The physical sciences in early childhood education: Theoretical frameworks, strategies and activities

Abstract

Abstract This paper deals with the different theoretical frameworks used for the initiation of early childhood students to the physical sciences. We present in general four distinct frameworks as well as typical examples of their teaching approaches. The empiricist trends are mainly involved in the effort to transmit knowledge of science, connect new experiences with the children’s old experiences, and exhibit and present experiments. The theoretical and methodological framework of the second category of research and deployment activities is Piagetian genetic epistemology. Within this framework, children are offered opportunities to assimilate physical knowledge through experimentation and the manipulation of specially constructed, selected, and organized teaching materials and environments. In the socio-cognitive approach, one can classify activities that are influenced by post-Piagetian and/or by Vygotsky’s learning theories as well as by the results of research in Science Education, which in general recognize the importance and the privileged role of student’s mental representations, and of social interaction in the implementation of new cognitive operations. Finally, in the socio-cultural perspective of Vygotsky on the basis of which learning is the product of the holistic social, cultural and historical horizon of the student, the approach of concepts and phenomena of physical sciences is attempted through daily activities familiar to young children.