How does water get to the clouds? Building explanations about state changes in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This case study in a third year Early Childhood Education (ECE) classroom (23 children, 5-6 years old) and their teacher examines the evolution in children's explanations about state changes between liquid and gas in the course of a school science project that lasted for five months. They mobilized both their everyday and school science knowledge in order to build explanations. They developed the ability to apply scientific vocabulary to account for their everyday experiences. Children identified the phenomenon of evaporation more easily than the condensation. We propose a rubric for the analysis of the construction of explanations. Educational implications suggest that state changes should be addressed from ECE, since children are able to identify these phenomena, relate them to their everyday knowledge and build explanations about them, which may serve as a basis for developing more complex ones.