Edukacja przyrodnicza małych dzieci – opis przyrody czy jej badanie?
Young children science education – a description of the nature or a study?

Summary/Abstract: Recent studies of developmental psychologists show that children already in infancy can reason, explore and experience. It is not true that a child up to 7 years of age is not able to plan their actions and realize what they had planned. It is also true that children in preschool and early school should learn about nature descriptive method. Commonly accepted goals of environmental education clearly indicate that the research method is basic to obtain the understanding of natural processes and phenomena and acquiring skills of their data. The educational documents in force in Poland in kindergarten and grades IIII does not sufficiently indicated the leading role of this method in natural science education of young children, despite the changes that have been carried out during the reform program in 2008 years. There is also no consistency in the area of general and specific requirements formulated for the higher stages of education, especially for the second stage (nature, class IV–VI of primary school). This may result in problems arising from the research skills deficit in students entering grade VI of nature as well as lower results of Polish students in international studies. There are examples of good practice in this area, even if the standards and programming framework in the United States, which can be used when amending the existing document core curriculum document of pre-school education and general education in the natural area. It seems significant to institute a systemic change in kindergarten and early school teacher training, as well as to adapt the teacher support system to new challenges related to early science education.

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