In 2025, the National Science Week theme was “Decoding the Universe: Exploring the unknown with nature’s hidden language”, touching upon the fields of mathematics and quantum science. While this can seem intimidating at first, you can explore both topics effectively with young children through the gateways of scale, camouflage, and tree roots. Read on for age-appropriate STEM ideas inspired by National Science Week.
Share your nature explorations with us! Join Little Scientists’ Facebook group “Early STEM Educators Network” to exchange STEM ideas and questions with educators all over Australia.
PD Recording: Decoding Nature’s Hidden Patterns & Maths in Early STEM
In our two-hour Online Workshop recording, educators uncover hidden languages in nature and gain practical ideas to transform these into exciting learning opportunities for young children — including through visual arts experiences (the A in STEAM)!
Educators will learn to extend children’s mathematical abilities by:
🧮 Playing with basic mathematical sequences.
🌻 Observing, examining, and recreating patterns in the natural world.
❄️ Exploring fractals (never-ending geometric shapes found in nature).
🧠 Developing an understanding of scale and self-similarity in nature, foundational concepts in early maths and science.
Buy the Online Workshop recording.
Explore scale through tardigrades
Children are often fascinated by the size and scale of large animals such as dinosaurs, elephants, whales, and giraffes. Some engaging mathematical explorations can occur when children compare these large animals to the size of humans, touching upon the the concept of scale.
But what about the other end of the scale? Quantum science explores the behaviour of matter and energy at an extremely small scale, for example atoms. You can use the gateway of extremely small creatures, like tardigrades, to explore quantum science in an age-appropriate way.
🦠 What are tardigrades?
Tardigrades are eight-legged microscopic creatures that are found in wet environments, like moist moss or lichen, the deep sea, and wet plants. However, tardigrades can survive in a vast range of environments, from icy cold to very hot — and they’ve even been to space! Watch the video to the right to see what a tardigrade looks like.
🔎 How small are tardigrades?
Tardigrades are approximately 0.05-1.2 millimetres long (or roughly the same size as a small poppy seed or grain of sand). That’s super tiny! What is the smallest thing children can think of?
To get your children thinking about scale, invite them to make a collection of tiny items. This might include sesame or poppy seeds, a grain of rice, or a grain of sand. Extend this first STEM exploration by encouraging the children to order the items from largest to smallest.
💡 ACTIVITY: Explore dehydration & rehydration
Tardigrades can survive tough conditions by turning into a ‘tun’, which is when they become dehydrated. In the tun state, a tardigrade shrinks to a third of its size. When the tardigrade is wet, it recovers to its initial size. In the activity below, use apples to help children observe how dehydration and rehydration can change an object’s size.
Materials:
🍎 Fresh apples.
🍎 ½ cup of lemon juice.
🍎 Water.
🍎 Baking pan lined with baking paper.
🍎 Oven.
🍎 3 cups.
Instructions:
- Invite the children to explore a fresh apple, as a whole and then in pieces. How does it smell, taste, feel, and look? How big is the apple?
- Ask the children what the apple might look if it was dried up. They can draw their ideas of what a dehydrated apple looks like. Some children may even have experience with dried apples — encourage them to share this with the group.
- Core the apples, cut them into very thin slices, and place on baking paper in a tray. Brush each side of the slices with lemon juice and place the tray in an oven at 90°C for 2 hours. You now have dehydrated apples!
4. Compare the dehydrated apple slices with the children’s hypotheses. What are the similarities or differences between the dehydrated and fresh slices? (If desired, you can skip Step 3 and explore a pack of pre-packaged dried apples instead.)
5. Place some dehydrated slices in each of your 3 cups. Add different amounts of water to each cup, for example: 1 tsp, 1 tbsp, and ¼ cup.
6. Wait at least 2 hours, then have the children observe what happened to the rehydrated apples. Reflect on questions like: Did the amount of water make a difference? Did the apple slices return to their original size? Does the size of the apple slice affect how long it takes to rehydrate?
Investigate animal camouflage
Tiger stripes, circles on butterfly wings, grey mottling on a tawny frogmouth’s feathers — these patterns might seem like random occurrences in nature. However, they play a very important role: For many animals, their distinct patterning helps them camouflage into their surroundings. This allows them to hide from or scare away predators, or hide from prey to make it easier to catch them. Explore animal patterns with children using this engaging activity.
Instructions:
- Ask children to think of animals that have patterns on their bodies. You can prompt the children by asking them to think of animals that live on land, in trees, and in the sea or even show pictures of animals, animal toys, or books.
- Compare the different types of animal patterns. Are they stripy? Spotty? What colours are they? What else do the children notice about the patterns? Are there similarities and differences between different animal patterns?
- Ask the children: “What do you think the patterns are for?”. Collect their hypotheses.
4. Show the children pictures of animals in camouflage (find some in this article). You can read “Secrets of Animal Camouflage” by Carron Brown and Wesley Robins to get the children thinking about the purpose of different patterns, like a tiger’s stripes and a bird’s feathers.
5. Invite the children to share what they noticed in the pictures or book. Ask them again: “What do you think the patterns are for?”. Do their earlier hypotheses match their thinking now?
NOTE: The aim is to show — rather than tell — children the concept of camouflage. This supports them to use critical thinking to explore why animals have patterns. Don’t feel like you need to rush through this experience as it can be broken into several sessions. You can revisit the children’s ideas at your own pace and explore more STEM extension activities:
🔎 Go on a camouflage hunt with the children at a park and spot camouflaged animals, like lizards, insects, spiders, and birds.
🎨 Invite the children to paint, draw, collage, or sculpt their own camouflage using recycled and art materials. They can choose the animal, its habitat, patterns, predators to hide from, or prey to stalk.
🐾 Show the children pictures of animal tracks, like a horse’s hoof marks. Invite the children to guess which animals the tracks belong to. Read the full instructions in our Forensic Science resource.
Read about tree communication
Did you know that trees have their own hidden “language”? They’re communicating right under our feet! Explore this natural phenomena with your children using this picture book.
📕 “Listen to the Language of the Trees” by Tera Kelley (author) and Marie Hermansson (illustrator)
Ages: 4+ years
This beautiful book tells the story of how a new seedling’s roots connect with the underground root system in a forest. As it grows into a tree, it receives important knowledge from the older, wiser trees through the forest roots to prepare for danger.
After reading this book, encourage your children to extend their understanding of trees with these ideas:
🌳 Take the children on a nature walk and observe the trees. What can they hear and see? Does the wind move branches and leaves around? Do certain animals make the trees their home?
🧶 Provide yarn for the children to stretch and knit together using their hands. Encourage them to create their own secret language using the yarn, for example: one tug on the yarn means “Hello!”.
🌿 Break open a dead stick and invite the children to share what they see inside. Is it hollow or full of rings? Does the colour inside match the bark outside?
Develop your STEM skills with pedagogy-based STEM PD:
- Browse our in-person STEM workshops.
- Browse our online STEM workshops.
- Browse our online STEM Hours.
- Book an in-service workshop for your team.
- Book a STEM Family Workshop for your families.
