Do flowers change colour?": the importance of teaching science and how it can develop children's argumentation

Abstract

Science education engages children in ways of researching, reasoning and communicating, leading to a process of argumentation. This work focuses on an experimental teaching activity carried out in the context of supervised teaching practice. It was an action-research, including 20 pre-school children, attending the 5 years old class of a kindergarten in a Portuguese city. An activity of experimental science teaching was guided by the question "Do flowers change colour?", aiming to recognizing plants’ needs and function. White flowers were placed in water, some with food colouring and some without. Four days after children were asked to explain what happened and confront the observation with their predictions. Children argued their point of view about what happened to the flowers, they were able to come to a conclusion together and recognise the main function of the stem in plants, as well as that water is fundamental in the plants feeding process.