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Science and Young Children: The Message from the

National Science Education Standards
a a
Steven J. Rakow & Michael J. Bell
a
University of Houston—Clear Lake , Houston , Texas , USA
Published online: 25 Jul 2012.

To cite this article: Steven J. Rakow & Michael J. Bell (1998) Science and Young Children: The Message from the
National Science Education Standards, Childhood Education, 74:3, 164-167, DOI: 10.1080/00094056.1998.10522696

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Science and Young Children:
The message from the National
Science Education Standards
Steven J. Rakow is Associate Professor, Science Education, and Michael J. Bell is Assistant +
Professor, Early Childhood Education, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, Texas. +
A +
c7 n December 1995, the
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National Research Council re-
leased the National Science
Education Standards (1996).
The development of standards
for science education represented
nearlyfive years of work and the
involvement of thousands of sci-
entists, community members,
educators and parents. The Na-
tional ScienceEducation Stan-
dards document represents a
vision -one that is widely shared
among science educators. The
challenge is to translate that vi-
sion into reality in euery classroom
in the United States. Earlychild-
hood educators should carefilly
review the Standards in order to
provide a foundation for devel-
opmentally appropriateandfully
integrated science experiences
and activities in their classrooms.
It may be important, first, to rec-
ognize the limits of the Standards’
scope. The document is not a fed-
164 + CHILDHWDEDUCATION
Steven J. Rakow
and Michael J. Bell
eral mandate, so there is no force of law requiring local
schools, teachers or communities to pay any attention
to these standards. Standards is not a national curricu-
lum, nor is it a set of specifications for a national
examination.
Rather, the National Science Education Standards
represents a set of criteria for judging quality in:
students’ scientific knowledge base, teaching excel-
lence, professional development for preservice and
inservice teachers, assessment practices (both stan-
dardized and teacher-made), and programs and
systems that support effective science teaching. The
document‘s greatest strength-moving all of the
stakeholders in science education reform, includ-
ing preprimary and primary level teachers in public
and private educational settings, in a common di-
rection-was possible because of the broad-based
consensus that marked its development.
The document is divided into six sections. The first
one describes how teachers can create learning cli-
mates conducive to achieving the standards. Such
classrooms capture the wonder and excitement of
natural phenomena in our world by incorporating
appropriate scientific processes into individual deci-
sion-making, cooperative learning experiences and
responsive teaching practices. Teachers cannot be
expected to do this, however, without adequate prepa-
ration and support. The second section addresses the
professional development of both preservice and
inservice teachers. The third section focuseson assess-
ment practices, including standardized assessmentsat
the national, state and local levels, as well as classroom
assessment practices developed by teachers. Progress
toward reform in science education can be monitored
only with the development of reliable, authentic as-
sessment methods.
The next section focuses on what students should
know and be able to do by grades 4,8 and 12. This
section built upon the important work of two major
saenceeducationreformefforts,“Project2061”(Ameri-
 canAssociationfortheAdvancementof Science[AAAS], propriate times and in appropriate contexts, and, most
1989; AAAS, 1993)and “Scope, Sequence and Coordi-
nation” (NationalScience Teachers Association, 1992).
Were the Standards to stop at this point, teachers
would bear an unreasonable responsibility for bring-
ing reform to fruition. Although it acknowledges that
teachers are the key to reform, the Standards also recog-
nizes that sigruficant and lasting reform must be sys-
temic. For this reason, two additional sectionsfocusing
on program and system standards describethe broader
support that must be in place to provide teachers with
the necessary tools for success.
What is the message in the Standards for teachers of
young children? This article will focus on two areas:
Science Teaching Standards, or how we should be
teaching and facilitating scientific understanding in
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young children; and Science Content Standards, or
what areas of understanding should be highlighted
and made accessible to young children as they con-
struct personal meaning.
How Should We Teach?
Science Teaching Standards
Teachersof young children will recognizethe picture of
science teaching that arises from the National Science
Education Standards. The standards focus on a student-
centered classroom in which childrenare activeinquir-
ers. They emphasize planning lessons, activities and
experiences that focus on children‘s natural interests
and motivations. Children are encouraged to work
together to identify and solve relevant problems, rather
than passively and individually acquiring arbitrary
information. Teachers are encouraged to work with
community members and parents, as well as other
teachers, to develop quality science programs that per-
mit children to think about the world around them and
to critically analyze their choices and the impact their
choices have on their community and quality of life.
What would such a classroom look like? A visitor to
this classroomwould see children clustered in groups,
and actively engaged in materials and with each other.
Early childhood classrooms like this are rich with
language about natural phenomena and the tools that
children can use to exploreand inquire. Young inquir-
ers plan their activities around relevant and meaning-
ful scientificthemes. Children have ready access to a
wide variety of equipment and materials that allow
them to interact with the natural world of their back-
yards, neighborhoods and communities.
