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2004 NSF K-12 Math, Science, and Technology Curriculum Developers Conference

An Integrated Early Childhood Science Curriculum: The Key to School Readiness

Lucia French

The project had three goals:

1. To write down the curriculum we had created and used for several years in a Head Start program.
2. To determine whether the curriculum could be implemented by teachers who had not been involved in its creation.
3. To document the impact of the curriculum on preschoolers.

Written Curriculum The ScienceStart!
Curriculum consists of five modules (Measurement and Mapping, Properties of Matter, Movement and Machines, Color and Light, and Neighborhood Habitats), each containing sufficient lesson plans for a 10 week period. Each unit involves begins with a period of exploration, followed by asking questions, then science explorations to address the questions, then a relatively complex culminating activity that draws on concepts covered in the unit. Each day’s lesson is linked to relevant children’s literature and follows a modified cycle of scientific reasoning: Reflect and Ask, Plan and Predict, Act and Observe, Report and Reflect. Teacher Implementation In Year One, three teachers began using ScienceStart! and we debriefed with them on a biweekly basis; we also observed in their classrooms on a regular basis. As a result, we rearranged the sequence of some lessons, simplified instructions, and wrote a describing how each day’s lesson met local, state, and national standards in the areas of science, and language arts. In Year Two, we worked with a larger number of teachers including some who taught children with disabilities; we continued the debriefing sessions and revision. Once teachers overcome their "fear of science,’ they like the curriculum. About 80% of the teachers who used the curriculum have ‘stayed with it’ even when our support has faded. Those who have not continued the curriculum wanted to follow a more familiar approach, with a focus on holidays, themes, or author studies, or, they were feeling pressure from districts to include more emphasis on a variety of other topics. Impact on Children Children are biologically prepared to learn about the world around them and they enthusiastically embrace the curriculum. Behavioral difficulties fade as children engage in hands-on activities. The combination of a rich language environment with hands-on explorations supports children from other cultures in acquiring English. This combination also supports English speaking children who enter preschool with underdeveloped language. Over a number of years, children’s scores on the standardized Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test have consistently increased half a standard deviation over the course of the year. Assessment of all preschoolers in a single district showed that those who participated in ScienceStart! classrooms significantly increased their scores on standardized tests of both expressive and receptive vocabulary, while the scores of children not in ScienceStart! classrooms remained stable. Parents note the rich vocabulary children begin using at home, and note that their children begin asking hypothetical questions like those used in the science cycle. Outdoors, one 3- year-old said "Mom, what do you think would happen if we poured water on this dirt? What do you think we would get?"

This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. ESI-0352345). Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.