Science education in the early years: guidelines and perspectives

In Portugal, the guidelines for early childhood education point out that the sciences, included in the world knowledge area, should be dealt with in the early childhood centres with children from 3 to 6 years. In addition, there is a growing need to implement a research driven education based on active and participatory methodologies in order to initiate the construction of scientific content to develop reasoning. This aims to contribute to the understanding of the world, to reflect on what will happen if one dares to experiment to find out and innovate, to be auto- nomous, to cooperate with others and to fully exercise citizenship. In this context, the approach to sciences, from a science-technology-society perspective, has been gaining importance and assuming an integral and integrating role in children's learning, by promoting the development of competence and contributing to the construction of scientific literacy of the citizens.