The Lab 0_6 a pedagogical project to approach science to children up to 6 years old
The Lab 0_6: Discovery, Research and Documentation Centre for Science Education in Early Childhood is a Free-choice Science space addressed to children from 0-6 years old and their families. We are located in the university premises of UManresa (a Campus from Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya) and have regular visits from schools during the week and families during the weekends. We also have assessed several science museums in Catalonia and provide training on Science Didactics to educators abroad (Belgium, Hungary, UK,…).
Here you can find some information, images and videos about some of our activities: https://www.umanresa.cat/en/lab-06
We also have a “Lab on wheels”, a van that visits nurseries and provides science materials and activities for younger children:
Due to the Covid-19 outbreak and university Lockdown, however, we’ve had to temporarily put a halt to our main on-site activities (Lab 0_6 spaces and Lab on wheels visits) and find alternative online activities to reach children and their families in a stimulating way and aiming to provide feedback and responses from them.
As a result, we’ve launched an Instagram account (one in Catalan and one in Spanish) in which every week since the Covid-19 outbreak began in Spain, we proposed 2 scientific challenges for children and boosting them to tell us how they manage to do them. Some challenges for the younger children involved the use of wind to move objects or make them fly, the properties of light, magnetism, or construction possibilities. Here you will find some of the challenges proposed so far. Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/umanresalab06
The Instagram account that began as an alternative to reach families and children during these exceptional situation has now become another complementary channel of communication through which we expect to reach new publics while conducting, once the “post-lockdown normality” is restored, the regular activities in the Lab 0_6 and Lab on Wheels.
We hope you find our Instagram challenges and other activities interesting!
Author: Gabriel Lemkow Tovias & Montserrat Pedreira Álvarez
Gabriel Lemkow Tovias is a professor in the Degree in Early Childhood Education at Faculty of Social Sciences in Manresa (Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya) and lecturer in the MA in Neuroeducation (UVic-UCC). He is the cordinator of the GRENEA (Research Group in Education, Neuroscience, Experimentation and Learning) Research Group (UVic-UCC) and member of the Lab 0_6: Center of discovery, research and documentation for scientific education in the early ages (Manresa).
Montserrat Pedreira Álvarez, is a teacher, has a degree in Psychology and a PhD in Education. She is the Early Childhood Education Studies Director in the Faculty of Social Sciences in Manresa (Universtat de Vic -Universitat Central de Catalunya) and has specialized in the field of Science Teaching. She is the creator and pedagogical manager of the science spaces for children Niu de Ciencia of the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona and the Lab 0_6, Center of discovery, research and documentation for scientific education in the early ages (Manresa).
About Lab 0-6 Team: “As a team of researchers from the Early Childhood Education Department of the Social Sciences Faculty in Manresa (UVic-UCC), we work within the framework of the 0_6 Lab to generate, transfer and disseminate knowledge related to the teaching of science to children aged from 0 to 6 years old. We do so with the conviction that this is a guiding mission for any university or research center. We believe that it makes no sense for knowledge to remain only in the hands of those who are working with it, but rather it must be able to revert in the improvement of society and, in our case, of education.” (https://www.umanresa.cat/en/lab-06)
Featured image by Jordi Torras – Attribution CC-BY
Tags: early childhood education, Lab on Wheels, learning by discovery, science education
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