The wonderful world of science

Young children have a compelling curiosity to figure out how and why the world works. This natural curiosity is the first step in inspiring your children to enjoy the world of science.

Supporting science learning is as easy as encouraging your child’s innate interest in their immediate surroundings. Your garden, with its grass, trees, dirt, water, bugs, beetles and birds, is a beginning laboratory for science experiences.

The kitchen, bathroom and toy box are all places for exploration that can lead to fascinating discoveries about matter, form and change.

Life Science

Most children are naturally curious about living things. The raw materials for the study of life science abound in our every day lives. Pets, creatures in the garden, plants growing and changing with the seasons and children’s own fascinating bodies are all sources of scientific wonder.

In summer, go on a bug hunt.

Take a glass jar (with lid), a small digging fork and a small soft paint brush. Turn over leaves; check along branches and dig down into the soil a few centimetres to find all manner of mini beasts! Use the soft paintbrush to sweep creatures into the jar. Take a few of the leaves it was found on as well.

Allow children to watch the creature and talk about:

• number of legs (all insects have six legs)
• antennae
• wings
• colours
• how does it move?
• how does it protect itself?
• is it helpful or harmful?

Always be mindful of safety when handling animals. Look but don’t touch is a good rule.

Watch particular trees for signs of seasonal change and point them out to young children.

• Take photographs at different times of the year (make sure your child is in the photograph and you will notice her growth changes too!).
• Collect and study leaves at different times of the year. Make leaf rubbings by placing leaves under light paper and rubbing over with crayons. This makes it easy to see the veins.
• Discuss the veins in a leaf and the veins in our bodies and the special job that they do.

Plant a few bean seeds.

• Initially, place them in a large glass jar stuffed with paper towel, pushing the seeds against the glass so that the children can watch them changing.
• Keep the paper towel moist and watch as the seed case bursts open and a shoot and root emerge. After a few weeks, gently transfer the seedlings to a warm, sunny spot in the garden, keep well watered and keep watching.
• Bean seeds grow very quickly. Try keeping a wooden stake behind the seedlings and measure them every few days. Watercress and bean sprouts are also quick and easy to grow.

Many pet shops have silkworms available.

These fascinating creatures are an excellent way to observe life cycles first hand. They only require a shoebox and lots of mulberry leaves. Like the beans seeds you can almost watch them growing and
changing.

• Check your local library for some excellent non-fiction books on life cycles of animals. Tadpoles are another great way to study life cycles.
• Children’s fascination with their own bodies can be a springboard to scientific discoveries.

Try helping your child to find his pulse at neck or wrist, and if you have access to a stethoscope, listen to heartbeats while resting and then listen again after a few laps around the back yard. These can even be felt by hand as the heart works hard to pump blood around the body.

These life science activities provide children with concrete, real life experiences. They help develop understanding and appreciation of the needs of living things. In caring for your home environment, children will learn about their own potential impact on the broader environment.

Physical science

Physical science involves the study of matter, form and change. Children observe and explore the properties of the earth, the sky and solid and liquid matter.

Water play is an excellent time for some scientific wonder.

• Provide interesting bath toys to explore the concept of floating and sinking.
• Have your child help you gather a small box of items to be ‘tested’ for an ‘experiment’.
• Ask whether they think each item will float or sink. You’ve introduced them to the concept of hypotheses!
• Include interesting items such as balloons, feathers, small pieces of wood, corks, shells and coins.
• A large fish tank lets children can see items sinking and floating.

Sound is produced by vibration.

• Hold one edge of a ruler firmly with one hand on the desk.
• Let most of the ruler ‘hang’ over the edge of the desk (plastic rulers work best).
• Pluck the end of the ruler with your spare hand and listen to the sound; this will vary by changing the position of the ruler.
• You can do the same thing with an ice block stick clenched between your teeth.

Light and shadow are another source of fascination for young children.

• Choose a sunny day and mark a spot on some concrete with chalk.
• Stand on this spot every few hours and have someone trace your shadow with chalk, using a different coloured chalk each time.
• Watch the shadow change size and shape as the sun ‘moves’ across the sky.
• Continue the light and shadow experiments inside with a torch and a range of materials to ‘test’ – another experiment!
• Make predictions about what materials the light will/won’t shine through. Try using glass, paper, plastic, cardboard, alfoil, waxed paper, tissue paper, water and a mirror.

Watch ice cubes melt.

• Invent ways of making them melt quickly or trying to slow down the melting process. Children will come up with lots of fun and exciting ways to do this.
• Older children might like to time how long an ice cube takes to melt under different conditions. Younger children will just enjoy watching them melt.

Chemistry for young children happens every day in the kitchen.

• Watch the oil separating in the salad dressing;
• make play dough and watch how the dry ingredients ‘stick together’ when the wet ingredients are added.
• Make pikelets and watch how the heat changes them from runny batter to a fluffy solid.
• Heat energy changes the texture and composition of many foods as they cook.

The night skies are a source of great wonder.

• Watch the changing moon and stars and identify constellations such as the Southern Cross and the Big Dipper.
• If you gaze long enough, you might see a falling star or a moving satellite.
• Access to a telescope will help you to locate and watch some of the planets.

For young children it is not always necessary to provide a full scientific explanation of an event. The age and developmental stage of your child (and the number of questions they ask) will guide you as to how much information to give.

There are currently a great many excellent non-fiction books for young children on all the different areas of science. These generally explain concepts very simply and have large clear photographs and illustrations to stimulate curiosity.

The key to science with young children is to explore and question and to provide lots of real life experiences. Make sure there is plenty of time and opportunity to stimulate curiosity, to wonder and to play. As adults we can model these behaviours by taking an active interest in passing bugs, growing plants and melting ice-cubes.

Discovering science will help to preserve and encourage the natural curiosity and wonder that children are born with.

Materials for scientific exploration

With young children, science seems to happen ‘on the run.’

• Small glass tank – if possible with a mesh lid, some pebbles on the bottom and a few small branches in it. Alternatively, you can buy ‘bug catchers’ from toyshops.
• Magnifying glasses, tweezers, scissors, magnets, boxes for collecting small things. Egg cartons and matchboxes are good for this. Some of this equipment comes boxed up in the form of ‘science kits’ in toyshops.
• Keep the small plastic plant pots and team them in a box with a small digging fork, watering can, kids work gloves and a few glass jars with lids. Add potting mix and a packet of seeds.
• Small boxes of ‘junk’ to use when making things and doing experiments. Keep this with a box of pencils, paper, stapler, ruler, string, balloons, styrofoam trays, ice-cream buckets with lids, etc.

For children who are constantly venturing into the wonderful world of science, the above items make lovely gifts for birthday and Christmas.

By Adele Amorsen
 

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, July 2003. Updated July 2009.