Science Education « Preschool Matters… Today!

Playing Sidekick to Sid the Science Kid

November 5, 2010

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article today about the strategies media companies are using to attract preschoolers to their television content. It points out, among other things, that PBS Kids focuses on cognitive development.

As an adviser to Sid the Science Kid, I can attest to the truthfulness of that claim. My role in helping shape the show began with a phone call. “We’d like you and Moisés (Román, Director of the University Village site of UCLA Early Care and Education) to write the curriculum for the project and to be our educational advisors.” The call came from Joyce Campbell, Vice President for Children’s Programming at KCET, Los Angeles. The project to which she referred was the brainchild of KCET and The Jim Henson Company, an initial idea that grew into Sid the Science Kid, a television show that now airs nationally on PBS Kids.

When that call came, I admit to being somewhat star-struck. This was an opportunity to partner with the people who brought Oscar, Ernie, Bert, and the gang into the lives of my young self and, some years later, my preschool children. Why did people of this caliber want to work with me? The answer to that question is one of the reasons why we have ended up with an educational approach that is engaging for children and adults and that has been linked to children’s excitement about science and to their learning, both anecdotally and through initial research studies. Larger-scale research studies are underway.

The reason that Moises and I were asked to collaborate was because we are co-developers of Preschool Pathways to Science, an early childhood science curriculum. While we both know quite a bit about children’s science learning, we bring complementary expertise. Moises is an education practitioner while I’m a research psychologist, specializing in early cognitive development.

I use the word “collaborate” very deliberately. It is not always the case that there is a curriculum that guides the production of children’s programs. If there is, that curriculum might not be written by someone with expertise in the content of the program (in this case science), in young children’s learning and development, or in children’s learning of the particular content domain of the show. Even if those criteria are met, the curriculum developer might not be invited to stick around and continue to advise on the specific content of each script. Read the rest of this entry »

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Is Preschool Too Early for Science? No!

August 6, 2010

For Curious Young Minds Eager to Understand Their World, This Age is Just Right

Related Reading

Preschool Pathways to Science (PrePS)

Facilitating Scientific Ways of Thinking, Talking, Doing, and Understanding

Rochel Gelman
Kimberly Brenneman
Gay Macdonald
Moisés Román

Paul H. Brooks Publishing Co., Inc.
Baltimore, MD
144 pages, ISBN 978-1-59857-044-1
$29.95

Until recently, science has been the ignored academic stepchild of language and math. Mandated state testing as part of No Child Left Behind initially focused on language, expanded to math, and now includes science. Concern over U.S. students’ poor science scores has brought science teaching to the forefront and a 2007 National Research Council (NRC) report, Taking Science to School, calls for broad sweeping changes in how science should be taught and organized. States are now revising science standards to be less fragmented, fewer in number, and organized around “big ideas.”

As was the case with its academic siblings, where the preschool years became a focus for providing critical foundations for language, emergent literacy and math, educators are now asking whether science should be introduced in preschool. Science is not “new” to preschool since many states include science as part of their “cognition and general knowledge” school readiness domain and Head Start includes “nature and science” as one of eight designated readiness domains. However, a recent analysis of Head Start school readiness data in one state (Greenfield et al., 2009) finds that on average, children leave the Head Start program for kindergarten with science readiness scores significantly lower than scores on the other seven school readiness domains. Follow-up focus groups with Head Start teachers pinpoint lack of time and not feeling prepared or comfortable teaching science as two possible reasons why this mandated readiness domain receives short shrift. Is preschool, however, too early for introducing science? A “strict” interpretation of Piaget would suggest so. More recent research on children’s thinking, however, clearly show that despite much of young children’s thinking being tied to the perceptual here and now, young children can think and talk about many science-related topics. The 2007 NRC report reviews this research and argues for the importance and timeliness of introducing science to young children. This urgency has important relevance beyond its direct impact on science readiness, since part of learning science involves important domain general skills that are relevant in other areas of learning.

