The growing interest in outdoor early childhood education, even in countries with a weak environmental tradition such as Portugal, tends to be associated with a concern over the alienation between urban/Western children and nature. While educational projects in nature criticize this separation, they still maintain a bad culture vs good nature…

Previous research indicates that young children, as young as preschoolers, spontaneously draw dihedral and cyclic symmetries in their representations of the natural world. This is an intriguing find because at this age children have barely had their first contact with formal geometry and, therefore, one would not expect to find a use of symmetries…

The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore affordances for STEM-related skills in a nature preschool in central Texas. Observations were conducted along with the collection of videos and photographs of four preschool-aged participants. Informal interviews were also implemented during data collection and observations. Semi-formal…

Children are constantly working to make sense of themselves, their experiences, and their worlds. One way that children tend to do this is through creating artifacts. By engaging in discussions around, and interacting with these artifacts, teachers and educators are able to gain further insight into the experiences of children. Through observing…

This study was carried out within a project to promote health and ecosystem services, 'the benefits people obtain from ecosystems', in preschools in Sweden. The paper applies the concept 'affordance' to capture the functional meaning that children assign to different material aspects of their schoolyards before and after the installation of…

This study aimed to support the development of the scientific observation skills of children at an early age using a pattern selected from nearby nature. For this purpose, a simple, innovative and authentic observation activity was designed using thorny burnet ("Sarcopoterium spinosum" L.), a plant unique to the Mediterranean region. The…

Learning through picture books is a method which is widely used in preschools to teach mathematics. However, the research findings on the benefits of using picture books in learning mathematics remain inconclusive. This study aimed to i) investigate the effects of a picture book entitled "What Are the Numbers?" (a picture book made up…

Evolution and ecology are essential to an understanding of biology, but questions remain as to when and how young children can learn about these concepts. The concept of adaptation represents an opportunity for children to engage with these ideas, and this article presents several lessons used to teach adaptation to children aged three through six…

Recent educational legislative acts and public debates in Sweden stress the importance of preschools providing playful and meaningful activities to enhance early experiences in environmental and natural science (e.g., Ministry of Education and Research, 2016). The present study investigates three 5-6 year old children making meaning of the concept…

Many preschool classrooms explore plant growth. However, because many plants take a long time to grow, it is often hard to facilitate engagement in some practices (i.e., since change is typically not observable from one day to another, children often forget their prior predictions or cannot recall what plants looked like days or weeks earlier).…

Children may not be aware of the origin of much of their food, especially if they eat mostly processed foods. Schools that operate a garden are able to teach children how common foods are parts of plants. This column discusses resources and science topics related to students in grades preK to 2. In this month's issue students focus on…

This study analysed the characteristics that children in the initial stages of schooling attribute to living beings. Interviews were conducted with 138 children aged 3-7 years in a school in the Spanish city of A Coruña, Galicia. Aspects found in pen-and-paper activities dealing with living beings, provided by the teachers (158 in total) at this…

In this article, the authors describe a recent project undertaken at the University of South Florida's (USF) Preschool for Creative Learning. To align with the inquiry approach of their laboratory school, the environment at the Preschool is designed so that children can learn through exploration and individual initiative. The administration and…

A Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC 2012) includes inheritance as a core idea within the life science framework. For example, life science core idea 3A states that by the end of second grade, children's knowledge should include the ability to recognize and investigate physical differences and similarities among the same kind of…

There is great concern by teachers, school administrators and parents regarding the increase in the number of preschool-aged students who exhibit challenging behavior in early childhood settings (Benedict, Horner & Squires 2007), need for early intervention procedures that focus on young children who may be at risk for developing patterns of…