Influence of Piaget's Theory on Convincing Experts About the Difficulties in the Understanding of Scientific Terms by Children

Abstract

In formal education, the teaching of natural sciences begins when children are about 12 years old. Teachers justify this with the difficulty and abstraction of concepts in these sciences, and they refer to the theory of child development by Piaget. However, numerous examples from everyday life, from non-formal education, analysis of the difficulties of individual terms as well as research in the field of mathematics and didactics of chemistry show that it is possible to teach natural science at lower stages of education. Keywords: Piaget’s theory, teaching of natural science, formal education.