School Updates
Cultivating a Science Mindset in the Early Years
In Concordian, young children not only learn the Chinese language and embrace Chinese culture but also explore everything through the Chinese language, including science. Young children are active learners who are inquisitive and have a thirst for new knowledge. Scientific exploration provides the perfect opportunity for our youngsters to make connections with the world around them through play-based learning.
K2 students have just completed a great learning experience in the Chinese unit “How the World Works”. It is a science unit exploring the laws of the natural world, focusing on “changes”. The unit is not about the changes in the natural world like weather, seasons, leaves but more of a shift to the physical world and invites our youngsters to explore the physical and chemical changes of the materials and matter. Our teachers purposefully designed the classroom environment to promote exploration, wonder and creativity. The exploration table is set with different natural and man-made materials as well as tools (magnifiers, beakers, measuring cups, droppers, etc.). The classroom library center is filled with non-fictions books about materials and changes. Science posters and data collection charts are up on the wall and windows. Students are invited to co-construct the learning environments by contributing materials to the exploration table and recording data through drawing. Safety measures are carefully considered and carried out. Students are always reminded to wear safety goggles when making experiments with teachers.
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Through various classroom and online activities and experiments, students became very knowledgeable about the three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas, and how and why they can change and interchange. They especially enjoyed the dissolving and melting experiments in which they tested many different objects. They were fascinated seeing the balloon being blown up by the gas created by mixing baking soda and liquid vinegar. They were amazed with the coloring changing and forming beautiful patterns when dropping food coloring into milk. What matters the most is that students had a chance to develop a variety of science skills including using all senses to observe the features, properties, changes of different materials; collecting and recording findings in simple charts and graphs; describing experiments using scientific vocabularies; generating questions; making predictions and justifying with reasons. These skills nurture our young children’s science mind-set and build them up into inquirers. It is important to remember that children learn from almost everything. Seeing all the wonder in the children’s faces and joy of learning in their eyes is absolutely rewarding. We know a seed of loving science has been planted in the children’s hearts. Ariel Yu Wang Elementary Principal/Head of Chinese