Topic Two - Exploring the Natural world with children

From the time they are born, the process of awareness and exploration begins for young children. Physical capabilities, vision and the immediate experiences of infants emerge and infants respond by exploring and experiencing, touching, tasting, feeling and making connections. Adults connected to these babies are drawn to sharing the explorations, delighting in them and extending them through their interest, enthusiasm and interactions.

This journey continues as we share children’s sense of awe and wonder at the world around them. It is incredibly exciting – a thrill – when children make their own discoveries and then connect new information to old or integrate new information with their current understanding. We must know how to promote a climate for investigation and discovery.

As we think about how we can create a wonderful world of discovery for and with children, we begin by looking at inquiry learning and the formal scientific method. Dietze and Kashin present the steps within this method and how it reflects the natural approach that young children take when interacting in the natural world. Take a look at pages 249-251 and read through the complete description of the stages that I have summarized below.

Observation

The children use all of their senses as they gather information, investigate and manipulate objects. We understand that children are naturally concrete and sensory based learners. They need this concrete interaction to smell, hear, taste, see and touch, to experience weight, temperature, and properties of materials. Children are not just looking but also thinking about what they observe. They are making connections between the observed objects and events and their current understanding. Observation is not enough to construct understanding. Objects, events and actions must also be put into relationships.

Classification

As children observe objects and events they see their size, colour, shape, weight, properties and similarities and differences. It is important to support children’s awareness of the attributes of materials by asking open ended questions. Children will begin to categorize materials based on a variety of criteria. We may be surprised by the types of categories that children create as they compare and contrast. Listening to their ideas and the ways they are noticing the relationship between varying materials is far more significant to children than asking them to put all of the _____ (red, round, long, rough, etc.) materials in this container. Identifying specific categories does not support children to think about the similarities and differences that they see and come up with a way to put materials into categories that they identify.

Wonder, Predict and Hypothesize

Children often wonder and make guesses (predictions) about what will happen based on what has been observed in the past. Once again, our strategic open ended questions can support children’s natural process of wondering and predicting.

Experiment, Test and Explore

Children try out ideas, change something and try it out again; noticing what happens supports children’s understanding and learning. As children try out their ideas they problem solve, test their understanding, experiment with materials, use creative approaches, collaborate with their peers and expand their knowledge. It is critical that astute educators recognize the importance of these experimentations and provide materials, questions and interest that will allow the children to go even further.

Drawing Conclusions

Children’s experimentations can lead to either conclusions or the need for further explorations. Children build their understanding in a hands on scientific way and are full of curiosity and fascination about the world around them and why it is the way it is. We support children’s conclusions, theories and developing ideas by taking their pursuits seriously, by providing an environment designed to support their investigations and by joining them, matching their awe and wonder and giving validity to their thoughts and theories. It is very important to avoid simply providing answers to children’s questions. Avoid the dreaded ‘temptation to tell’ or TTT as it will stop children’s scientific process cold.

Communicating Their Ideas

Inviting children to represent their understanding is a strategy that strengthens children’s process of inquiry and continues to build understanding, supporting literacy at the same time. Dietze and Kashin describe a variety of methods, including: “spoken language, drawings, written words and symbols, demonstrations, gestures, or documentation panels” (p.250). Providing children with digital cameras that they can use to capture their experiments and to think about them further is also an interesting process.

As Dietze and Kashin say, the image of the child that uses the strategies listed above is one of a competent and capable child, able to wonder, predict, experiment, come to conclusions and share their findings with others.

The Role of the Educator

Most of us can discern immediately on entering a classroom whether or not it promotes investigation. “Teachers move beyond simply providing children with experiences. They probe further either by asking questions or by engaging the child in discussion to discover why children are deeply absorbed in exploring a material, or they try to figure out what children are thinking as they touch, taste, examine or explore the texture of interesting objects” (Susan Fraser).

Providing Materials

We provide materials based on the children and what they are interested in. We also include familiar, diverse, natural, provocative and moveable materials. We provide a wide selection of books, including non-fiction books that connect with the questions that children have asked, cultural books with diverse approaches and understandings, story books that represent competent and capable children with both boys and girls in active roles and expressing a full range of emotions.

