one school's journey to explore stem with its youngest students

The Children’s Center at Caltech has been a STEM-focused early childhood center for infant, toddler, and preschool-aged children for more than 16 years. Our teaching staff enjoys sharing how our youngest students continually surprise us, building on and revising their knowledge and abilities as they crawl, stumble, and navigate their world. Many of our children arrive as infants and leave our program five years later to begin their kindergarten journey. Weekly, we share anecdotal stories of our young students’ cognitive and developmental milestones. The infants’ teacher marvels at former students’ growth, as their scientific, engineering, and mathematical knowledge matures as they move through the preschool program.

When we made the decision two years ago to focus on the E in STEM, our goal was “to guide our children’s knowledge toward a more scientifically-based and coherent view of engineering” (NRC, 2012, p. 11). The integration of engineering is advocated by the Next Generation of Science Standards. Engineering provides a context for developing problem-solving skills and a context for the development of communication skills with real-world context for learning science and mathematics.

One of our first challenges was to educate our parents and ourselves. We are a children’s center located on the campus of one of the most well-known technology, engineering, and science universities in the world. We provide child care for children from birth to age six for staff, students, and faculty from the university, in addition to families from our local community. Our children’s parents are busy leading planetary science missions; testing rovers; constructing nano-size robots; and investigating cures for diseases. It may be assumed that our parents would consider their child to naturally be ready to engineer. Aren’t all children born to create, design, test, and reconsider what they have constructed? Much of everything in a child’s world is engineered. Children are naturally curious and want to know how things are made. We decided to get up-close and see what exactly engineering is. What is the engineering design

process? How do you explore engineering with children, birth to age six?

Our discussions and research made us realize we needed to educate our parents as to what is cognitively and developmentally appropriate when it comes to engineering with specific age groups. We decided to give them this opportunity at Back to School Night. First, we would design engineering challenges or ‘scenarios’ to do with their children so we could provide documentation and then allow parents to experience the challenge at our annual Back to School Night. It was our desire to kick off a discussion between the teachers and the families as to how engineering and the design process, skills and the tools needed, can foster engineering habits of mind for all ages. We wanted parents to appreciate the developmental process children

Carrie Lynne Draper is the Executive Director of Readiness Learning Associates, a STEM Readiness organization growing children’s learn-ing processes using science, technology, engineering, and mathe-matics from birth through college. Focusing on the development of scientific dispositions through STEM and pedagogical design of equity-oriented STEM learning environments, Carrie has worked in

STEM education for more than 30 years as a classroom teacher, program adminis-trator, and higher education instructor and administrator. She served on the White House Early Learning STEM Symposium and recently presented at Congressional hearings on Early Learning STEM and STEM Excellence. She has received numer-ous honors and builds STEM partnerships of collaboration to target academic-promising minority students to become future science, technology, engineering, and math innovators.

Susan Wood has served as the Executive Director of the Children’s Center at Caltech since 2000. Susan’s experience over the past 38 years includes serving as classroom instructor, overseeing class-room teachers, coordinating community college preschool practi-cum students, and providing developmentally appropriate actives for children. After 20 years in the classroom Susan chose to work in

an administrative level as a director of two university child care centers: USC and UCLA; as adjunct faculty at Pasadena City College; as partner and trainer for the Center for Child and family Services Head Start; as a trainer for Los Angeles County Office of Education; as UCLA Extension instructor. Susan’s passion to support early childhood educators in providing research based, high-quality STEM child educa-tion has lead to the creation community outreach programs, which has included: workshops, a director support group, research projects, and study groups. She is an active member of National Association for the Education of Young Children and National Science Teachers Association and has presented workshops on a national level in the areas of early childhood curriculum with an emphasis on science edu-cation. She received a MA in Child Development from Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, California.

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From Stumble to STEM: One School’s Journey to Explore STEM with its Youngest Students

by Carrie Lynne Draper and Susan Wood

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must go through to become confident problem-solvers, communicators, and collaborators while experiencing engineering.

We looked at research by Dr. Valerie L. Ackerson, professor of science education at Indiana University. She examines how young children can conceptualize the NOS (Nature of Science) from an early age. She states, “We need to share how children start with the concrete and move to the abstract; introduce and emphasize the distinction between observation and inference; the importance of contextual clues as well as background knowledge in making inferences.” Nature of Science skills include describing their observations; describing what they notice; and telling what they think will happen next. These NOS skills make it possible for students to engineer. Additionally, we were inspired by the research of Van Meeteren and Zan (University of Northern Iowa) leading researchers in engineering education for young children.

With the help of our Children’s Engineering Facilitator, we decided to create our own engineering challenges or ‘scenarios’ to see what might inspire our children. There is very little engineering curriculum available for this age range. Creating scenarios for our young students would allow us to describe and catalog children’s actions; see the different design process and tools young children use; and identify children’s behaviors that potentially grow engineering habits of mind. Here we share a glimpse of what our early engineering scenarios looked like for each age group.

Engineering is a Sensory Experience for One-Year-Olds

The infant teachers set up clay for children to explore and gain needed sensory experiences. Engineering for this age requires experiences using their senses. The clay was new material for the infants and they were naturally curious about it. We observed some children stopping to look at it. Others went straight in to touch the clay. Some were very careful to touch it only with one finger. After the first feel, they went back in for more pokes or to squeeze a handful of it. The teachers asked them, “What does it feel like?” as they stared at the clay that stuck onto their small hands. We described how we perceived the clay: it’s cold, soft, sticky, and mushy. After a couple of days of clay introduction, we added a spray bottle of water and basic wooden tools for the children to use. The infants used their hands and tools to mold the clay into different shapes and change its form. The teachers described the clay as it became “wet, slippery, and slimy,” which produced a different feeling. The infants were

engaged at the clay table a little bit longer now that they experienced it in a different form. It was interesting to see the children use the new tools we incorporated; however, the most important ‘tools’ they used to engineer the clay were their own hands.

