BEYOND KNOWLEDGE

For many years, growing bean seeds in cotton and water has been the only exciting topic of
science lessons. Now, times are changing. STEM and STEAM activities have been gaining
momentum around the world. Museums, libraries, playgroups run hands-on activities with
oozing slimes, exploding colorful volcanoes and DIY geodes. Internet, (especially Pinterest) is a
teacher’s best friend. You can find an enormous number of resources on the web prepared by the
teachers around the world. In this exciting era of hands-on science, there is no excuse for boring,
unengaging science lessons.

When I present a science topic, rather than finding a PPT and showing it to the children, I first
create opportunities for them to wonder and ask questions. Once they are curious to learn about
something they absorb the knowledge more readily. I use PPT or online resources as a
supplementary resource. In my previous school, there was a smartboard in our classroom. During
the transitions or right before home-time, we used to do interactive activities online. Here are
some of the websites that I often visited for ideas and resources.

www.johnnosscience.com: I learned about Ric Johnson thanks to my daughters who used to go

to Rostrata Primary School. Mr. Johnson has been awarded the 2013 Prime Minister’s Prize for
Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools for his innovative and influential approach to
the teaching of science. His website (Johnson, 2018) is regularly updated and has many links to
great activities for different year groups. One of the activities that I learned from this website and
did with my students was Straw Rockets. We were exploring the space and the planets. Many
students were interested in rocketry, and this activity fit perfectly with the theme. This activity
demonstrated how rockets fly through the atmosphere and
the importance of having fins for control. On the right, you
can see the design. The rocket is made from a regular fast-
food restaurant straw; the green straw is a smaller diameter
drinking straw. Blu-Tack, in the end, is for protection.
More advanced students created the rocket and then made
a second rocket changing one variable such as the amount
of weight on the head or by adding wings so that it would
glide. This activity improved their inquiry skills, and they did a lot of creative problem-solving
to improve the performance of the rocket.

www.arvindguptatoys.com: From the moment I watched his TedTalk, I am a fan of Dr. Arvind
Gupta (2010). I especially like how he makes science experiments practical and possible using
basic everyday materials. Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply,
you don’t understand it well
enough!”. Arvind Gupta explains
complex concepts using simple
models. Also, my students love it
when they can take something
home with them. It is a big
motivation for them during the
activity. When we focused on the light, we made a CD
top. Another name for it is the Newton Disc. When the disc is rotated, the colors fade to white; In
this way, Isaac Newton demonstrated that white light is a combination of the seven different
colors found in a rainbow. We later did a spectrograph to explore the light unit deeply.

www. primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk: This website, previously called Woodlands Junior, is

another site that I use to enrich the science lessons. The founder of the site, Mandy Barrow
(2013) brings together educational games and interactive quizzes as well as the videos and songs
that provide comprehensive information on topics like Life Processes and Living Things,
Physical Processes, Materials, Earth and Space and Water. Labelling the parts of the animals and
plants activities reinforced students’ work with the Montessori puzzles from the zoology and
botany shelves.

YouTube: Some YouTube channels have amazing science videos that make YouTube a good
source of educational materials despite the abundance of bad-quality content. SciShow Kids
(n.d.) explains fun, complex science concepts for young learners. Even though there is too much
talking going on in some videos, the questions that they focus on (i.e. Why do mosquito bites
itch? Why do wet dogs smell? Why do we dream? ) are very interesting. It sparks the curiosity
and imagination; this way children learn to ask the right questions and develop an inquiring
mind. Crash Course Kids (n.d.) explain science concepts with beautiful animations which is
very attractive for children. On the other hand, some of the content is more suitable for high-
achievers of the classroom. Fizzics Education (n.d.) is an Australia-based Youtube channel;
they have some easy to do science experiment videos on their channel. They also have a website
that includes over 100 free science experiment resources. Minute Earth (n.d.) and Minute
Physics (n.d.) (for older children) are two wonderful YouTube channels created by the same
team of people who believe in the power of collaborative knowledge. Their philosophy is similar
to Montessori’s Cosmic Curriculum, and their videos carry the message that in the universe
everything is intertwined. They quote John Muir, "When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." Australian curriculum describes Science as
a “dynamic, collaborative and creative human endeavor arising from our desire to make sense of
our world through exploring the unknown, investigating universal mysteries, making predictions
and solving problems.” (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA],
2014). When you find the right resources, YouTube offers valuable opportunities for the students
to experience the joy of scientific discovery and nurture their natural curiosity about the world
around them. 

