Science Education in the Primary Years

Running head: SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY YEARS
SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY YEARS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY YEARS
Reporting
This essay centers round a primary school setting, where a science week has taken place
and how Mary, a primary school educator has helped in the development of inquisitiveness in the
minds of young people. Mary is in charge of a primary class and had been handed over with
silkworm eggs to conduct a classroom activity. Initially we could find in the extract that the
educator was not very excited with the activity, with the thought of the some wriggling creatures
moving around the entire classroom and she was also in doubt as how she will be managing such
an already chaotic class, if such distractions are brought to the class. To our surprise, we could
see that such creatures spontaneously brought the students irrespective of classes and ages
together. One of the surprising factor is that students were brainstorming critical problems
beyond the text book. The students were learning the life cycles beyond the text book and were
questing for more information regarding caterpillar from other textbook or were simply
searching from the internet.
It has to be remembered that gone were the days when the much of the classroom time
was devoted to sing-song or the vertebral recital of the text book (Akyurek & Afacan, 2013).
Nowadays teachers makes much effort to ensure that the subject matter is appreciative to the
capability of the students (Roberts & Bybee, 2014). In this case it can be seen that Mary although
at first was doubting whether the caterpillar’s eggs would be of any use, but later on it was
surprised to see how the entire classroom was excited with the activity, they even started naming
the caterpillars and also volunteered to take them home (those who had mulberry trees). The
teachers here is truly an educator, who is vitally interested to develop all the capacities of the
child. But, while taking up project or heuristic method of teaching, it is necessary to maintain
discipline in the classroom. Hence, it is evident that the students were over excited to see the

2SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY YEARS
entire lifecycle of the caterpillar, touching them, which might have provided a chaotic situation
in the class. A teacher who is normally eager to give his classroom a polished appearance often
deprives the pupil from the real opportunities, unlike Mary who had given ample chance to the
children to test their inquisitiveness and wanted to keep their creative juices flowing. Mary has
permitted the students to explore their understanding beyond the book and surf to external
websites and learn more about the life cycle of moth beyond the curriculum. Teaching can
never be boiled to the traditional algorithm of telling and testing (Laurillard, 2013). In the
scenario, the teacher had tried to stimulate interests by every legitimate ways she can devise as
the student maps out and proceeds with the activities. The students should carry on with their
own learning, but the teacher can help by pointing out the unnoticed obstacles, answering the
questions and furnishing the important information or sources for the research, assisting the
students to analyze their difficulties and providing them encouragement to the new sources of the
interest in the activity (Ollerenshaw & Ritchie, 2013).
Responding:
The reading has helped me to understand about the role of the teachers and the role of the
children in a teaching –learning experience. This case has helped me to understand the teaching-
learning relationship between Mary and her students and how the teacher had extended the
activity beyond the conventional form of learning . Teaching can be considered as a sublime art
and children are raw materials with which the teacher has to deal with. Şahin and Levent (2015),
has pointed out that children are a block of marble, education is the human soul and the teacher
is the sculptor (Freeman et al., 2013). An artist creates wonders with inanimate objects and
imparts life in it. Teacher cannot give any shape to a living material that he encounters, the child
is a growing and a developing human being of her own and reacts to teaching. The teacher

3SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY YEARS
should not try to make blind followers, but the influence of the teacher might guide the
behavioral patterns in children.
By learning this piece, I have understood that practical science activities can have
significant impact on the learning process of the children and helps a lot to engage the students in
brainstorming, group discussions, develop important skills, understand the process of scientific
investigation and develop a broad understanding of the scientific concepts. Learning of science
should always be accompanied by hands on activities that allows to make discoveries own their
own (Kawalkar & Vijapurkar, 2013). Critical thinking skills among the children are enhanced
during these activities. Children should be involved in planning the science activities (Hassard &
Dias, 2013). I can relate Mary’s experience with my own experience. For example, here it can
be seen that, the caterpillar’s helped in the understanding of the life cycle of the butterflies. This
case relates to one of my experience, where I was entitled to teach the chapter “germination of
seeds”. There were few couple of experiments on germination which I tried to teach the students,
but I found that mere lectures would not arouse their motivation. Hence, the very next day, I
bought some wet mud and few gram seeds in to the class. With the help of my students, I planted
them in the pot and the kept them in front of the sunlight. The seed germinated, it took almost 7-
8 years for the germination of seeds, nevertheless, the entire process has helped the children to
learn about the germination and the growth factors facilitating germination. Furthermore, I
believe that STEM learning should take place for effective science learning. The word STEM
stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Laurillard, 2013). Science is
everywhere around us and is responsible for each and every phenomenon occurring in nature.
Again, technology is continuously expanding in all the aspects of our life. It is essential to
understand that engineering is the basis of the building of roads and the bridges (Matthews,