Highlights•Explanation-seeking curiosity (ESC) motivates the pursuit of explanations.•ESC is
highly selective: it is not triggered merely by ignorance or uncertainty.•Children can acquire …

Human culture is unique among animals in its complexity, variability, and cumulative quality.
This article describes the development and diversity of cumulative cultural learning. Children …

Cumulative technological culture (CTC) refers to the increase in the efficiency and
complexity of tools and techniques in human populations over generations. A fascinating …

Young children develop causal knowledge through everyday family conversations and
activities. Children's museums are an informative setting for studying the social context of …

Studies show that children spend considerable time engaged in informal learning outside of
educational settings. Informal educational settings such as museums can provide a variety …

This study focused on tinkering, a playful form of open-ended problem solving that is being
widely adopted in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education as …

This study is a collaborative project between university researchers and museum
practitioners investigating ways to advance STEM learning opportunities for young children …

This study examines how parents' and children's explanatory talk and exploratory behaviors
support children's causal reasoning at a museum in San Jose, CA in 2017. One‐hundred …

Abstract We examined 6‐to 9‐year‐olds'(N= 60, 35 girls, 34% White, 23% Hispanic, 2%
Black/African American, 2% Asian/Asian American, 22% Mixed Ethnicity/Race, 17 …

To explore the potential contribution of parents' causal talk to preschooler's emerging
scientific literacy and related interests, we observed 153 parent–child dyads playing …