[An article I wrote for Conestoga College Early Childhood Education newsletter]
While
feeling stagnant in my ability to offer curriculum experiences in my
after school program, and needing fresh insight, I turned to a book I
ordered from Amazon
called Inquiry into Math, Science, and Technology for
Teaching Young Children by Arleen Pratt Prairie. A passage on
responding to children challenged me to reevaluate my own way of
reacting to knowledge in the classroom.
"Unfortunately children researching their own questions are
usually not taken seriously in the social context. Often the adult
takes it upon himself to answer the child's questions with
information the adult knows. The result is filling up the child with
information. This information given is treated as social knowledge,
not physical or logico-mathematical knowledge as it truly is (Kamii &
DeVries, 1993). The child accepts this information from the adult
without question and thus the child believes that the adult is the
"container" of knowledge. In believing that all learning
stems from the adult, the child abandons his reliance on his own
emerging thought processes. This kind of thinking may lead to the
lack of autonomous learning (Kamii, 1982)." (Pratt Prairie,
2005, p. 95)
Having a degree in
Science, sometimes when a child asked me a question, I would give a
scientific explanation, without thinking twice. This is teaching a
child to ask others for the answers, rather than giving them the
confidence and skills to be able to research and explore questions on
their own. So for the past couple of weeks, I purposefully set out to
build a child's ability to research and explore concepts on their own
and not immediately answer questions the children had about science.
I used a project based, child centred approach to exploring their
inquiries. The great thing about this way of educating is that you
(the ECE) don't need to know anything about the topic or science in
general when you start a project.
A week and a half
ago, Travis collected a bunch of rocks outside and brought them
inside for study. He was hopeful to find crystals or gold and with a
friend looked at their details through a pocket microscope. James
found a fossil and Travis found some shiny parts that he thought
could be crystals. I looked at them with him and wondered if it could
be mica, and explained that it is a dark shiny material found in
rocks and used in makeup. The next day, I brought in five books from
the library and the children found pages with large pictures of
different types of rock and minerals with labels. They identified
pink granite and we looked up what that is made of: feldspar, quartz
and mica. Tanner said granite is expensive. I asked him how he knew
that and he said because his kitchen counter is made of it.
The next day I
decided we should start a project about their interest in rocks, so I
brought in a diagram of the rock cycle. It gave me the idea to make a
volcano and so introduced this idea to the children. With a piece of
a cardboard, a tall bottle and a box of Plaster of Paris, the
children made the primary structure of the volcano. Travis suggested
that they make a village out of clay, so I started a list of
materials they wanted me to bring in for it. Painting was on the list
and Everett wanted black and brown. He wanted to paint the rocks
black to represent obsidian. He explained to his friends and I that
if the lava dries quickly, for example when it hits the water, it
becomes obsidian. I looked up a photograph of it in one of our books
to show the others.
I told the children
of an island I visited in Nicaragua that had one active and one
inactive volcano on it and how I had climbed the inactive one to find
a pool of water at the top. We talked about the similarities and
differences between the two types of volcanoes. Travis, whose family
is Portuguese, told us about a volcano he visited in Portugal on Pico
Island. He saw evidence of its last explosion: tracks in the earth,
and damaged buildings. The children decided to make our volcano on an
island as well and painted a blue lake around it. Later, I walked
around the class and asked each child what they knew about volcanoes
and took a list with their name beside it. Then I collected questions
on what they would like to learn about. Tanner wanted to know the
total number of deaths by volcano. Which inspired Jonah to talk about
the theory that Dinosaurs became extinct by a volcano that erupted
and left smoke that covered the earth and killed all of the plants.
Although we have
been working on this project for a week, the children are still in
the painting stage, and have been doing this for a few hours each
day. They have painted the top of the volcano red like lava and
streams of lava ran down the sides into pools at the bottom. There is
also some red spatter from what we read are called lava bombs that
can be as large as be as houses. Next week, we plan to make the
volcano explode and have discussed how we are going to do this. There
are two ideas that the children came up with. The first is to add
vinegar, red food colouring, and baking soda to make a reaction. The
second is add Mentos to Coke, which would need to be done outside.
After that we will be able to talk about the 'erosion' that took
place during the eruption as well as label all of the different parts
with our own flags made of toothpicks and paper. Then, if we feel the
project is coming to an end, it will go on display and we will choose
our next project.
It is evident
through the story that a lot of the knowledge and ideas which
enhanced the project came from the children rather than the teacher.
Although this group were school age and had begun science in school,
the ideas may be applied to all age groups as children explore,
experience and question the world around them. Much of the knowledge
came from books and the children sharing with each other.
By Rachelle, BSc, RECE
Reference
Prairie, Arleen
Pratt. Inquiry for Math, Science, and Technology for Teaching
Young Children.
Belmont: Delmar, 2005. Print.
