In many countries, play is the vehicle for teaching and learning, requiring early childhood teachers to recognize and assess children's demonstrations of knowledge and capabilities as they are displayed during play. In the context of science learning, assessing what children know already, referred to as "assessment for learning," equips…

This study aims to examine preschool teachers' earth and space science practices and the expected achievements of children in these practices. The research was conducted with a phenomenological pattern. Participants of the study consisted of 28 preschool teachers working in public schools and determined by the criterion sampling method, one of the…

This article presents research designed along one scholar course with first-year pre-schoolers in Spain. A coherent sequence of learning activities, that combined classroom work with working outside the classroom (in the school garden), was designed in order to analyse if the first-year-preschool children were able to apply scientific tools,…

Research has shown significant relationships between students' epistemological beliefs and their approaches to learning. This study aimed to investigate the relationships between the scientific epistemological beliefs, science learning approaches, and the scientific inquiry skills of undergraduate students who took science courses by expanding the…

The preschool level is often the first formal opportunity for children to experience science. There are many examples of appropriate experiments and scientific experiences aimed at young children, both in Mexico and around the world. Even the formal public preschool program in Mexico includes sections called Academic Training Topics, one of which…

This study aims to design an educational process for teaching scientific concepts during the preschool period based on the instructional design model of Seels and Glasgow and to evaluate its effectiveness. For this purpose, a material set incorporating a teacher's manual and interactive holographic materials was developed. The teacher's manual…

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…

Acquiring observational competences is an important task in early science education. It helps children to make a transition from seeing to observing and developing scientific process skills and science concepts. Outdoor education is seen by many researchers as optimal way for learning about life sciences, therefore ongoing loss of human…

Inquiry-based science education has become one of the most effective methodologies to learn science; however, proposals in preschool are scarce. Different factors are responsible for this situation, such as the low self-confidence of teachers to teach science and the belief that young children are unable to develop certain reasoning skills. This…

This qualitative study aimed to compare the scientific process skills of 5-6 years old preschool children in kindergartens where Reggio Emilia approach was implemented and not implemented. For this purpose, upon obtaining consent forms from the parents, in total 80 purposefully selected children participated in the study; 35 in a kindergarten…

The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of the Primary Years Program (PYP) on the science process skills (SPSs) of children in early childhood education. The study design was quasi-experimental and focused on children attending private schools in Istanbul. In this study, the Science Process Scale developed by Ozkan (2015) was…

Numeracy indicates number sense, measurement and geometry but is most often connected to number sense only. Since the domains of geometry and measurement are strongly connected to becoming skilful in science an intervention was carried out to improve children's science skills through measuring and geometry activities and enhance both their…

For two decades, the state role in educating children before kindergarten has been growing, and it is accelerating. Enrollment in state-funded preschool today far exceeds that in federal Head Start, and states are the dominant provider at age 4, serving about half of all four-year-olds who attend any preschool program. New universal preschool…

Learning for sustainability (LfS) encompasses holistic, interdisciplinary experiences that equip learners with essential sustainability competences. The 2018 Council Recommendation on key competences for lifelong learning emphasises improving, among others, basic skills (such as literacy and numeracy), competences in STEM, and digital competences,…

The study aimed to investigate pre-service early childhood teachers' (PSTs) collective pedagogical content knowledge (cPCK) and personal pedagogical content knowledge (pPCK) on the knowledge used in scientific process (SP) through the content representation (CoRe) design, interview, and knowledge used in scientific process (KSP) forms. The data…