Science in pre-school education

This study by Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, produced by Maria Lúcia Santos, Maria Filomena Gaspar and Sofia Saraiva Santos, seeks to portray and reflect on the reality of promoting scientific literacy in preschool settings in Portugal and presents the results of a questionnaire given to members and friends (Facebook) of the Association of Professionals in Early Childhood Education (APEI) and public and private kindergartens.

The questionnaire sought to find out the opinions and experiences of those surveyed with regard to children's contact with mathematics and science, the scientific content of the Curriculum Guidelines for Pre-School Education and Investigative Skills; narratives about the goals of Pre-School Education and the activities, experiments or exploration projects carried out in Pre-School Education in the area of science. By looking at the answers to the questionnaire, the study reveals the reality of science teaching in kindergartens, identifying:

• The characteristics of a «science-friendly classroom»
• Science practices in kindergartens
• The training needs of educators in the field of science
• Good practices in promoting scientific literacy, presented in the form of practice reports

After analysing the educators' answers to the open-ended questions in the questionnaire, which asked for a brief description of the activities or exploration projects they had carried out, 24 were selected and asked for more extensive reports, which could be representative of the exploration of different scientific concepts to illustrate the breadth and diversity of approaches in the work carried out by the kindergarten teachers. Thirteen are presented in the appendix.