Emerging Biology In The Early Years

This inspiring text celebrates young children as 'emergent biologists' and explains how their natural inquisitiveness and curiosity can be harnessed to increase early understanding of scientific concepts, and so lay the foundations for future learning about the living world. Full of practical tips, suggested discussion points and hands-on activities, Emerging Biology in the Early Years is a uniquely child-focussed resource. Chapters provide key information on the physical environment, including weather phenomena and soils, plants, animals and human development, and prioritise the child’s perspective to offer activities which are in line with their natural development, thereby provoking discussion, problem-solving and child-led investigations. From planting seeds, to classifying rocks, flowers and animals, to understanding growth processes and recognising anatomical features, this book takes a holistic approach to science which moves beyond the confines of the curriculum and the classroom and shows how biology can be taught in a fun, engaging and inexpensive way both at home and in the early years setting. Providing a rich collection of ideas, activities, and downloadable sheets, this will be an invaluable resource for early years practitioners and parents looking to develop young children’s scientific skills and understanding.

This innovative collection extends the emerging field of stress biology to examine the effects of a substantial source of early-life stress: child abuse and neglect. Research findings across endocrinology, immunology, neuroscience, and genomics supply new insights into the psychological variables associated with adversity in children and its outcomes. These compelling interdisciplinary data add to a promising model of biological mechanisms involved in individual resilience amid chronic maltreatment and other trauma. At the same time, these results also open out distinctive new possibilities for serving vulnerable children and youth, focusing on preventing, intervening in, and potentially even reversing the effects of chronic early trauma. Included in the coverage: Biological embedding of child maltreatment Toward an adaptation-based approach to resilience Developmental traumatology: brain development and maltreated children with and without PTSD Childhood maltreatment and pediatric PTSD: abnormalities in threat neural circuitry An integrative temporal framework for psychological resilience The Biology of Early Life Stress is important reading for child maltreatment researchers; clinical psychologists; educators in counseling, psychology, trauma, and nursing; physicians; and state- and federal-level policymakers. Advocates, child and youth practitioners, and clinicians in general will find it a compelling resource.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Caribbean Childhoods: From Research to Action is an annual publication produced by the Children s Issues Coalition at the University of the West Indies, Mona. The series seeks to provide an avenue for the dissemination of research and experiences on children s health, development, behaviour and education, and to provide a forum for the discussion of these issues.

This edited book provides an overview of unstructured and structured play scenarios crucial to developing young children’s awareness, interest, and ability to learn Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in informal and formal education environments. The key elements for developing future STEM capital, enabling children to use their intuitive critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, and promoting active citizenship and a scientifically literate workforce, begins in the early years as children learn through play, employing trial and error, and often investigating on their own. Forty-seven STEM experts come together from 16 countries (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, Germany, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and the USA) and describe educational policies and experiences related to young learners 3–4 years of age, as well as students attending formal-nursery school, early primary school, and the early years classes post 5 years of age. The book is intended for parents seeking to provide STEM activities for their children at home and in playgroups, citizen scientists seeking guidance to provide children with quality educational activities, daycare practitioners providing educational structures for young children from birth to formal education, primary school teachers and preservice teachers seeking to teach preschool, kindergarten or children typically aged 5–8 years old in grades 1–3, as well as researchers and policy makers working in science didactics with small children.

This book evolved from the editors strong belief that the information and new developments that were evolving from the rapidly growing field of genomics and that are happening primarily in the developed world have not happened at a parallel rate in the developing world. One would have hoped that by now the technologies and approaches would have been adapted on a far greater scale. In addition to this, the associated information is not always easily accessible, and is not disseminated in a format that can become a useful reference for scientists, students and others who reside in developing countries.

Dissecting the hype from the frontiers of bioethics, genomics and neuroscience.

Brought together for the first time in a single volume, these eight important and fascinating essays by Nobel Prize-winning psychiatrist Eric Kandel provide a breakthrough perspective on how biology has influenced modern psychiatric thought. Complete with commentaries by experts in the field, Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and the New Biology of Mind reflects the author's evolving view of how biology has revolutionized psychiatry and psychology and how potentially could alter modern psychoanalytic thought. The author's unique perspective on both psychoanalysis and biological research has led to breakthroughs in our thinking about neurobiology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis -- all driven by the central idea that a fuller understanding of the biological processes of learning and memory can illuminate our understanding of behavior and its disorders. These wonderful essays cover the mechanisms of psychotherapy and medications, showing that both work at the same level of neural circuits and synapses, and the implications of neurobiological research for psychotherapy; the ability to detect functional changes in the brain after psychotherapy, which enables us, for the first time, to objectively evaluate the effects of psychotherapy on individual patients; the need for animal models of mental disorders; for example, learned fear, to show how molecules and cellular mechanisms for learning and memory can be combined in various ways to produce a range of adaptive and maladaptive behaviors; the unification of behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology into the new science of the mind, charted in two seminal reports on neurobiology and molecular biology given in 1983 and 2000; the critical role of synapses and synaptic strength in both short- and long-term learning; the biological and social implications of the mapping of the human genome for medicine in general and for psychiatry and mental health in particular; The author concludes by calling for a revolution in psychiatry, one that can use the power of biology and cognitive psychology to treat the many mentally ill persons who do not benefit from drug therapy. Fascinating reading for psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, social workers, residents in psychiatry, and trainees in psychoanalysis, Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and the New Biology of Mind records with elegant precision the monumental changes taking place in psychiatric thinking. It is an invaluable reference work and a treasured resource for thinking about the future.