Preschool Pathways to Science (PrePS) is a new publication that arrives on this scene, not as a rushed attempt to fill this gap, but rather as a mature program whose initial development began 20 years ago in preschool programs serving families at an Air Force base near Los Angeles. The development of PrePS has also benefited from its use at UCLA and in New Jersey, including programs serving ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged preschool populations. A central premise of PrePS is that young children are “scientists-in-waiting … naturally curious and actively involved in exploring the world around them” (p.2). A goal of PrePS is to foster these predispositions in the “privileged domain” of science where children have a natural proclivity to learn, experiment and explore. Teachers also play a critical role in PrePS guiding children in organized investigations of their everyday world, building on existing knowledge, and connecting this knowledge into deeper levels of understanding. As one PrePS teacher reflects, “It is not about what, as a teacher, do I want the children to be doing, but what I want the children to be thinking about … Then (I ask myself), what should they be doing to better understand the concept?” (p.18). Read the rest of this entry »

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Bringing Science to Pre-K: Rutgers Researchers Write the Book

February 12, 2010

“What do you predict we will find inside here?” Kimberly Brenneman asks the preschoolers gathered around her as they consider the coconut she is holding. This isn’t your everyday show and tell. Dr. Brenneman, an assistant research professor at Rutgers’ Department of Psychology, as well as NIEER, is engaging the kids in a line of scientific inquiry that illustrates a teaching approach known as Preschool Pathways to Science. Called PrePS for short, it contributed to the teaching method used in the popular PBS show Sid the Science Kid. It’s also the title of a new book just out from Brookes Publishing that serves as a guide for implementing science in preschool classrooms.

Brenneman and her co-authors are receiving national attention for Preschool Pathways to Science because it enables teachers to facilitate preschool-age children’s ability to expand their tendencies to explore, ask questions, and think in ways that follow the scientific method. Lead author Dr. Rochel Gelman is director of the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science and a NIEER scientific advisory board member. Professor Gelman is known for her research on young children’s development of causal and quantitative reasoning, and on learning in informal environments. She says science involves the use of a set of processes to gain understanding about the world of objects and events. By themselves they are unlikely to evolve spontaneously in children and so it’s important to provide opportunities for kids to participate in the kinds of inquiries that contribute to the build-up of scientific knowledge and language.

Gelman and Brenneman have served as advisers to Sid the Science Kid since the show’s inception in 2008. As Brenneman illustrates in a YouTube video, PrePS encourages teachers to use words such as “explore” and “predict” as they engage kids. “Preschool-age kids are surprisingly open to scientific inquiry,” Brenneman says. And that inquiry can be timely. Last October an episode of Sid the Science Kid was devoted to the scientific basis for flu vaccinations.

The impetus for Preschool Pathways to Science began when NASA approached Gay Macdonald of UCLA with a request to help develop science-learning opportunities for a pre-K program serving families at an Air Force Base near Los Angeles. Macdonald turned to Gelman who then was on her advisory board and at UCLA to write the proposal. She and UCLA colleague Moisés Román also are co-authors of the book. Subsequent funding was provided by the National Science Foundation. Gelman elaborates on children’s scientific thinking and PrePS in this Q and A interview from Brookes Publishing.

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Rx for Better Urban Schools: High-Quality Pre-K

December 11, 2009

Children’s math scores at fourth and eight grade haven’t progressed appreciably in most urban school districts over the last two years, says the most recent report from U.S. Department of Education. Only four of the 11 urban districts the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been tracking since 2003 showed significant gains. That doesn’t mean progress hasn’t been made. Urban districts, with their higher proportion of minority children and English Language Learners, represent the nation’s biggest education challenge and if we go back to 2003 when NAEP began, the urban districts have made some progress.

Nevertheless the leveling off suggested by the current report should be cause for concern because it tells us more needs to be done to move the needle toward continuing progress in these districts where the achievement gap between blacks and Hispanics and whites remains shamefully wide. We wish an urban New Jersey district were in the report because districts in cities like Newark and Camden have had the benefit of the state’s high-quality Abbott Preschool Program for a number of years. NIEER’s long-term research on the Abbott Program shows children who had two years of the program achieved gains in a variety of math measures including applied problems, calculation and math fluency through second grade.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who ran the Chicago public schools, champions high-quality preschool education as a prerequisite to success in school. That is also a key recommendation in a compelling new report titled “A New Deal for Urban Public Schools” authored by Andrew J. Rotherman and Sara Mead in the Harvard Law & Policy Review. When Secretary Duncan and I released the findings from the State of Preschool 2008 yearbook at the Oyster-Adams Bilingual School in the District of Columbia earlier this year, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to a class of enthusiastic kids who shouted out each part of the story as we came to it. We need a lot more of that in urban districts as well as teachers skilled at recognizing and extending the math and science lessons in the caterpillar’s culinary exploits.

