Best Practices - Primary (K-2)

In primary science classrooms, students are encouraged to ask, find, explain, describe and predict natural phenomena. Scientific literacy begins by turning the classroom into a laboratory where students can learn to act like a scientist by using technical terms, applying scientific concepts and processes and planning investigations to answer their own questions.

• Understanding science requires that an individual student acquire the ability to distinguish between what is and what is not a scientific idea.
• Teamwork is important in a scientist’s work and should be modeled in the primary classroom through cooperative groups asking and designing and carrying out investigations to answer those questions. When the teams share their findings of the group investigation, individuals should be encouraged to reach their own conclusions and defend them.
• Because youngsters want to be liked, the notion that one can disagree with friends honorably without loosing that friend is not easy to learn and should be practiced through role playing and modeling.