Science for Early Childhood
As part of this year’s science week, Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (BECE) students took part in Science for Early Childhood workshops. Dr Leeanne Hinch from DCU’s Centre for Talented Youth ran two workshops over the course of science week for the BECE’s third-year students, encouraging them to view children as mini scientists.
In the past number of years, a strong focus on STEM in ECEC has emerged. A series of policy changes including the introduction of the STEM Education Policy (DES, 2017), STEM Implementation Plan (DES, 2017) and subsequent changes to the Early Years Education-Focused Inspection criteria, has meant that students are increasingly expected to support the development of young children’s positive science dispositions.
As part of these workshops, 42 students engaged with simple science experiments that could be replicated in their early years classrooms, including:
- Creation of lava lamps
- Float and sink experiments
- Bouncing bubbles
- Oobleck
- Wind cars
- Straw rockets
- An exploration of robotics
A huge thanks to Dr. Leeanne Hinch for a very inspiring and exciting series of workshops.