Community Science for Six-Year-Olds

Abstract

While working with a team of kindergarten teachers at an environmental science magnet school in Northern California, I found that lesson planning and design that capitalizes on young scientists’ willingness to share their ideas furthers robust ways of supporting ongoing changes in their students’ thinking. Together, we designed a sequence about human impact on the environment (K-ESS-3-3) for which students collected an analyzed data to build awareness of the role of honey bees in the environment.

Keywords:

• K–2
• NGSS
• cause and effect
• earth and human activity
• obtaining
• evaluating
• and communicating information
• field trips/field study
• safety

SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCE

Find a bee count recording sheet at https://doi.org/10.1080/00368148.2024.2340800.

ONLINE RESOURCES

California Academy of Sciences: Introduction to Scientific Sketching www.calacademy.org/educators/lesson-plans/introduction-to-scientific-sketching

How Stuff Works: Colony Collapse Disorder https://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/colony-collapse-disorder.htm

Managing an Effective Outdoor Classroom www.greenschoolyards.org/outdoor-classroom-management

PBS Deep Look: Honey Bees Make Honey … and Bread? https://youtu.be/sAKkjD3nEv0

School Garden Almanac Case: Community & Citizen Science in Kinder https://www.schoolgardenalmanac.org/ecoregion-tools/case-studies/community-citizen-science-for-kinders

The Great Sunflower Project www.greatsunflower.org

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carrie Strohl

Carrie Strohl ([email protected]) is founder and board president of The School Garden Doctor, https://schoolgardendoctor.org.