Children are intrigued by moving objects, even more so when they can engineer the movement. This volume in the STEM for Our Youngest Learners Series uses Ramps and Pathways as a context to provide children ages 3-8 with opportunities to engage in STEM every day. Ramps and Pathways is a meaningful and fun way for children to develop engineering…

Three hundred and forty-one children (M[subscript age] = 9,0 years) engaged in a series of science tasks in collaborative, same-sex pairs or did not interact. All children who collaborated on the science tasks advanced in basic-level understanding of the relevant task (motion down an incline). However, only boys advanced in their conceptual…

When picking up an object, adults show a longer deceleration phase when the onward action has a greater precision requirement. Tailoring action in this way is thought to need forward modelling in order to predict the consequences of movement. Some evidence suggests that young children also tailor reaching in this way; however, how this skill…

Kinematic measures of children's reaching were found to reflect stable differences in skill level for planning for future actions. Thirty-five toddlers (18-21 months) were engaged in building block towers (precise task) and in placing blocks into an open container (imprecise task). Sixteen children were retested on the same tasks a year later.…

Maturation of fetal response to music was characterized over the last trimester of pregnancy using a 5-minute piano recording of Brahms' Lullaby, played at an average of 95, 100, 105 or 110 dB (A). Within 30 seconds of the onset of the music, the youngest fetuses (28-32 weeks GA) showed a heart rate increase limited to the two highest dB levels;…