Science and Technology

Blog entry 1

date: 13/09/10

Children in my centre recently have interest on learning about parts of a human body. This interest came up while having discussion on healthy eating to healthy body. Children shared their own views about keeping their body healthy while they came up discussing on all body parts. Children were interested to learn more about body parts for example which parts of the body does what. This discussion continued till the next day and children were interested to draw their own body parts. After the discussion children gave all sorts of their own ideas where they can search for information about human body. Child ‘P’ said we can search on internet and child ‘B’ also said that ‘last night she went home and her mother show her pictures of human body on computer. This relate to Te Whariki, “children develop the ability to represent their discoveries, using creative and expressive media and technology associated with them” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p.88).

 I thought that this is an interesting idea to explore children’s thinking in a variety of exercise during learning about the process of body parts. This also related to science which allow children to process new information through specific experiences by thinking through study about problems solving and develop and understanding about scientific knowledge which includes, observation, communication skills-sharing ideas(Ministry of Education, 2007).

 I have noticed that the process of science investigation on body parts has encouraged children to discover learning on human body by exploring seeking answers for themselves. According to Ministry of Education, “Science is a way of investigating, understanding, and explaining our natural physical world and the wider universe” (2007, p.28). After the discussion we allowed group of children to search about the body parts on computer during our activity time. This allows children to scroll down the mouse and watch on the screen what was happening. 

I have noticed that the children are having fun and become confident on scrolling down the mouse and asking for their turn. This also helps children to learn literacy skills while they searching and reading heading for another picture and children are able to type some letters by using keyboard.  From this children develop “familiarity with the properties and character of the materials and technology used in creative and expressive arts” (MoE, 1996, P.80). I found that children having fun with watching pictures and finding out more on body parts. After the search children wanted to go again and again on computer for searching their own body parts which made them interesting.

During this process for learning about the body parts we decided to take a group of children to library to look for some books on human body. The very next day we took elder group of five children to library and the children enjoyed finding books in the library and brought them back to the centre. I believe that science activities have supported children to social development in children by interaction with peers and outside community for example, sharing and discovering in computer and finding books at the library made the findings more exciting. 

The researchers have suggested that science education is vital for everyone because all the technological changes are difficult to manage. Dealing with technology requires a great deal of problem-solving and therefore, problem solving is the foundation of science (Holt, 1993, p.10).

From this observation and learning from children I believe that children explore their ideas and materials in different context which allows them to find variety of interesting skills while they explore with science and technology.