Originally posted September 8, 2010

… or maybe just talk a lot of science with kids

September 8, 2010

My kids are so curious. I seriously can’t keep up with them. My wife is a saint for coping with their whims (not to mention helping to develop their whims) on a daily basis. My youngest daughter seems to be interested in finding out what kind of things are dangerous. Like, what will happen if I stick my finger in that electrical outlet? Or, is that bookshelf stable enough to climb on? Usually her questions lead to a fit of crying. (Thank goodness she hasn’t gotten very far with the outlets. I mean, seriously, I don’t know where her fascination with those things comes from. Our oldest was never that interested in them. *sigh*) Recently she has been testing the coefficient of friction between the plastic slide in our back yard and the rubber soles of her shoes (i.e. – can she climb up the slide). Maybe it is because of her short memory, or the possibility that one trial just isn’t a good sample size, she is always more than ready to try these things again and again just to be sure. (She finally figured out two nights ago that, yes, she can climb up the slide)

“Ha! You think you can keep up with our questions? Don’t be so silly, science-boy!”

I suppose none of these things should be surprising. This curiosity certainly isn’t exclusive to my kids. All kids have this “ability”, this inherent quality that tells them they need to find out how things work. This quality is the same thing that drives scientists to do what they do. We need to know/we have to know how things work. Although, I don’t think I’ve ever met a scientist as insatiable for knowledge as a three year old. What this tells me is that we’ve all got a genuine interest in science etched into our DNA. An ambitious project in the UK is trying to foster science education and demystify science to grade school-aged children.

I’m a Scientist Get Me Out of Here matches classrooms with a panel of scientists for a several week stint of unabridged/unabashed question asking

I’m a Scientist Get Me Out of Here wants to make science seem normal by matching up a panel of “real scientists” with grade school classes in online forums. Teachers prime the students for asking questions by discussing what the scientists work on. After that, the students have free reign. They can ask a pointed question about pharmaceutical research: what does the clinical trial test? Or they can ask any totally random question that they want answered: are all scientists slightly mad? (Maybe that’s not totally random after all) The point is that students see scientists as regular people and see science as an extension of their natural curiosity. The scientists, in turn, are challenged to talk about science (their science) to a bunch of kids and have to try to keep up with the never-ending stream of questions that the kids can come up with. My guess is that this exercise challenges the scientists much more than the students!

Kudos to the I’m a Scientist team for organizing this! If you want to get involved with this project (especially if you happen to live in the UK — any of you out there?) they are looking for scientist volunteers for their March 20011 and June 2011 events.

-mrh

btw … we’d love to hear from you if you’ve heard about any other initiatives like this. We’d also love to hear any “kid-science” that you’ve observed recently. I’ll kick it off in the comments section below.