In this classroom, developmentally appropriate sci-
entific experiences for young children are rooted in
daily life; the wonder of living plants and animals, the
moon and the stars, and the seas and the sky is never
lost. The classroom teacher is a facilitator of group
activities. The teacher coordinates experiences at ap-
important, observes young children as they actively
study science. This classroom provides children with
the scientificskills and knowledge that they can apply
as they grow and learn.
The image of authentic science teaching in the early
years described in the Standards is not a pie-in-the-sky
dream. It is happening in countless preprimary and
primary gradeclassroomsthroughoutthe United States.
Mrs. Manco’s kindergarten class of 20 children, ages 5
and 6, is working on ”discovery centers” in the morning.
Small clusters of two or three children have created areas
around the room where they can sit and work with materials
that have been prepared by their teacher. Children also have
easy access to “inquiry tools” they can use to investigate
various phenomena and scientific principles. These tools
include magnihing lenses, balances, various probing and
cutting implements, twine, clay, water and a variety of
measuring instruments.
In one corner, two boys are using twine to wrap around
apples, oranges, aluminum cans, rocks and a tennis ball.
They are talking about how “big around” each object is in
relation to the other props. In doing so, the boys are blending
their understandings of mathematical principles as they
construct understandings of the scientific world. Several
children are making leaf rubbings and comparing the sizes,
shapes and patterns, while learning about the foliage that
thrives on their campus. Two girls are sitting in a corner
making imprints of shells in clay as their teacher observes
and talks with the children about patterns that various
objects make.
As all of these activities proceed, fish are swimming in
aquariums, plants are growing by the windows, and Betsy,
the class hamster, is burrowing in her cage preparing to have
little hamsters (“any day now,“ according to the young
scientists!). These activities, objects and phenomena create an
environment that heightens children’s awareness of their
surroundings, while they develop skills that will enable them
to explore in a self-directed,systematic and thoughtful manner.
What Should We Teach?
The Content Standards
People most often misperceive the Standards to be a
blueprint for a national curriculum when they con-
sider its definition of content. Rather, the content
standards seek to outline a set of scientificinformation
that has been judged by educators and scientists to be
developmentallyappropriate, scientifically sound and
sequenced, in order to provide students with the pre-
requisite knowledge and skills for continued science
learning. It is likely that these content standards will
positively influence different states, as they develop
curriculum frameworks; publishers, as they write new
textbooks and cumcular series; and assessment com-
SPRING
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 panies, as they develop authentic assessmentpractices.
If the Standards continues to stand the test of public
scrutiny, this unity of curriculum objectives, instruc-
tional materials and assessment strategieswill result in
a more closely aligned curriculum-one that will pro-
mote developmental continuity, from the preprimary
grades through elementary grades and on to secondary
school science programs (Barbour & Seefeldt, 1993).
Organization of the
eontent Standards
The content standards are divided into eight broad
areas. The section Unifying Concepts and Processes
describesthe fundamental scienceknowledge and skills
that are common to K-12 grade levels. Although these
concepts and processes are constructed to have an
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appropriate level of complexity in the early grades,
they still form a critical foundation for an understand-
ing of what science is all about.
The specific concepts and processes that provide
connectionsamong traditional science disciplines and
across all grade levels are:
Systems, order and organization
Evidence, models and explanation
Constancy, change and measurement
Evolution and equilibrium
Form and function.
Teachers familiar with the inquiry science curricula
from the 1960s will recognize several of these topics,
because they formed the core of such programs as
ScienceCurriculumImprovementStudy (1980),Elemen-
tary Science (1978)and Science: A Process Approach (1979). gartner to see which color of pudding he / she would
Another focus of the curricular projects from the
1960s was the notion of science as inquiry. The second
of the content standards concerns the belief that chil-
dren should learn science through active engagement
in scientific activities. An inquiry approach to science
teaching places investigations at the center of the sci-
ence program. Students learn through their own inves-
tigations about the natural world. Teachersact primarily
as facilitators,helping their young learners to construct
knowledge obtained from their discoveries.
The National Science Education Standards describes
two elements of Science As Inquiry: Abilities Neces-
sary To Do ScientificInquiry and Understanding About
Scientific Inquiry. In order for children to engage in
scientific inquiry, they should have access to support- Physical Science
ive environments in which they feel comfortable ask-
ing questions about the world around them. It comes
as no surprise to most early educators that young
children are natural inquirers. The key to scientific Life Science
inquiry lies in how these questions are addressed by
teachers, classroom assistants and peers. Adults can
166 + CHILDHOOD
EDUCATION
encourage each child’s active involvement by model-
ing good listening skills and by communicatingclearly.
When children are given hasty answers or overly com-
plex explanations, they quickly learn not to ask more
questions. Teachersin inquiry-drivenclassroomsguide
children, whenever possible, to seek answers to their
own questions. Young children need opportunities to
plan, conduct and review simple investigations,to use
simple materials and tools for data collection, and to
use the information they have collected to answer their
own questions. These activities form a process that is
meaningful, relevant and child-centered.
For young learners to engage in scientific inquiry,
they must understand that science is a process of asking
questions and seekinganswers. They also should come
to the understanding that many questions can be an-
swered, but there are a variety of ways to find the
answers. Much of this understanding comes from the
modeling that teachers provide. Inquiry science takes
place in classroomswhere teachers are willing to say, “I
don’t know, but how do you think we could find out?”
