Guiding Curiosity: Nurturing Young Scientists

By Wendy C. Gamble Ph.D. and Sonia Cota-Robles Ph.D.

The United States lags behind most other first-world nations in rankings of our children’s science literacy. Science lessons in many schools risk elimination to make room for preparation for standardized testing in math and reading. While teachers, school administrators, and politicians scramble to determine how to catch up and improve science education, parents, especially of our youngest children, are left out of this conversation. This is odd as parents may be our most significant assets in channeling children’s joy of discovery and building foundations for learning science.
After listening to the national discussion about how our schools are failing our children, Drs Gamble and Cota-Robles decided to offer an alternative perspective. Schools cannot be solely responsible for a child’s science education. Parents and other family members make major contributions, but may not be aware of the type or the extent of their influence because their part is often marginalized, especially in the realm of science. This book is an outgrowth of the authors' professional expertise in parenting young children. It also reflects their experience as a mothers of children with unique interests and personalities. It is the authors' most strident wish that parents be familiarized with their important role in improving science literacy. It is also their wish that they not be made to feel overburdened with yet another expectation to be a superior parent, but rather that they experience the joy of discovery with their children while nurturing relationships based on shared interests.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780692459065

Book preview

discovery.

Part I

Chapter 1. Overview of the Guiding Curiosity Approach

Imagine that you are walking with your young child on a lovely warm fall day. Your child stops and picks up an acorn. Brow furrowed, she brings it close to her face, turning it over to inspect it. What do you do?

A range of possibilities comes to mind. Impulsively, one might knock the acorn out of her hand exclaiming, That’s dirty. Or you might hurry her along to get to your destination on time. If you are on your cell phone, you might be delighted that she is distracted for a moment so you can talk without interruption. Or…. you might observe her for a moment or two, allowing her to take a closer look at the acorn, watching for clues to what she might be thinking. What is intriguing about the acorn? Observing her curiosity, a parent can use this opportunity to help a child begin asking meaningful questions about the elements of her world. What have you found? What does it feel like? Does it have a smell? Where do you think it came from? What do you think an acorn does? You can examine the acorn too, saying how interesting the shape of the cap is, or commenting on how much a squirrel would like to store the acorn away for a winter snack.

Our lives are hectic and it can be hard to find time to stop and smell the proverbial roses, or in this instance, acorns. However, there may never be a more important time to literally smell those roses and acorns than early childhood, a time when the brain is forming millions of new connections every day and your child is exploring every nook and cranny, absorbing a multitude of new words, often asking you, Why? Why? Why? This is a period when your child has a seemingly unstoppable inquisitiveness. Young minds are yearning to do science and young children are avid learners. That acorn is your chance to sow that drive to explore and experiment.

This how-to book was created to provide parents with strategies for engaging their preschool-age or early elementary school child’s growing interest in and understanding of the natural world. It will describe how young children acquire knowledge, how you as a parent can play an important role in building a foundation for learning science, and how you can inspire your child’s curiosity about the natural world. We are often reminded that parents are children’s first teachers, but what exactly is one supposed to do to fill this role? This book translates current research and thinking into a useful guide for busy parents with easy-to-implement suggestions. Also included are many ideas for activities to share with a child, activities designed to maximize both learning and fun.

The ideas and parenting strategies presented here are derived from widely accepted theories and commonly accepted practices among child development scientists and early childhood educators. The ultimate goal is to demonstrate to parents how to introduce and support their child in the use of the steps associated with critical inquiry, a well-researched approach to teaching science that is advocated by educators and adopted by schools nationally. This approach is adapted here for parents to use with their young children. The premise is that children are active learners who construct knowledge and build meaning themselves through their activities and interactions with others. The goal is to provide your young child with authentic science experiences, or activities that will inspire him to think and act like a scientist. This book will support you in helping your child to acquire problem-solving strategies and actively build understanding. The strategies outlined in the following pages are easy to understand and use. With this basic guidance and your own instincts about your child’s natural inquisitiveness, you can be an effective collaborator in learning.

Learning, and learning science in particular, is especially enjoyable and more beneficial for children in settings where parents encourage exploration, help their child form questions, provide tools for investigating, and offer inspiration and support. Yet, before you as a parent embark down this path it will be helpful for you to reflect on your own interest in nature. If you yourself are passionate about plants, the planets or other aspects of nature, you are already in the best possible position to begin to share your interests with your child (as long as you avoid overwhelming his curiosity with lecturing). If you are at least mildly interested in science and nature, hopefully your child’s natural curiosity will inspire your own. If you find science boring, you may need to think of this book as an opportunity to nurture your own potential for scientific inquiry that was not developed when you were younger. You may find yourself leading your child on this path or traveling side by side.

