Teachers role in promoting children's interest in science

By Sue Smorti, Professional Development Facilitator and Lecturer, NZCA
Published in Iti Rearea, August 2007

Teachers who recognize science happening in their centres will notice and respond to the learning opportunities inherent in such activities.

A small action research project was carried out in First Years Preschool, Dannevirke exploring how teachers notice, recognise and respond to children's interest in science following the research question: 

Can a learning community (children, families, whanau, teachers and beyond) foster ongoing and diverse pathways in the area of science using assessment tools that describe, construct and foster learning? 

“The centre had already demonstrated a strong interest in environmental science and teachers were familiar with the use of learning narratives,” said Sue Smorti, researcher and PD Facilitator. 

According to Sue, the centre’s participation in Professional Development using Kei Tua o te Pae: Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars has made it apparent that 'science' was one of the areas of learning valued by this community

What is Science?

One of the useful definitions of science, based on Te Whaariki, is: “Children make sense of their world through relationships with people, places and things that have meaning for them”.

“As part of the professional development, we documented all the ideas that teachers already had about science, introduced the notion of a socio-cultural view of science (science in a social worldview), and explored some ideas about how we would document the science that was happening,” said Sue.

Learning Stories

The co-researchers shared their individual learning stories which were documented and displayed for children and parents – both on the wall and in portfolios.

The goals and experiences of each teacher were found to be different.

Lisa moved away from a focus on environmental science 'looking at science other than environmental which I am very confident with' and discovering the significance of content knowledge. 

“I did some cool work with magnets with 2 children but struggled to write learning stories.  On reflection I think this was because I didn’t have enough content knowledge about sciences," said Lisa.

Julie focused on finding an interesting format for writing learning stories highlighting science.  

"I introduced the phrase ‘what science is happening here?’ as a way of highlighting science," said Julie.

Her ability to rephrase complex science ideas was a very important contribution to the team.  She also found that by analyzing the science she was able to plan for science.

Denise explored the interface between science and technology.

“I ended up writing a series of learning stories on siphoning (physical science).  This sharing of knowledge amongst the teaching team was an important part of the ongoing dialogue about science in the curriculum that also made science visible within the ‘everyday’ conversations with children, parents and community,” remarked Denise.

Casey continued to ask “is this science?”  She demonstrated the concept of being uncertain leads to learning –and without her critical view this project would have been different. 

 “The children really enjoyed to dance with me and I loved to write stories about their experience with dance.  It shows that if you have the knowledge…related to any topic, whether it is science, maths, drama, dance, music or English, children will learn and gather knowledge from that teacher,” remarked Casey.

In the end, she noted the importance of following teacher interest as well.

Co-constructing learning

The research provided a venue for the teachers to discover science together with the children. 

“They shared stories about science and looked at children's books and resources as a way of co-constructing knowledge,” said Sue. 

Teachers also began to reflect on practice and to recognize the unique contributions each one of them had to make towards making science more visible.

Using teacher voices (dialogue and reflection) enables us to become more cognizant in order to plan our practice and work better with children, families/whanau and the wider community.

The article is based on the action research project in the area of science at First Years Preschool, Dannevirke where Sue Smorti was involved.