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The Significance of the Constructivist Approach in Preschool Science Education
Sense-making discussions promote children’s awareness of learning, con-
cept development, and facilitate the restructuring of alternative ideas into
scientific mental models. During the work of teachers with children their
inquiry skills are developed, and the instructional strategies should move
toward more open inquiry, where children are posing their own questions
and designing their own investigations (Trundle 2010). One of the important
components of inquiry-based learning is the experiment. Experiments in sci-
ence through constructivist learning leads to the acquisition and develop-
ment of a scientific literacy that involves skills, attitudes and values, which
contribute to the formation of citizens, capable of dealing with everyday sci-
entific aspects (Alveirinho, Bento, and Nunes 2017).
The Reasons for the Lack of Science Teaching in Preschool Classrooms
When preschool teachers are asked if they teach science, they might point to
the plants on the shelf or the collection of stones and shells and indicate that
science is taking place ‘over there.’ Other teachers see science as some kind of
magic trick to perform on a Friday afternoon when children are already tired.
They bring out the baking soda and vinegar to ‘make a volcano.’ While the
children may be amazed and amused by this activity, it does not build accu-
rate knowledge and does not represent real science. Real science begins with
childhood curiosity, which leads to discovery and exploration with teach-
ers’ help and encouragement. It involves three major components: content,
processes, and attitude. Young children prize information about the world
around them, yet an emphasis on content is not enough. Young children, like
scientists, need to practice the process skills of predicting, observing, classi-
fying, hypothesizing, experimenting, and communicating. Like adult scien-
tists, they need opportunities to reflect on their findings, how to they reach
these, and how the findings compare to their previous ideas and the ideas
of others. In this way, children are encouraged to develop the attitude of a
scientist-that is, curiosity and the desire to challenge theories and share new
ideas. Scientific exploration presents authentic opportunities to develop and
use both receptive and expressive language skills (Conezio and French 2002).
As we already mentioned above, what children learn at the preschool age
in terms of general science, has shown to be a strong predictor of their fu-
ture science achievement in school (Morgan et al. 2016). Thus, it is worrying,
that science teaching tends to be deprioritized in early childhood education,
compared to teaching literacy, numeracy and arts (Areljung 2018). Several
authors point out that many early childhood teachers are hesitant about in-
troducing science in their preschool classrooms, often because of their own
333
Sense-making discussions promote children’s awareness of learning, con-
cept development, and facilitate the restructuring of alternative ideas into
scientific mental models. During the work of teachers with children their
inquiry skills are developed, and the instructional strategies should move
toward more open inquiry, where children are posing their own questions
and designing their own investigations (Trundle 2010). One of the important
components of inquiry-based learning is the experiment. Experiments in sci-
ence through constructivist learning leads to the acquisition and develop-
ment of a scientific literacy that involves skills, attitudes and values, which
contribute to the formation of citizens, capable of dealing with everyday sci-
entific aspects (Alveirinho, Bento, and Nunes 2017).
The Reasons for the Lack of Science Teaching in Preschool Classrooms
When preschool teachers are asked if they teach science, they might point to
the plants on the shelf or the collection of stones and shells and indicate that
science is taking place ‘over there.’ Other teachers see science as some kind of
magic trick to perform on a Friday afternoon when children are already tired.
They bring out the baking soda and vinegar to ‘make a volcano.’ While the
children may be amazed and amused by this activity, it does not build accu-
rate knowledge and does not represent real science. Real science begins with
childhood curiosity, which leads to discovery and exploration with teach-
ers’ help and encouragement. It involves three major components: content,
processes, and attitude. Young children prize information about the world
around them, yet an emphasis on content is not enough. Young children, like
scientists, need to practice the process skills of predicting, observing, classi-
fying, hypothesizing, experimenting, and communicating. Like adult scien-
tists, they need opportunities to reflect on their findings, how to they reach
these, and how the findings compare to their previous ideas and the ideas
of others. In this way, children are encouraged to develop the attitude of a
scientist-that is, curiosity and the desire to challenge theories and share new
ideas. Scientific exploration presents authentic opportunities to develop and
use both receptive and expressive language skills (Conezio and French 2002).
As we already mentioned above, what children learn at the preschool age
in terms of general science, has shown to be a strong predictor of their fu-
ture science achievement in school (Morgan et al. 2016). Thus, it is worrying,
that science teaching tends to be deprioritized in early childhood education,
compared to teaching literacy, numeracy and arts (Areljung 2018). Several
authors point out that many early childhood teachers are hesitant about in-
troducing science in their preschool classrooms, often because of their own
333
