2. Content of science education in early childhood

Early learning and development standards for children posit a concept (e.g., associations, attributes, function as an example for Knowledge Big Ideas, http://ed ucation.ohio.gov) or a skill (e.g., classifying, comparing, and contrasting, symbolizing as an example for Process Big Ideas, http://education.ohio.gov) that preschool children should gain. Standards ideally consist of developmentally appropriate practices that promote children's cognitive, social, emotional, sensorimotor, and some other development areas, while they are required to be responsive to the cultural and social contexts in which children live. Developmentally appropriate practices emphasize the importance of supporting children's development and active learning and offering children to engage school experiences such as hands-on and minds-on learning, inquiry-based activity, in-depth research, and cooperative learning [2, 3].

Schools are usually required to incorporate standards (both content and skills) into their existing curriculum. Traditional teachers used to give children science content knowledge by using predetermined curriculum in which standards are

Science Education in Reggio Emilia-Inspired Altın Çağ Preschools DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81760

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

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 skills.

#### 3. Science process skills in early childhood

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

Observation: observing, noticing, and collecting information about the world.

Prediction: making a guess and answering the questions like "What happens if?" and "Guess what happened?"

Identification and measurement/calculation: labeling the information with a name or a feature that has a meaning shared with others.

Comparison: figuring out similarities and differences between/among objects and events.

Categorization/group: organizing and combining information into meaningful units based on comparisons.

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 experience to another [7, 8].

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 hap-

pened within the project named "80" in Reggio Emilia-inspired Altın Çağ

2. Content of science education in early childhood

learning [2, 3].

84

Figure 1.

Altın Çağ Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool.

Early Childhood Education

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.

Early learning and development standards for children posit a concept (e.g., associations, attributes, function as an example for Knowledge Big Ideas, http://ed ucation.ohio.gov) or a skill (e.g., classifying, comparing, and contrasting, symbolizing as an example for Process Big Ideas, http://education.ohio.gov) that preschool children should gain. Standards ideally consist of developmentally appropriate practices that promote children's cognitive, social, emotional, sensorimotor, and some other development areas, while they are required to be responsive to the cultural and social contexts in which children live. Developmentally appropriate practices emphasize the importance of supporting children's development and active learning and offering children to engage school experiences such as hands-on and minds-on learning, inquiry-based activity, in-depth research, and cooperative

Schools are usually required to incorporate standards (both content and skills) into their existing curriculum. Traditional teachers used to give children science content knowledge by using predetermined curriculum in which standards are

As stated by Fleer, in order for teachers to achieve effective teaching, they should not only enrich their content/skills knowledge in science; they should also have a strong educational philosophy and pedagogical applications to be able to teach science [9]. Reggio Emilia approach provides a contemporary and an alternative perspective to early childhood science education.

4.2 3H principle in education of young children

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

Science Education in Reggio Emilia-Inspired Altın Çağ Preschools

having fun) [5, 15].

minds, and hearts.

5. The 80 project

of the school year.

87

science-related inquiry [5, 15].

The term 3Hs used by Inan [5] is new to science literacy, but the idea behind 3Hs is not new to science educators. The acronym 3H principle stands for "handsheads-hearts-on education." "Hands-on" science education stands for children's active engagement with science, "heads-on" science education stands for inquirybased education, and "hearts-on" science education stands for interest-based science education. These three qualities of science education, namely, hands-on, heads-on, and hearts-on, refer to education and development of the whole child. Such whole-child perspective considers cognitive aspects of learning (e.g., inquiring, categorizing, reasoning, predicting, interpreting, and theorizing), social aspects of learning (e.g., discussing, being a part of the learning community, cooperating, sharing, communicating, playing, learning from each other), language aspects of learning (e.g., communicating ideas using hundred languages, using technical terms), physical aspects of learning (e.g., engaging with both small motor skills and large motor skills like writing, drawing, jumping, running), and affective skills (e.g., satisfying their own interests, inquiries, and needs, working on love of subject matter in a playful context, caring about others, and

Reggio Emilia approach proposes an ideal early childhood science education by making use of a wide variety of theories, such as constructivism, social constructivism, play, and inquiry-based education. All those theories emphasize various strategies for education of young children. Taking those theories into consideration, Reggio Emilia teachers create a context for hands-on, heads-on, and hearts-on science education and get all three to work together. Projects, when maintained by appropriate teacher support, enriched environment, and documentation, create a playful context in which children can be actively and happily engaged in their

This chapter presents the extended example of a negotiated science project, the 80 Project. The 80 Project is a co-constructed project that emerged at Altın Çağ preschools which are Turkish preschools inspired by Reggio Emilia approach. The 80 Project emerged out of a group of children's interest in ambulances and the teacher's initial planning with emergency services and took its direction from children's interests and the teacher's support, enrichment, and deepening of this interest. I describe how this emergent, integrated, science-rich project started and developed with some photos so the teachers can easily comprehend how to get children work on science projects from the first stage of development of a project to the last and how elements of this particular preschool accomplish curriculum integration and 3H principle of early childhood education and satisfy children's hands,

It was a regular school day in Reggio Emilia-inspired Altın Çağ preschools, and a group of 5- to 6-year-old preschoolers was playing in the classroom. Nobody knew that a long, productive, and joyful science project was started. The 80 Project was started with examining body organs by making a child-sized doll with craft paper named by the preschoolers "80" at the beginning of the school year (September), and then the project was evolved into ambulance, hospital, and drug production through January, and the story of curing the doll at the hospital lasted until the end
