Children are born to be scientists – both scientists and children spend a lot of their time asking, or wondering, “why?” So the Museum is collaborating with the University of Miami on a research study to understand the effectiveness of ECHOS (Early Childhood Hands-On Science). This project has been developed by the Museum, and includes early science readiness curricula and related teacher professional development. After initial piloting in preschools around Miami, ECHOS units have expanded to include math, language, and creative arts. Since the goal of ECHOS is to improve student achievement AND teacher practice at the preschool level, the Museum holds workshops for teachers to become more comfortable with the content and teaching strategies, and Museum staff visit classrooms to see ECHOS activities in practice. In the past month, teachers and teacher assistants attended workshops at the Museum to learn all about Feathered Friends. The Museum staff also visited their classrooms to see ECHOS activities in action. They observed teachers leading activities from the unit and saw how the classrooms’ “Science Areas” were developed. And they saw students using homemade binoculars to spot camouflaged paper birds around their classroom, and using plastic tweezers as pretend bird beaks to gather food. There are lots of questions out there for these young minds to answer. See you next month for Discovering Shells!
Students are using homemade binoculars to discover birds camouflaged around their classroom.
A great ECHOS Science Area at one of the ECHOS sites, with lots of tools for exploration and discovery.
This is a wonderful science area! I want to put together something like this for my daughter.