In addition, science may be a particularly important domain in early childhood, serving not only to build a basis for future scientific understanding but also to build important skills and attitudes for learning. In these environments, guided by skillful teachers, children’s experiences in the early years can have significant impact on their later learning. Research and practice suggest that children have a much greater potential to learn than previously thought, and therefore early childhood settings should provide richer and more challenging environments for learning. First and foremost is the growing understanding and recognition of the power of children’s early thinking and learning. The need to focus on science in the early childhood classroom is based on a number of factors currently affecting the early childhood community. And everyone deserves to share in the excitement and personal fulfillment that can come from understanding and learning about the natural world. Everyone needs to be able to engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about important issues that involve science and technology. Everyone needs to use scientific information to make choices that arise every day. In a world filled with the products of scientific inquiry, scientific literacy has become a necessity for everyone. It concludes with a discussion of implications for the classroom, focusing on child-centered curriculum, the role of materials, the use of time and space, the key role of discussion and representation, and the teacher’s role. The paper describes a structure for learning through inquiry and criteria for the selection of appropriate content for young children. It proposes four basic ideas: (1) doing science is a natural and critical part of children’s early learning (2) children’s curiosity about the natural world is a powerful catalyst for their work and play (3) with the appropriate guidance, this natural curiosity and need to make sense of the world become the foundation for beginning to use skills of inquiry to explore basic phenomena and materials of the world surrounding children and (4) this early science exploration can be a rich context in which children can use and develop other important skills, including working with one another, basic large- and small-motor control, language, and early mathematical understanding. This paper addresses the question of what the nature of science teaching and learning in the early childhood classroom should be. There is a growing understanding and recognition of the power of children’s early thinking and learning as well as a belief that science may be a particularly important domain in early childhood, serving not only to build a basis for future scientific understanding but also to build important skills and attitudes for learning. SEED Papers: Published Fall 2010 Science in Early Childhood Classrooms: Content and Process Karen Worth Home Beyond This Issue SEED: Collected Papers

Introducing science phenomena