Anyone who spends time with preschoolers knows that they are curious and enthusiastic about exploring the world around them. The Cognitive Development and Beyond (CD&B) project grew from our belief-and prior research that shows-that this desire to investigate can be supported and extended by introducing the content, language, tools, and methods of science to preschool learners.  The CD&B effort built on two research-based early science programs, Preschool Pathways to Science (PrePS) and Science for Developing Minds (SDM, a K-1 curriculum) and allowed us to further develop research-based science learning experiences for young learners.  The two main goals of the CD&B project were to: 1) study the uptake of the PrePS program at new sites, ones that were not part of its original development and that differed demographically from the development site, and 2) begin to map out the developmental trajectory of early science learning across various conceptual domains.

The PrePS program builds on what children know about scientific content and their emerging reasoning skills (as identified by basic developmental research) to offer conceptually connected learning experiences that support further learning in particular domains and the development of more mature scientific reasoning. Content choices are made on the basis of what children ask questions about, what is relevant to their lives, what they already know, and their emerging reasoning and communication skills.  Science practices are woven throughout, giving children multiple opportunities to observe, predict, and check predictions; compare, contrast, and experiment; and document findings in charts, graphs, and science journals.   To illustrate or approach, consider one set of classroom experiences centered on growth experiments with plants.  Children described what they thought plants needed to grow-water, sun, soil, and love—and then planted seeds under various conditions to test the importance of some of these factors.  As the plants grew (or didn’t), children used rich vocabulary to describe their observations.  Healthy plants were “green,” had “lots of leaves, big leaves,” and were “standing up” while unhealthy plants were “yellowish,” “all wrinkled,” had “tiny leaves,” and were “droopy.”  Children interpreted their results as well, concluding that “they need water and dirt so they can grow” and that “it can’t (grow) because it’s missing two things…the water and the sun.”  Findings were recorded in children’s science journals, a learning activity that encourages attention to detail and literacy development (please see attached examples).  Related lessons took place over a period of many weeks.  By comparing pre-unit and post-unit assessment scores and by comparing PrePS classrooms with non-PrePS classrooms, we found evidence that children who participate in the extended explorations offered by PrePS show gains in their reasoning about comparisons and simple experiments. 

Along with supporting children’s understanding of basic aspects of the experimental method, project findings suggest that participation supports growth of children’s content knowledge about science domains and their reasoning about different science concepts.  For example, after involvement in the growth and life cycles learning experiences described above, children showed increased understanding that the species of the parents defines the species of their offspring.  Other learning units were associated with better understanding of the functions of senses and the particular kinds of information one can and cannot get throu...

Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.