1. Introduction

Reggio Emilia approach is very compatible with preschool science education standards in terms of both science content and science process skills. Distinguished Reggio Emilia teachers believe in active education and create exemplary science projects in which children's science knowledge and skills can be nourished successfully. Reggio Emilia classrooms provide science-rich contexts of inquiry-based and social-constructivist education where children cooperatively construct their knowledge of science by hand, by mind, and by heart. Children actively work on the projects through hands-on experiences, construct their knowledge of science with their peers and teachers by questioning and theorizing, and love the subject matter by following what they inquire for and what they are interested in. Since Reggio Emilia approach does not provide a predetermined program but instead a heuristic perspective to education of young children, children find a chance to be involved in culturally relevant projects that take into account the unique needs and interests of children and integrate various disciplinary subjects [1] (Figure 1).

incorporated. However, teachers, who believe in Reggio Emilia approach,

Science Education in Reggio Emilia-Inspired Altın Çağ Preschools

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81760

preschools.

skills.

reconceptualize standards in early childhood education settings and follow a reverse pathway of integrating aspects of standards into their early childhood settings. "We are not mandated but check standards periodically to look at the curriculum, make connection between the work that we are doing and those standards, and pull out some of the standards for professional/parent conferences or undergraduate lessons. We're not married to standards. We don't let the standards drive the curriculum, children's ideas drive the curriculum." This interview excerpt, from a teacher in an American preschool inspired by Reggio Emilia Approach at a research university in the USA, describes how teachers benefit from standards in Reggio Emilia

Malaguzzi [4], the founder of the Reggio Emilia schools, states that they follow children's tread of interest, build the science content and skills on that interest, and create a curriculum "from" children not "for" children. Accordingly, anything can be the topic of a Reggio Emilia project, and teachers take advantage of that project topic, in which children are interested, to help children experience the joy of exploring and learning science content and gaining skills, especially science process

Children in Reggio Emilia preschools usually conduct research on the topic of their interests and engage in science exploration and experiments. Science process skills (i.e., observing and predicting) and integrated scientific process skills (i.e., controlling variables, building hypothesis, interpreting data, experimenting, and formulating) are one of the essentials of conducting research [5, 6]. Young children usually make use of the basic skills, namely, science process skills, instead of integrated scientific process skills, which are more complicated. While children are conducting research on the topic of a project, they need to use science process skills to be able to actively build their content knowledge and satisfy their natural curiosity in the environment. In Reggio Emilia preschools, children act like a little scientist and use science process skills frequently. Basic science process skills that are used by

Observation: observing, noticing, and collecting information about the world. Prediction: making a guess and answering the questions like "What happens if?"

Identification and measurement/calculation: labeling the information with a

Comparison: figuring out similarities and differences between/among objects

Categorization/group: organizing and combining information into meaningful

Data collection/record: collecting things/information and recording them. Interpretation/communication: making meaning out of the gathered information, sharing that information with others, and explaining information to others. Utilization: generalizing information from one place to another and from one

young children in Reggio Emilia preschools can be defined as follows:

name or a feature that has a meaning shared with others.

3. Science process skills in early childhood

and "Guess what happened?"

units based on comparisons.

experience to another [7, 8].

and events.

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#### Figure 1. Altın Çağ Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool.

This chapter aims to show how teachers can help preschoolers happily construct their knowledge and meet standards successfully in their Reggio Emilia-inspired preschools. More specifically, it focuses on three aspects of science education in early childhood, namely, (1) the way Reggio Emilia teachers accomplish the early childhood science content and science process skills that children need to acquire at early ages, (2) the philosophy of teaching and learning science in Reggio Emilia preschools—integrated teaching and learning and 3H principle—and (3) the 80 Project. This chapter discusses integrated teaching and learning philosophy and 3H principle of early childhood education, namely, hands-on, heads-on (minds-on), and hearts-on education, because in Reggio Emilia classrooms, children are seen as a whole with their hands, minds, and hearts and education needs to satisfy all. Moreover, this chapter presents some examples and photos of science experiences happened within the project named "80" in Reggio Emilia-inspired Altın Çağ preschools in Turkey so that the teachers can easily comprehend how to get children to work on science projects from the first stage of development of a project to the last one. "80" is a child-sized doll made with craft paper by the preschoolers. The 80 Project presents the journey of the preschoolers who looked for ways to recover 80.
