE TO YOUNG STUDENTS

— APPROACH —

The approach toward science in schools has often been from one of simply learning “facts” and teachers thinking they needed to be able to “explain” scientific facts to children. It’s no wonder so little science is taught in schools, especially elementary schools.  But science is not simply learning facts; it is building an understanding and a way of thinking based on observation and evidence.

For centuries, people have made observations about our world and then tried to gather evidence to explain those observations.  Take the example of the movement of the sun across the sky. What phenomenon has been more prevalent and important in the daily lives of humans for thousands of years than the sun’s rising each morning and setting each evening?  To anyone who simply stands and looks up at the sky, there is no sensation of movement and everything in the sky rises in the east and sets in the west. Therefore everything must revolve around Earth; that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation based on such evidence.

But over time, scientists noticed evidence that didn’t fit the Earth-centric explanation – Sun rise and moon rise change over the course of the year; some planets don’t appear for months at a time; some planets appear to move in a reverse direction against the background of stars. Such evidence, along with much more, led to our current understanding of Earth’s place with our solar system and our solar system’s place within the larger universe.

If teachers embrace this way of thinking and teaching, then science quickly moves away from an often ignored chore to an engaging and compelling experience for both students and teacher.

A wonderful aspect to introducing primary students to science is that, for the most part, the concepts we want students to learn and experience are relatively simple ideas (but form the basis for further study as students mature). One National Science Standard for primary students is:

Sound can make matter vibrate, and vibrating matter can make sound.

For students to be able to grapple with this idea, they need appropriately designed observations that in turn allow them to gather evidence to build the explanation that “if I hear a sound, then something must be vibrating;” and “if I can make something vibrate, then it should produce a sound I can hear.” That's it - there is nothing more at this age that we can expect students to really understand. Their minds are not ready for sound waves and molecules and ear drums and nerve cells within the ear. Students will get to all of that in due time, but at such an early age the focus is on simple ideas and helping them develop the thinking skills centered on using evidence to explain observations.

The experiences, and therefore the evidence, need not be complicated. Students often are asked to think about a number of observations that they have undoubtedly made many times before.  But by systematically selecting observations and experiences, students build not only their ability to explain observations, but their ability to think logically, critically and to problem-solve.

Will students be able to think up their own explanations?  Probably, but they may be shy about it until they are comfortable with this method of teaching science.  If they become stumped, think out loud to "model" how you think your way through it.

A large part of thinking through this kind of problem is visualizing what's happening.  Therefore, drawings are very important.  Students need to become comfortable with the skill of visualizing processes in their minds and sharing them in ways that others can understand their thinking.

It is tremendously important to ask students to construct their own understanding from the evidence (even if it requires some verbal thinking by the teacher).  This is essential to students' long-term learning, and to their development of skills in problem-solving and scientific reasoning. (If we simply tell them the answers, they may be able to answer test questions in a few days, but they are unlikely to retain the learning for a significant length of time.  Nor will they have the opportunity to practice the thinking skills that they will eventually need in the world they will enter as adults.) Do not, however, leave their knowledge-construction to chance.  The learning experiences contained within all of the units are designed to reach a goal and teachers need to ensure that it gets there.

Lastly, teachers must be ever vigilant to those incorrect, incomplete or naive ideas that students invariably bring with them to class.  Please access those related resources for support.

— GALLERY —

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