Scientific Inquiry in Early Childhood Education
             • What is your definition of science?
             Science, as I see it, is a participating, active procedure that can be defined for us by using the science PROCESSES, just as science CONTENT can be defined by listing the knowledge obtained during the activity.
             • What do the terms SCIENCE PROCESS and SCIENCE CONTENT mean to teachers of young children? It means that we should be aware of the different ways that these two (2) parts of science should be taught. SCIENCE CONTENT, the knowledge of science, can be taught in a vacuum and just memorized. Many of us learned part of our science that way. For some of us that style of learning was painful because we needed concrete experience upon which to hook information that we were to learn. If we were lucky we learned science names and definitions in an active context where we applied each to an experiment we had done.
             • Our young children are unable to accomplish high level abstract thinking; however, knowledge of these process (work) skills of science by the teacher can allow you to develop pre-process or process entry skills.
             • Let us keep in mind that we don't teach reading to three (3) and four (4) year old children, we develop their pre-reading skills. Just as in pre-reading, science process skills have entry or pre-skills that can be used with children to enhance their science success later in elementary school; that is, you can teach them to science.
             • Another good rule-of-thumb in kindergarten science is to keep it process-oriented. Learning content is important, but the method by which children understand and integrate concepts deserves just as much of our respect and attention. The process of science investigation include:
             By touching, listening, changing, shaking, pouring, and so on, children notice the properties of objects. Teachers can help them articulate their observations, which wi...