Now I want to talk about the integrative ways that Science can be used. During my time as a
Cycle 1 teacher at Perth Montessori School, I put great emphasis on Science. For me, it was the
crossroad of all areas of the curriculum. For example, last
year our theme for the Science was “All About Me!”. The
theme gave me vast opportunities to differentiate the
curriculum and expand through the interests of each
student. During our explorations, we talked about birth,
life cycles, growing up and how to care for the babies.
We planned an incursion and had Life Education Van
over to complement our topic on growing up and
healthy eating.

One of the key

ideas in foundation
year science curriculum is that students explore the change in the world around them, such as
changes they can affect (ACARA, 2014). Therefore, we decided to grow mushrooms in a box to
work on this idea. We had a control and a test box. Students watered one of the boxes while they
did not give any water to the second box. Mushrooms in the test box grew at an amazing speed
whereas the mushrooms in the control box hardly grew. Every morning students were fascinated
to see how much the mushrooms in the watered box have grown overnight. This sparked their
curiosity on how plants grow and students started to make more careful observation outside, in
nature. Unknowingly, they were working on Science Understanding (Living things have basic
needs, including food and water, ACSSU002) and Science as a Human Endeavor (Science
involves observing, asking questions about and describing changes in objects and events,
ACSHE013).

Also, healthy eating became our focus. Every lunchtime, children got involved in heated
discussions about foods needed to help bodies grow and stay strong. We made some baby food
with mashed vegetables compared it to the food that we eat now. Children started to show an
increasing awareness of healthy lifestyles and good nutrition. They were looking at each other’s
lunch and making comments such as “jam sandwich is not very healthy, it has a lot of sugar”.
They were unknowingly working to achieve Outcome 3 to increase responsibility about their
own health and physical wellbeing (Early Years Learning Framework [EYLF], 2014, p: 30).

One activity that we did during “All About Me” theme was the Rice Babies. Each child made a
rice baby from a stocking
filled with their birth weight
equivalent which they weighed
in uncooked rice grains.

(On the left, one student is

using a kitchen scale to
measure rice to reflect his own
weight at birth.)

After we had made our rice

babies, we measured students`
current heights and weights. Then students lined up according to how heavy they weighed
(below).

Rice babies proved to be an amazing tool to link Science, Maths and Social-emotional
development. During this project, we did a lot of comparison, sequencing and ordering activities.
We displayed the results on the board outside our classroom: “Let`s sort by height-weight-birth
weight and birthday!”. This showed students all different ways of ordering. For example, they
were all surprised to see that the youngest student in our classroom had the largest birth weight
and she came first in the list. Similarly, someone who always used to be in the middle of the
listings came first on the sorting according to the birthdate because she was born on January 2 nd.
I got into tears when a student recommended that we sort according to the alphabet so that his
friends can come first because his name starts with an A. While teaching students how to sort
according to different attributes, there were so many things going on at the background. We were
also working on Outcome 2, the connections amongst people, becoming aware of similarities and
differences between us, and respect different ways of being. We were practicing inclusive ways
of achieving coexistence and reacting in positive ways to similarities and differences among
people (EYLF,2014, p.25).

We received a lot of feedback from the parents that the Rice babies project was a great
experience to give students concrete experiences of weight. Children brought their own hospital
clothing / blankets and dressed up their rice babies. From that moment on, the rice babies were
student’s learning buddies. They read books to them and told them stories. Each rice baby was
different and students took great pride in them. This was very good for their social-emotional
development.

Starting from growing up, our science topic, All About Me reached to the depths of my little
learner’s hearts. One more time, science showed the students that there is more to all of than
what the eyes see. The holistic and cosmic education model of Montessori sow the seeds of
inquiry, reasoning and observation by linking many areas of the curriculum.

The Scope and Sequence of Science in Montessori Curriculum is shaped by the developmental
stages of children. We know from the sensitive periods that young children show a tendency to
organize, sort and group knowledge to make sense of the concepts in the world. Therefore,
children are introduced to the concepts of classification in many ways. Living and non-living,
land-water-air, natural or man-made, hard or soft, solid-liquid-gas, magnetic or non-magnetic, or
sorting objects according to the materials from which they are made (e.g.’ wood, metal and
plastic) are only some of the ways to classify things.

