URB STEAM

Teaching STEAM Through Urban Garden Based Learning In The Kindergarten

In early childhood, the comfort with math (& STEM in general) and fluency with the subject can be the strongest predictors of later academic success than even literacy. There are studies that show that children who enter kindergarten with a certain comfort with math go on to be high achievers through their middle and high school years (Claessens and Engel 2013).

Researchers have observed children at play and noted that mathematical thinking shows up frequently in play settings (Ginsburg 2000). For example, children’s play involves pattern and shapes, comparisons, and numbers. This tells us that young children have an innate curiosity about math and a natural tendency to “think math.”

Research suggests that active exploration wires the brain, and helps kids develop powerful intuitions about concepts central to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Dewar,2016). An innovative approach is to use the natural world as an innately fascinating context within which to learn mathematical concepts.