Children are Natural Scientists
“Science is impossible without imagination”
— Vygotsky, 1987
By Magdalene Aideyan
Children are natural scientists. From birth, infants explore their environments and look to their caregivers to learn about their world. Spontaneous play further develops their scientific inquiry and experimentation skills. When science education intersects with play and imagination, children develop their understanding of scientific concepts through their creativity. Imaginary situations support children’s sense-making and problem-solving (Caiman and Lundegård, 2018), skills that are fundamental for learning about the scientific world.
According to Lev Vygotsky, a social psychologist best known for his theory of cognitive development in social relationships, imagination is essential for science learning.
“The characteristics of play are that children use imagination to imbue objects with new meanings. So, for science education, material tools and activities that foster the transition to the imaginary situation are central.”
— Vygotsky, 1967
The National Science Association of Teachers highlights parental involvement as crucial in scientific play. Parent involvement is also important to the development of the child’s science literacy (Tekerci, 2020). However, scientific play doesn’t mean running chemistry experiments with children. Families can build children’s science literacy in any environment - the kitchen, park, sidewalk, library and more! Some at-home examples of scientific learning include “cooking, doing household chores, repairing a household object, reading science books, watching science-related television programs, examining online or computer-based resources, playing with science materials” (NSTA, 2009). Parents can also take their children to “out-of-school learning environments (zoo, science museum, science center, planetarium, aquarium, etc)”, which “positively affects the science process skills of young children” (Vartiainen, J., & Kumpulainen, K).
Overall, incorporating science into everyday play is a key to developing children’s interest in science. The ThinkPlayful app supports foundations of scientific literacy using everyday play - just open the app and play!
References:
Caiman, C., and I. Lundegård.2018.“Young Children’s Imagination in Science Education and Education for Sustainability.”Cultural Studies of Science Education13 (3): 687–705
Vygotsky, L. S.1967.“Play and Its Role in the Mental Development of the Child.”Soviet Psychology5(3):6–18.
Vygotsky, L. S.1987a.“Imagination and its Development in Childhood.” In The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky (Vol. 1), edited by R. W. Rieber and A. S. Carton, 339–349. New York: PlenumPress.
Tekerci, H. (2020). Role of parent in science education in early childhood. In G. Uludağ (Ed.), Science education in early childhood: Child's journey of discovery, (pp. 403-432). Ankara: Nobel Academic Publishing
National Science Teachers Association [NSTA] (2009). Parent ınvolvement in science learning. NSTA Board of Directors. Retrieved from https://www.nsta.org/nstas-official-positions/parent-involvement-science-learning
Vartiainen, J., & Kumpulainen, K. (2020). Playing with science: Manifestation of scientific play in early science inquiry. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 28(4), 490–503.
