How can teachers help preschoolers learn to use scientific inquiry and discovery?

• A. Teachers can find materials in their everyday environments.
• B. Teachers should provide only laboratory equipment outside the classroom.
• C. Inquiry should be avoided until formal schooling.
• D. Materials must be purchased from science centers.

Answer: (A)

Encouraging preschoolers to explore and ask questions using materials they encounter in daily life supports how young children learn science: by exploring, predicting, testing, and talking about what they observe. When teachers provide materials found in everyday environments, children can manipulate real objects—water, sand, leaves, shells, magnets, buttons, shells, cardboard tubes—and notice properties, make predictions, and test ideas in a familiar, safe context. This kind open-ended, hands-on inquiry helps children connect ideas to their world, develop vocabulary (like more/less, float/sink, heavy/light), and build confident, curious asking and reasoning skills.

Activities can be simple and practical, such as sorting objects by texture or shape, observing how water changes when you add ice or heat, comparing which items float or sink, or testing which magnets attract different metals. The approach is developmentally appropriate for preschoolers and doesn’t require special equipment or trips to science centers, making science learning accessible to all children.