Young children are natural scientists. They explore and experiment all day long. They use all of their senses: they look, smell, taste, listen, and touch.

Dr. Terry Milligan is our science specialist at MCNS. He helps create a framework for science study on an appropriate developmental level for our preschool children. He helps children make connections as he guides and challenges their explorations.

Dr. Terry spends time every week in each classroom with all four groups. He set up fish tanks and maintains them so that the children can observe the fish and snails. His composting worm box gives children a chance to observe and touch the red worms who recycle food scraps and make them into fertile soil. He keeps an interesting insect called a Walking Stick and a tank of Darkling Beetle larvae (meal worms) who undergo metamorphosis and change into adult beetles.

Some of the science areas which Dr. Terry has explored this year with the children include the parts of plants, rocks, minerals and fossils, the nature of water, and the properties of liquids, solids and gases.

He brought in some rocks for the children to examine. They observed them and noted the differences and similarities. Some were smooth to the touch, some were rough. Some had crystals, some sparkled, and others were shiny. They were different shapes, oval or spheroid. The children were practicing their observational skills as some even smelled the rocks. They compared them and sorted them in various ways—rough and smooth, large and small. They played a matching game, finding the rock which matched the photograph of the rock.

Dr. Terry believes in teaching young children the scientific method, to explore materials in an organized way. He explains to them that scientists have a special way to find out the answers to their questions.

The question that came up in the Middle Group one day was, “Which rock is heavier?” How could they figure it out?

Dr. Terry asked the children to make a guess as to which of two rocks they thought was heavier. Children picked up the rocks and thought about it. They decided that one of them was heavier than the other. Dr. Terry explained that this was their hypothesis. But how could they be sure they were right? Dr. Terry explained that they could make an experiment to find out. He showed them a balance scale and explained that the heavier one would make its side of the scale go down while the lighter rock would go up. They tried it out and proved that their hypothesis was correct. Then they took turns hypothesizing about various rocks and testing their hypotheses by experimenting with the scale. Sometimes they proved themselves right, sometimes they proved themselves wrong.

By teaching these very young children how to use the scientific method and how to use a scientific instrument, the scale, the children could explore further on their own. They could hypothesize the comparative weight of other items and experiment to prove if they were right or wrong. Our natural scientists had learned a technique which allowed them to be more successful and creative in their thinking.

How do you study the properties of gases, liquids, and solids with very young children? Dr. Terry found an interesting way. He took balloons and filled some with air, some with water, and others with plaster of Paris. He asked the children to squeeze them, bounce them, roll them, and get a sense of their weight. By letting the children play with the balloons this way and observe the differences in the balloons depending on what was inside them he was, in effect, helping them learn the properties of a liquid, a solid and a gas.

He also had the children experiment with plaster of Paris. They mixed it with water, forming a liquid in the bottom of a cup. Then they waited for awhile to see what would happen. They were amazed to find that the liquid was transformed into a solid! Dr. Terry will be continuing this study of liquids, solids and gases in the months to come.

As the children get older, Dr. Terry introduces more scientific terminology, challenges them to make more connections, and explores more complex questions. For example, he challenged the Older Group children to come up with examples of liquids other than water. After some hesitation a child offered blood as an example. After that the examples came fast and furious—juice, milk, and pee pee! Everyone laughed, of course, but Dr. Terry acknowledged that pee pee was, indeed, a liquid and an important one. Then he asked them if poo poo was a liquid, gas, or solid, and they correctly stated that it was a solid. This is certainly teaching young children in an age-appropriate way, using their own interests and knowledge to expand their thinking.

Children are also naturally interested in the foods they eat, but not always knowledgeable about the sources of these items. Many young children think all food items come from stores but have no idea how they get to the stores. Dr. Terry decided to tackle this problem by undertaking a study of vegetables as parts of plants.

Peas, for example, are seeds. The pea pod is a fruit. When we eat string beans we are eating fruits and seeds together because, in science, the covering over a seed is a fruit. Vegetable is a grocery term, not a scientific one, and may be fruits, seeds, stems, leaves, flowers, or roots.

Dr. Terry set up a dissecting lab for the children in which they cut open various vegetables to try to determine what part of the plant they were.

To give the children a chance to see how plants transport water from their roots through their stems to their leaves, he put a stalk of celery into a glass of water colored with red food dye and waited. By the next day the children could observe the path of the red dye as it traveled through the stem up to the leaves turning them red.

The youngest children experimented with how to transfer water from one container to another using various means. They started by pouring water from one container to the other. Then Dr. Terry gave them sponges and asked them to try sopping up all of the water in one container and then squeezing it into the other. They were amazed to see the water disappear but understood that it had gone into the sponge.

This is science at MCNS!