In Ms. Copley’s 1st-grade classroom, for example,
the students wondered what color of pudding would
be most appealingto kindergarten students. Ms. Copley
saw in this question an opportunity to engage her
students in scientific inquiry. The class decided to
make a batch of vanilla (white-colored) pudding and
divide it into six portions, each of which they colored
differently, using food coloring (the taste and smell
would be the same). Next, the 1st-grade students
placed a small amount of each color pudding around
the rim of a paper plate. Finally, it was time for the
survey to begin. Each 1st-grader interviewed a kinder-
select first, second, third, and so forth, until all six were
selected. When the class compared notes, they found
many similarities in the responses-the students
most often selected the brightly colored pudding
first. These children were involved in active in-
quiry, answering a question that they had posed,
and using methods that they had developed. This is
the scientific process.
The content standards next address knowledge and
skills in the areas of Physical Science, Life Science and
Earth/ Space Science. The table below summarizes the
major content areas in these disciplines that are devel-
opmentally appropriate for young children:
Properties of objects and materials
0 Position and motion of objects
Light, heat, electricity and
magnetism
The characteristics of organisms
Life cycles of organisms
Organisms and environments
 Earth / Space Properties of Earth materials
Science Objects in the sky
Changes in Earth and sky
Teachers use a variety of ways to help their children
understand these topics. Ms. Luciano focuses on lady-
bugs with her kindergarten students, using materials
from the Lawrence Hall of Science series, Great Explo-
rations in Mathematics and Science (Echols, 1993). The
children observe live ladybugs, make ladybug models
and learn about the life cyclesof ladybugs. Ms. Luciano
even dresses as a ladybug. Mr. Brooks encourageshis
kindergarten students to explore air pressure and
weather as they make clouds in a baby food jar. Using
streamers, they plot air currentsin their classroomand
outside on the playground. Active student involve-
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ment in the doing of science as a means to learn the
content of science is a common theme in both of these
classrooms.
Three additional areas complete the Content Stan-
dards portion of the National Science Education Stan-
dards. Science and Technology focuses on the
interrelationship of science and technology as stu-
dents explore the designed world. Students explore
problems of their world and discover ways in which
technology has been applied to solving those prob-
lems. Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
emphasizes the impact of science on our daily lives in
areas such as health, the environment and the role of
citizens in a scientific society. The final content area,
History and Nature of Science, seeks to portray science
as a human endeavor. Studentslearn about the people
who have made scientific contributions. By learning
about famous scientists, the students better under-
stand the nature of science and the role that they could
possibly play as future scientists.
The table below summarizes the major topics in
these three areasthat are developmentallyappropriate
for young children:
Science and Abilities of technological design
Technology Understanding about science
and technology
Abilities to distinguish between
natural objects and man-made
objects
Science in Personal Personal health
and Social Characteristics and changes in
Perspectives population
Types of resources
Changes in environments
Science and technology in local
challenges
History and Science as a human endeavor
Nature of Science
Conclusion
Teachingyoung childrenis a complex task. At no other
level does education serve as wide a range of learners,
learning styles and personal understanding. Yet, the
answersto providing young learnersthe most effective
and appropriate education is not in simphfymg class-
room methods, diminishing content areas or reducing
school experiences to paper-and-pencil exercises. De-
velopmentallyappropriateearly childhood classrooms
provide young children with opportunities to identify
problems and questions in their environment that can
be explored. Teachersand childrenworkcollaboratively
to plan and implement investigations, and to seek
answers and solutions that are appropriate for their
level of development and understandings.
The National Science Education Standards provides a
foundationfor teachers to create experiencesfor young
childrenthat will promote inquiry, wonder and under-
standing. By exploringscientificphenomena and study-
ing their world, children can construct meaning about
themselves and their relationship to their world. The
skills that can be developed through scientific investi-
gationsand the processesassociatedwith inquiryexpe-
riences will foster curiosity about daily life, enthusiasm
for asking questionsand seeking answers, and comfort
in working collaborativelywith other young scientists.
Note: A useful resource to help teachers of young children
understand the National ScienceEducation Standardsis
the publication Pathways to the Science Standards: El-
ementary School Edition, available from the National
Science Teachers Association, 1840 Wilson Blvd., Arling-
ton, V A 22201 -3000.
References
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
(1989). Science for all Americans. New York: Oxford
University Press.
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
(1993). Benchmarksfor science literacy. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Barbour, N.H., & Seefeldt, C. (1993).Developmental continu-
ity across preschool and primary grades: Implications f i r
teachers. Olney, MD: Association for Childhood Educa-
tion International.
Echols, J. C . (1993).Ladybugs. Berkeley, C A Lawrence Hall
of Science.
Elementary science study materials. (1978). New York:
McGraw-Hill.
National Research Council. (1996).National science education
standards. Washington, D C National Academy Press.
National Science Teachers Association. (1992). Scope,
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