This book is divided into two parts. Part I provides the why and Part II provides the what. Understanding both what to do and why you are doing it is important to working successfully with your child. To use this book effectively, skim through Part I first, to get a sense of the basic principles and the supporting logic. Turn to Part II for suggested activities and information about how those principles are applied. Part I may be a lot to take in, so consider reading smaller portions and returning to those descriptions after attempts to apply the information or put Part II into action.

The suggestions for activities in Part II are just that, suggestions. You will be encouraged to identify topics of interest to your child and pursue a few core foundational concepts. Parents can adopt related activities as described, extend them or use them as a base for creating new activities. After reading the introductory materials and practicing the recommended steps with your child, you may find you want to reread portions of the book to refine your questions, find new ways to encourage or motivate your child, or reinvigorate your own relationship with science.

Chapter 2. Young Children and Science as a Process

Parents are major forces in shaping their young children’s understanding of the world, including scientific understanding. They are uniquely qualified to engage children’s curiosities and guide them in exploring their surroundings. This book is designed to generate excitement while learning about the natural world. This book will not provide instructions on how to make your child smarter. There are other books and kits with flashcards that purport dubiously to achieve that goal. Neither are these materials designed to suggest that you teach your child chemistry, biology, or physics. All too often we associate teaching science with providing direct instruction on concepts or principles, equating science with transferring knowledge from an expert to a novice. Science equals facts, right? NO! Too many people associate learning science with memorizing facts. Science can refer to an area of knowledge, but to scientists, it is an enterprise in building and organizing knowledge. This latter understanding of the term emphasizes the process, not the product.

Modern perspectives on learning science recognize that the learner builds understanding for him or herself with help or guidance. Young children already understand a great deal about the world around them and their ability to reason scientifically is greater than scientists and educators first recognized. But of course young children’s knowledge of science is incomplete and sometimes filled with misunderstanding and misinterpretation. As a parent you are able to encourage wonder, this puts you in a position to help your child form and organize her questions, assist her in planning on how best to seek information that is relevant to those questions, take joy in brainstorming, and then make sense of that information in terms of recognizing patterns that do or don’t support an idea. These latter steps are what scientists do when they are conducting scientific investigations. By employing the parenting strategies described in this book, you can provide your young child with the preliminary skills of thinking like a scientist. You will also be helping to build a foundation for understanding scientific concepts that your child will be exposed to in school. Once learned and practiced, these steps also lay the groundwork for lifelong learning. Note the emphasis on practice, or repeating to become proficient and construct a deep understanding. If left to his own devices, your child will acquire these skills to some degree on his own, but active parental participation in this process insures he will learn more and have more fun because you are involved.

Significant portions of science curriculums through elementary and middle schools are tied to everyday or intuitive concepts your child is developing now as a preschooler. Your opportunity is to kick start the process of learning about these scientific concepts. Why should your child wait until middle school to consider these concepts? Think for example of the concepts of friction or evaporation. Your child is aware of heat generated when she rubs her hands together or scuffs her feet on the carpet. She has also observed the disappearance of a puddle after a rainstorm. Your child perceives and thinks about these natural events. With your help she can think more deeply about them and begin to build the language that describes these phenomena. Most importantly, you can exploit your child’s natural curiosity, help him build initiative, and foster a love of learning. Here’s how.

The Guiding Curiosity Approach

Guiding Curiosity is about being thought-provoking in the most fundamental way. A child asks, Why is this rock sparkly and this other one isn’t? The Guiding Curiosity material invites you to use this kind of simple cue as an opportunity to help your child inquire more deeply, to think more like a scientist. By using the strategies suggested in this book, you will:

Encourage deeper thinking. Respond to your child’s question with other questions: How are the two rocks alike? How are they different?

Help expand his vocabulary. Effective science depends on a vocabulary rich in descriptive terms. Ask your child to find words that describe the rocks, their color, texture, weight, and even smell.

Promote investigation. Sparkliness as a characteristic is related to the elements in the rock, just as a color is. Look at the rocks under a magnifying glass to observe what they are made of. If you can, measure the size of the parts of the rock that sparkle.

