Preschool Kitchen as a Laboratory for STEM education – possibilities and challenges
The KLab4Kids aims at proposing interdisciplinary activities in an integrated teaching context that allows pre-schoolers to develop STEM skills while practicing exciting science at the same time. One of the goals of the project is to develop innovative didactical materials (also through re-use of resources) stimulating group processes among children, increasing motivation and achievements in science learning through kitchen laboratory.
The KLab4Kids project is focused on student-centred and problem-based active learning. This multidisciplinary and inter-disciplinary approach fosters critical thinking skills by addressing cultural and/or environmental contexts in teaching science through kitchen activities.
The project KLab4Kids organizes cooking classes during which children can handle vegetables, meat and other food products in the preparation of meals. This experience allows children to become confident with the basic STEM concepts such as measuring, weighing, timing, combining ingredients, cooking and heating procedures.
Through formal and informal activities, which can be carried out at school or at home with parents. Inquiry-based activities allow children to acquire new communication skills through question and answer activities with the teacher. The KLab4Kids nurtures preschool children’s STEM skills while providing opportunities to build children’s executive function skills. These skills include organizing information, staying focused, strategizing, planning, and exercising self-control (US National Center on Learning Disabilities, 2014).
The KLab4Kids project represents a challenge to pre-school teachers who are involved in the teaching of STEM skills through innovative and cooperation-focused practices. Through the kitchen-lab experience, teachers can cooperate with each other to create learning units and plan activities to effectively support the cognitive development of pre-school children, and exchange good practices. Thanks to this lab, teachers can create a community inside the school focused on the use and creation of materials for learning STEM skills.
Learning by doing is the leitmotiv of KLab4Kids pedagogical approach, based on the personal investigation, that helps pupils develop cognitive processes as well as the sense of curiosity and creativity.