Making sense of the natural world: seeds and plant germination

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe the teaching and learning situations that occurred in elementary schools as observed by the authors as they supervised teaching practice during the Experimental Science for Primary School Teachers Programme. Over the past few years, efforts have been made in Portugal to invest in the training of early years teachers in experimental science education, one such case being this training programme funded by the Portuguese government. The programme aims to improve the teachers’ practice in experimental science, supported by classroom activities that contribute to children’s scientific literacy, in order to make sense of socioscientific issues. In this article, the authors present and analyse some of the ways that children (from 6 to 8 years of age) find to explain the natural world, as well as examples of strategies used by teachers to help the children to understand scientific ideas, here illustrated through the theme of germination. Data were collected during the course of supervision work by the authors.