Steve Barnett
Co-Director, NIEER

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Yet More Evidence: It’s Time to Strengthen Math, Science in Pre-K

October 23, 2009

Let’s face it: Math and science are about more than counting and recognizing shapes, even for 3- and 4-year-olds! The pre-K crowd is curious about exploring everyday math and science and comes to preschool armed with basic concepts. Young children create patterns with different colored materials, build towers with blocks and note that one tower is taller than the other. They question where puppies come from, observe that people have different color eyes and come up with explanations for the difference. These early explorations and engagement in associated thinking processes serve as foundations for learning as children continue toward more formal understandings.

Yet opportunities for children to learn math are often limited to memorizing the number words in sequence up to 20 and counting objects. Some teachers also encourage children to identify patterns or basic shapes in the environment, such as squares and circles. Similarly, opportunities to explore science concepts are provided occasionally but are rarely available on a daily basis or integrated into daily activities.

Evidence continues to mount, however, that this is not enough to help children learn the skills that will serve them best in elementary school and beyond. Most recently, it comes by way of the new report from the National Assessment of Education Progress showing that the nation’s fourth grade math scores have remained essentially unchanged since 2007.

This reinforces the need for policymakers to heed what NIEER recommends in its March 2009 brief Mathematics and Science in Preschool: Policies and Practice and to spend quality time becoming familiar with the National Research Council’s comprehensive July 2009 report Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity.

The NRC report points to the emphasis placed on literacy in recent years and research showing that pre-K teachers are less comfortable teaching math and science as factors contributing to the lag in support for math. Whatever the case, there is a growing sense that American children should be better grounded in these critical domains. One reason is the poor performance American high school students perennially turn in on math and science tests relative to their peers in most developed countries. Another is research pointing to the larger role played by early math skills in later school success than previously thought. Read the rest of this entry »

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Alison Gopnik on Young Children’s Intelligence and the Role of Play

August 17, 2009

A fascinating piece in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine by Berkeley psychologist Alison Gopnik details recent studies showing that not only do children possess powerful learning abilities at very young ages but by their preschool years, they are capable of using probabilities to learn how things work. Findings such as these need to be cast in the context of how young children learn and Gopnik does an admirable job of pointing out the differences between optimal learning environments for young children and the goal-oriented environments kids encounter later in school.

Two recent NIEER briefs address points brought up by Gopnik’s piece. “Connecting Neurons, Concepts, and People: Brain Development and its Implications” summarizes what science tells us about young children’s brain development and corrects some of the common misunderstandings about it. “Math and Science in Preschool: Policies and Practice” reviews the research addressing development of math and science in preschool and makes recommendations for early education policy in these domains. Research by Gopnik, NIEER Scientific Advisory Board member Rochel Gelman and others is at least partly responsible for the recent emphasis on math and science in early education.

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Teaching Science: For Students and Teachers

July 7, 2009

According to an article in The Sacramento Bee, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) includes $33 million in stimulus monies to develop paid research positions in the sciences. For the next two summers, these positions will be available for university students and science teachers. The Sacramento Bee states, “the goal is to fuel the economy with new jobs while supporting innovations in alternative energy and new medical cures.”

Science teachers from all grades, from high school all the way down to elementary school, are taking advantage of this summer research opportunity. The hope is that these teachers will then import their knowledge to the students they teach throughout the school year.

While the article notes even first-grade science teachers are hopping on board this stimulus train, there is no mention of preschool teachers taking part. A recently published NIEER policy brief notes that science, along with mathematics, is a largely overlooked subject in preschool curricula. The authors conclude part of the reason is that most preschool teachers are not trained in, and thus are not comfortable, teaching science and math.

How does your district or school incorporate scientific (and mathematical) concepts in the preschool experience? Are stimulus funds going to change the approach to teaching science?

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