Technical terms and specific vocabulary are consistently introduced to children because they are
also in the sensitive period for language. Maria Montessori says, “We have to conclude that
scientific words are best taught to children between the ages of three and six; not in a mechanical
way, of course, but in conjunction with the objects concerned, or in the course of their
explorations so that their vocabulary keeps pace with their experiences. For example, we show
the actual parts of a leaf or flower, or point out the geographical units (cape, bay, island, etc.), on
the globe.”  (1967, p. 175). The main objective here is more than being able to say the specific
term; it is the internalization of the idea that language can be so refined and precise to describe,
classify and categorize everything in the world.

This brings us to the refinement of the skills. Early sensory activities build the foundation for the
later scientific observations. For example, a child who has mastered the color boxes will be able
to notice all the different shades in a color mixing activity. Similarly, he/she will be able to
describe the shade accurately (mauve, magenta, crimson—instead of just "reddish") while
exploring the concept of refraction by using a glass prism to split a beam of white light. The
dropper or pipette job from the Practical Life shelf prepares the child to be precise as a scientist
while measuring and using the instruments.

There are 5 steps of the Scientific Method which is 1) Ask a question or identify a problem, 2)
Background research, 3) Form a hypothesis, 4) Experiment and observe, 5) Draw a conclusion
(Micu,2018). Montessori Method introduces the child to these steps in a natural way. The
prepared environment provides many opportunities for children to learn about Scientific method
without knowing it. They find solutions to everyday problems. I observed my students puzzled
when they used too much of the blue-wash to paint the oceans on their maps because it made the
paper soggy and tore map but they soon figured out how to avoid this. Similarly, one day a
student accidentally threw the needle for the sewing job into the bin. Then they decided to use a
magnet stick to take it out. Freedom of choice and emphasis on independence makes Montessori
students very good scientists. The activities expand their curiosity and willingness to explore; the
social dynamics of the classroom atmosphere allows them to work collaboratively to ask
questions about and speculate of the changes in the environment. The love and respect for all of
the living things tie them to the outer world and they become aware of the interrelatedness of our
relationship with the world. Therefore, children who are trained in Montessori Method know that
science is not only a body of knowledge but it is a way of life; it is a perspective. Like Sir Ken
Robinson say, “You can’t just give someone a creativity injection. You have to create an
environment for curiosity and a way to encourage people and get the best out of them.” And that
environment is called the Montessori environment.

References:

1. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA].

(2014) Foundation to year 10 curriculum: Science. Retrieved from
https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/science/?
year=12000&year=12001&strand=Science+Understanding&strand=Science+as+a+Huma
n+Endeavour&strand=Science+Inquiry+Skills&capability=ignore&capability=Literacy&
capability=Numeracy&capability=Information+and+Communication+Technology+
%28ICT
%29+Capability&capability=Critical+and+Creative+Thinking&capability=Personal+and
 +Social+Capability&capability=Ethical+Understanding&capability=Intercultural+Under
standing&priority=ignore&priority=Aboriginal+and+Torres+Strait+Islander+Histories+a
nd+Cultures&priority=Asia+and+Australia
%E2%80%99s+Engagement+with+Asia&priority=Sustainability&elaborations=true&ela
borations=false&scotterms=false&isFirstPageLoad=false
2. Barrow, M. (2013). Primary Homework Help. Retrieved from
http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/
3. Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia.
(2009). 1st ed. [ebook] Australia. Retrieved from http://files.acecqa.gov.au/files/National-
Quality-Framework-Resources-Kit/
belonging_being_and_becoming_the_early_years_learning_framework_for_australia.pdf
4. Gupta, A. (2010, December). Turning trash into toys for learning. [Video file]. Retrieved
from https://www.ted.com/talks/arvind_gupta_turning_trash_into_toys_for_learning
5. Gupta, A. (2018). Toys from Trash. Retrieved from
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/toys.html

6. Micu, A. (2018). What is the scientific method: definition, steps, and pitfalls. Retrieved
from https://www.zmescience.com/science/scientific-method-steps/
7. Fizzics Education (n.d.) Home [YouTubeChannel]. Retrieved from
https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/
8. Minute Earth (n.d.) Home [YoutubeChannel]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeiYXex_fwgYDonaTcSIk6w
9. Minute Physics (n.d.) Home [YouTubeChannel]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUHW94eEFW7hkUMVaZz4eDg
10. Crash Course Kids (n.d.) Home [YouTubeChannel]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcoursekids
11. SciShow Kids (n.d.) Home [YouTubeChannel]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/user/scishowkids
12. Johnson, R. (2018). Johnno’s Science. Retrieved from https://www.johnnosscience.com/
13. Montessori, M. (1967). The Absorbent Mind. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.