Thoughts on Science

Doing Science with my kids for home school has been a real struggle for me. You’d thing a Computer Science major with a Math minor would have no problems. I think I had a lot of negative experiences in school. I remember trying to do a “making crystals” experiment in elementary school. We never got any crystals to grow on our screw – we only got rust. Then, I remember doing dissections in 7th grade biology. I always got C’s or D’s. I could never really tell the animal’s body organs once we opened it up – they were never in the same place as the drawings in the textbooks. Experiments in Chemistry class were always hit or miss. I think the only class where most of the experiments actually worked was Physics. Even in college, I think I just got B’s in my Physics lab class.

So, when we’ve been doing our Science stuff for school, mostly I’ve been reading the book, and doing the experiments with Rabbit (and Pooh and Tigger as observers). And really, it is me doing the experiments. Now, some of that is because Rabbit is afraid of something “bad” happening (like she was scared of the sparks from squeezing the mints). But, the other part of it, I’m not sure.

Well, the other day, my friend mfwrocks posted some thoughts about doing science in the elementary years:

1. Let them read the material with you.
2. Ask them, “What do you think will happen?”
3. Then say, “Ok, let's find out.”
4. Have them try the experiments on their own, as much possible.
5. Let them go "cool" and "wow" and laugh at science nerd jokes.
6. Teach them to observe what is going on.
7. Make them clean it up and put it away.
8. Ask them, “What did happen? Is that what we expected? And why?”

Now the other observation that my dh made was that we need to teach the Scientific Method without being hung up on the teaching the terms and phrases of The Scientific Method. You just want the kids to be so comfortable with asking, “What will happen if I do this?” Set it up, observe and figure out why --- that it becomes how they think about science. And not a check box to say, "Ok. I covered scientific method in the curriculum and that's good, right?"

See, I’m the one doing the experiments. I should really be letting Rabbit try the experiments, and just being there as a guide or assistant. It is usually the other way around. Then I get frustrated when she doesn’t do anything but stand there or sit there. I also have a hard time with #7, as my kids aren’t really that good at cleaning up. But, that’s part of the training process and I just need to get over it and start training them.

Anyway, it was just such a timely post, and it really made me think about what I’m doing as a teacher that is either helping or hindering the kids.