Investigating the Effects of Discovery Learning on Daycare Pupils’ Environmental Skills Using EcoExplorer

Early childhood education, particularly in daycare settings in the Philippines, plays a pivotal role in shaping the foundation of a child's lifelong learning. The integration of discovery learning into children's education in urban areas with limited space and opportunities for exploration remains uncertain, presenting numerous challenges that continue to hinder the development of learners’ skills in physical science and the natural environment. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of ‘EcoExplorer’ as supplementary material on daycare learners' physical science and natural environment skills. Specifically, this study sought to answer the level of competence of daycare learners in physical and natural environment skills, level of performance after giving the supplementary material, and feedback about the material. A one-group pre-experimental design using pretest and posttest was conducted with thirty (30) daycare children for 6 sessions in a month. The findings revealed that the EcoExplorer as supplementary material effectively improved pupils' knowledge and understanding of physical and natural environment concepts, addressing existing research gaps. An analysis of the feedback was conducted, emphasizing its efficacy in augmenting the learners' knowledge and improving their physical science and natural environment-related skills.