Encourage pattern recognition. Collect other rocks and suggest that they be sorted or categorized based on an observable characteristic, such as has sparkles or doesn’t have sparkles.

Support experimentation. Invite your child to scrape off pieces of each rock and grind those up, or alter their appearance. Observe or look at the altered pieces again with a magnifying glass to determine their composition. Do they still sparkle?

Encourage imagination and exploration. Pretend you are geologists or explorers. Use your imagination and make these roles memorable! Find amusing props such as hard hats and hammers. Look for more rocks to encourage continued exploration. Ask your child to find similarities between newly found rocks and the first rock that sparked the question. What are the differences between these rocks? That is, keep asking questions.

Practice using resources. Follow up this experience by looking together through a National Geographic, or other magazines or books, and notice the different ways that rocks are found on the earth - in deserts, as part of mountains. There are many excellent picture books that tell stories or present information on topics that your child is likely to show an interest in, so consider a trip to the library or collaborate on an online search for information.

Help develop predictions or hypotheses. Perhaps predict where shiny rocks come from. Prediction can be turned into a game and, even better, predictions can often be checked. A prediction that proves to be correct is very satisfying, thus reinforcing the process of inquiry.

Assess whether and how conclusions apply in other situations. Return to what is immediately available or obvious to your child in her own environment. Look for patterns and make connections to the real world. Rocks can be part of your house (check out your chimney or kitchen counter), an aspect of someone’s garden, or integrated into road construction. Look around and ask: Do some of these rocks contain the same shiny materials? Are the shiny rocks used for building houses, chimneys or found in kitchen counters? If your child produces a question or statement ask yourself whether it can be translated into a hypothesis that can be tested, or an if I do X, then the results should be Y. If so, work together with your child to create a hypothesis (that if…then statement), or a question that states a problem that results in experiments. For example, If I put water on the rock, then the shiny particles will be more obvious, What if the rock is crushed, then do the sparkly particles become more or less obvious?

Your child may be interested in rocks. Or plants, animals, stars, seashells, foods, or weather.….The list is endless. You can use these basic strategies across a multitude of subjects to encourage scientific thinking.

Guiding Curiosity Steps

When you and your child are having conversations about phenomenon in the natural world, you do not need to shy away from concepts that may seem advanced, such as acceleration, gravity, temperature, pressure, or topics related to health (e.g., germs) and nutrition (e.g., protein). These concepts and the phenomenon they represent are commonplace, regularly observed or experienced by your child so give these familiar experiences or concepts their scientific name. Now, let’s get started in understanding where these suggestions come from.

Chapter 3. Critical Inquiry: Thinking Like a Scientist

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

Albert Einstein

Young children’s actions parallel those of scientists. Science begins with wondering followed by investigation, or the use of methods that enable us to answer questions about the world around us. Scientific knowledge is generated through questions, observations, experimentation, and reaching an explanation that incorporates the facts as they accumulate. This sequence of steps is the process of critical inquiry. People look at young children and assume that they are not ready to conduct scientific explorations. But take a moment and observe your child or other children. You will see that they are already engaged in this process! Young children are rarely still, driven by a desire to explore their surroundings. As they propel themselves through space, they are reaching, touching and probing. A new toy, the cat, or something belonging to a sibling that they were forbidden to play with, whatever the target of their pursuit, once it is acquired it is then thoroughly examined. Often a young child will try and alter the object, removing parts or opening it up to look inside. This investigation can involve any or all of the senses: looking, touching, tasting, smelling and listening. When there is a pause in activity, any observer can detect wonder on their faces or in the questions they ask. The results of a variety of research studies suggest that by the time they enter preschool, young children readily employ thought processes associated with scientific reasoning, including deductive and inductive reasoning, recognizing covariance and correlation, employing if-then reasoning, and identifying biases in reasoning. Young children are also adept at using environmental cues to think about causal relations.

Constructing Theories: Constructing Knowledge

What a child knows, or his body of existing knowledge, is what we refer to as his theory. Children spontaneously form theories to explain what they perceive. Ask your child where rain comes from, what happens to food after he eats it, or why the cat sleeps for most of the day. In answer to these questions, your child will most likely provide you with a heartfelt explanation that forms the basis for his intuitive theory. Your child’s theory may be filled with misconceptions and even appear to an adult as nonsensical. Children’s ideas about the natural