Dietze and Kashin describe a variety of types of science that children explore that determine the materials that we provide. Physical science is an exploration of the properties of materials, Life Science is the exploration of living things, Earth Science is the exploration of earth materials including earth, rocks and shells, Technology is the exploration of machines and man-made materials and Social science is the exploration of the environment, conservation and recycling (pp. 253-254).

It’s not what children learn but how they learn that is important

A classroom of inquiry does not include worksheets and limited teacher directed approaches. See Dietze and Kashin’s discussion of this topic on pages 251 -252. Educators have an active role to play as children engage in scientific discovery but directing the children based on what the educators want them to know, is not best practice. We want to engage in building supportive relationships that provide opportunities for co-construction between children and interested educators.

Often we hear people expressing concern for children’s short attention spans… if we foster discovery, and meaningful experiences, children will amaze us with their sustained interest and attention.

There are certain approaches that would restrict or shut down investigation. Programs that focus on rigid schedules, short and interrupted time periods for investigation, teacher-directed activities, uninvolved educators, lots of rules, limited materials or restricted opportunities and excessive cleanliness and order, discourage children from exploring, experimenting and developing their own theories and understanding.

Instead, an inquiry based approach has a flexible and relaxed sense of time that allows children to stick with an exploration if they are deeply engaged. There is ample space to explore and to return to an area of exploration over hours, days and even weeks. Children are free to engage in self-initiated pursuits based on their interests and curiosities through active, hands-on experiences. Security is provided through warm and responsive relationships based on trust and mutual respect and success is ensured within a climate of acceptance, interest and recognition of the child as a thinking and competent person. Educators provide the opportunity for repeated experiences that build on children’s interests and there is a tolerance of mess, noise, and risk-taking which occur in a productive and dynamic learning environment.

In your article this week: “Childhood in the garden”, Nimmo and Hallett describe the magical natural world that is provided in a garden that we create with and for children, families and community. This delightful article provides many examples of how we can create an active and dynamic inquiry based learning environment that provides every kind of science learning described above and is appropriate for all ages of children.

Within the garden, children teach educators about their capabilities in relation to taking responsibility, creative problem solving, thinking about diversity, class, disability and environmental awareness.

In our global reality, we have a responsibility to share the riches of the garden with children, connecting them with the natural world and our need to nurture, protect and preserve it.

In the article, “Science is in the air”, by Bosse, Jacobs and Anderson, we see expanded examples of the different types of science and ways of exploring them with young children. Pay particular attention to the section on in-depth explorations with children, which identifies the benefit of exploring at a deeper level than that possible with one time only activities. In-depth explorations allow children to explore concepts related to an area of interest in a variety of ways, in a variety of areas of the room and to represent their learning through documentation and representation.

Children often explore the concepts of transformation as they act on materials and observe how they change from one state to another. We can encourage children to anticipate the outcome of an action and predict what they think might happen when they act. Sand and water provide excellent opportunities to see materials change and transform as dry sand can be poured and sifted but wet sand can be molded and shaped.

Cooking provides excellent opportunities to see a variety of stages of transformation from dry to wet as we combine ingredients, from raw to cooked, as we create bread from dough, soup from vegetables, etc.

Asking Good Questions

Effective educators ask questions that motivate children and help them to find words for their thinking. Good questions help children to solve problems as they use a higher level of thinking.

We should ask questions that:

Balancing Educator Approaches – Our goal is to have children directing their own learning and making their own decisions

We have described the benefit of a child focused approach throughout our responsive environment courses. We also need to think about when we need to intervene, add or inform. At times, children depend on us to teach them a skill needed to pursue a goal. Without intervention at points of frustration, children might give up and never experience the joy of discovery.

Asking questions is like playing tennis. The ‘ball’ (question) is served into the children’s court and they are expected to respond. By waiting the educator silently communicates a confidence in the children’s ability to respond; the educator validates the learner and give the children time to organize their thoughts.

It is tempting to lead a child to new understandings. It is difficult to wait for the children to lead themselves but it is so worth the wait