The infants continued to explore the clay through their senses, primarily their hands and mouths. The children enjoyed feeling, rubbing, squishing, and smearing the clay with their hands and on their bodies. Next, we were interested in watching the children explore the clay with large body movements. We put a large amount of clay on canvas, placed on the floor. The children then used their bodies to climb, walk, and feel the clay with their feet. Feet were very important in the room, given that most children were just starting to walk and wear shoes for the first time.

Catapult Construction with 18- to 24-Month-Olds

Children between the ages of 18–24 months were very interested in cause-and-effect. Our first experience

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came from a child’s curiosity with a trash can and a metal container. The child put the metal container on top of the trash can and launched it onto the counter top. At first glance a teacher assumed the child was throwing the container, but then another teacher observed that much more was happening. Teachers began to realize the child’s intentions, grabbed the camera, and began to document this

amazing experiment. Other children became fascinated and wanted to see if they could ‘launch’ other items. The teachers provided additional materials and observed as children constructed and designed other types of catapults using fulcrums, levers, and pom-pom balls.

Architecture and Seismology Engineering for Two-Year-Olds

Teachers placed two wooden structures in the block area. Two children started to build by adding blocks to it and created structures, calling them airports. Three others came to the block area and began

to parallel build. It became important to separate the circle time area from the block area so that it could be designated as a ‘construction zone,’ so that the building process would not be disturbed.

The children were fascinated with balance and with how high they could build their structures. The teacher assisted the children by providing stepstools in order to reach new heights. Children began to experiment by building on large wooden trucks and were interested in how moving their structures could affect ‘sway’ movement before gravity caused their structures to fall. When the structures became too high and wide for the block area, we decided to expand the ‘construction zone’ to the patio outside our classroom. This allowed for structures to be saved and worked on over several days and they became much more intricate in design.

Marine-Science and Materials Engineering with Three-Year-Olds

A favorite story, Lost, by Oliver Jeffers, was the impetus for an engineering project designing boats. This charming story is about a lost penguin finding his way back home with the help of a small boy and a rowboat. The teachers invited students to build boats from aluminum foil to get the penguin home. Originally, we thought the building and testing of boats using aluminum foil would be a huge success. The teachers placed counting bears out, thinking the children would substitute the bears for the role of the penguin. The children expressed no interest in testing their boats at the water table with the counting bears. We

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Beginnings Professional Development Workshop 64 INFANTS AND TODDLERS www.ChildCareExchange.com EXCHANGE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

realized that to connect the book with the activity, these concrete learners needed penguins. Children at this age are often very literal. Having the penguin available made all the difference. As they built and tested their boats, the activity expanded to experimenting with sink, float, and surface tension. The students noticed the differences between the boats’ design and compared and contrasted boats that held multiple penguins up versus the ones that sank. The children began to talk about the size of their boats and the size of the penguin. They noticed similarities and differences and began discussing with each other how they engineered their individual boats. The children could not be pulled away from the activity.

Conclusion

In the short time we have been creating engineering scenarios and focusing on the E in STEM, we have discovered no matter what the age, children naturally use the engineering design process. They:

■ ask

■ imagine

■ create

■ design and test

■ improve

Even the youngest with limited words use their actions to demonstrate they are curious, show their imagination, test and continue to explore. As NSTA blog contributor Peggy Ashbrook shares, “We (as educators) need to discuss how to implement engineering challenges in our classrooms. Children encounter problems to solve in their play.” Some, Peggy suggests, are “keeping block structures from falling over, choosing the best blanket to drape over chairs to make a tent, digging holes that won’t collapse, and carrying armloads of balls.”

We are documenting the children’s experiments by photographing and uploading to an electronic portfolio, where we describe and catalog children’s engineering actions; categorize the different design process tools they

are using; and identify children’s behaviors that potentially represent precursors to engineering habits of mind.

We look forward to comparing our student’s experiences with their parents. What will these engineering scenarios look like when parents are doing them? How will this help

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parents understand the processes their children need to go through when they are engineering?

References

Brophy, S., Klein, S., Portsmore, M., & Rogers, C. (2008). Advancing engineering education in P-12 classroom. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(3): 369–387.

NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards

Akerson, V., & Donnelly, L. A. (2009). Teaching Nature of Science to K-2 Students: What understandings can they attain? International Journal of Science Education, 30(1): 97–124.

Van Meeteren, B., Ed.D., Director, Regents’ Center for Early Developmental Education, Curriculum Development and Researcher. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA. www.uni.edu/rampsandpathways/program/research-findings/designing-elementary-engineering-education-perspective-young-child

Zan, B., Ph.D., Associate Professor and Research Fellow, Regents’ Center for Early Developmental Education, Curriculum Development. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA.

SEED Papers: Revealing the Word of Young Engineers in Early Childhood Education http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/beyond/seed/zan.html

Ashbrook, P. (2014, October 17). NSTA Blog: Science in Early Childhood. 2014 NSTA area conference, Richmond, VA. http://learningcenter.nsta.org/discuss/default.aspx?fid=ryclPO3p1E8_E

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