When it comes to science, many of today's children experience narrow and impoverished learning opportunities, which, as professor Judah Schwartz writes in the preface to this book, lead ulitmately to a mere caricature of science. One source of the problem is the wrongβterribly wrongβbelief that science is an inappropriate subject for early elementary education and certainly for kindergarten education.
As a curative to this prevalent and unfortunate situation, this well-written and thought-provoking book presents the state-of-the-art in science education for kindergarten and primary schools. It begins with a thorough theoretical discussion on why it is incumbent on the science educator to teach science already at first stages of childhood. It goes on to analyze and synthesize a broad range of educational approaches and themes such as: inquiry-based teaching; learning through authentic problems; scaffolding; situated learning; learning through projects; non-verbal knowledge; and informal learning. The book also presents fresh novel strategies to science teaching such as learning science through designing, building, evaluating and redesigning simple artifacts; and Inquiry Events. Numerous examples illustrating how the theories presented may be brought into practice are provided.