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Earlier this year the Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham launched a $14 million program to boost STEM skills in children in the early years.
The minister said that around 75 per cent of the fastest growing industries require skills in science, technology, engineering and maths and this investment will help underpin Australia's competiveness in the future.
As part of the investment $4 million each was provided to the Little Scientists and Let's Count programs, which the minister says will reach 350,000 across the country and provide young students with new ways of engaging with STEM subjects.
We contacted Heike Schneider from Little Scientists to learn more about this program and what it offers early childhood providers and children.
'Little Scientists' initiative – Scientific exploration for young children
'The cocoa is too hot, I cannot drink it!', Charlotte exclaims during morning tea. Emily, her teacher, smiles and responds 'I am not sure what to do. Do you have an idea how you could cool it down as fast as possible?'
Ben who overheard the conversation, suggests: 'Why don't you stir the cocoa really fast? This always helps when I do it.' 'I have an even better idea!', Ben's friend Julia says, 'You could blow into it!' 'Well, I think these are some pretty good ideas!', Emily says, 'Charlotte, why don't we ask the other children about their ideas and we try to find out what works best?'
Learning opportunities like this arise in early childhood settings across Australia every single day. Based on the strong belief that children need to have early opportunities to discover the world, the 'Little Scientists' professional development program supports education and care services in integrating inquiry and exploration into daily activities.
'Little Scientists' – a not-for-profit initiative of FROEBEL Australia – strongly advocates that every child should have access to hands-on discovery in STEM areas – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – on a daily basis.
In order to enable a sustainable implementation in the centres, the initiative offers a professional development workshop program for early childhood educators. During the full day workshop, teachers and educators explore various opportunities to playfully address the many exciting questions that arise within a child's experiential world.
Through hands on, practical experiments and group activities, the educators experience STEM education on an age-appropriate level and learn how to support children in finding answers themselves. All workshops are built around using existing, everyday materials, to make experimenting and exploring at the education and care services as accessible as possible. Once completed, teachers can then – step-by-step – implement the activities with the children in their care.
The 'Little Scientists' program includes:
- A long-term program of currently 9 different workshop topics.
- Hands-on workshops with several rounds of practical experiments which are done with everyday materials and can easily be adjusted to the work in centres.
- Having fun while exploring given materials in small groups. Participants experience the stages of surprise, asking questions, coming up with hypotheses, testing these in further experiments, documenting findings and discussing the outcomes, much like what the children will experience.
- Getting to know and use the 'Little Scientists' Inquiry-Based Learning Cycle, a scientific method which helps to give structure and purpose to experimenting and lays the foundation for further investigation.
- After every workshop, each participating centre receives a set of laminated cards with a wealth of ideas for experiments and scientific background information as well as a booklet with the educational content addressed in the workshop.
Due to the organisation's holistic approach, the program not only encourages scientific exploration, but also aims at ensuring the development of basic competencies for sustained lifelong learning, as outlined in the National Quality Framework (NQF) and the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF).
Following the example of the German “Little Scientists' House Foundation”, currently the largest early childhood initiative in Germany, the organisation has established a 'train-the-trainer-approach'.
Aiming for a nationwide 'Little Scientists' community, the initiative is currently building a network of institutions such as education and care service providers, TAFEs, Universities and Museums. These institutions appoint a person within their organisation to become a 'Little Scientists' trainer who is being trained by the initiative.
As a result, the 'Little Scientists' trainers are enabled to deliver workshops to teachers and educators in their area. At this stage, the rapidly growing initiative works with organisations nationwide and invites others to join the network.
In case you are interested in learning more about 'Little Scientists', finding out how to register for upcoming workshops or on how to become a network partner, contact the Network & Project Coordinator Heike Schneider via email heike@littlescientists.org.au or by calling 02 8080 0065. For some initial information please also visit the 'Little Scientists' homepage littlescientists.org.au.
Friedrich Froebel
German educator Friedrich Froebel opened the world's first kindergarten in 1837. Froebel's method inspired and informed the work of Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, and others, who adopted his ideas and adapted his materials according to their own work.
FROEBEL AustraliaFROEBEL Australia is a not-for-profit organisation which was established in Sydney in February 2009 as a subsidiary of the charitable FRÖBEL e.V. based in Berlin. FRÖBEL e.V. is one of the most highly-regarded providers of modern early childhood education, child care and after-school care services in Germany.
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