All right we’re convinced. Science Adventure is awesome and kids love it. But how do we actually do it? I’m glad you asked! The answer? Wait for it…  No seriously let’s talk about some other stuff first, and we’ll answer that question at the end.

First things first: I don’t know your kid or student at all. More than that, what do you like to do with them? What you know about science already? What do you think is most important for them to know? How on Earth ( or in space) can I answer your question?  Hmmm… let me think about that.

Let’s start by asking some questions:

 

1. What is your kid’s favorite story? My kids love How to Train Your Dragon. Probably way more than they should. I love that movie too (both of them) and although I haven’t seen as many episodes as my kids have, I know quite a lot about the different types of dragons, dragon families,  and Viking life, at least as it is presented in the Netflix original series How to Train Your Dragon: Race to the Edge.

Will my knowledge of dragon classification lead me and my kids to discover  evidence for the next new species of dragon? My internal survey says no. I guess I just have no confidence in our field research methodology on this one. But we have imagined up a ton of our own kinds of dragons. How can  this possibly relate to science?

Well…  generically I can talk to my kids about how we classify species. We can even make our own classification systems for dragons. Not useful real-world facts, but the process will teach them a lot about biology and zoology.

Dragons also fly, so we can talk about aerodynamics. Some of them are  venomous, so we can talk about Venom and snakes, Etc. I can show them pictures of birds and their muscles used for flying…  

A little creativity can make this list a lot longer. It depends on the day what we talk about. I want to talk about the things my kids want to talk about because, let’s be honest, as a parent that’s the only way they are going to actually listen to me anyway.

 

2. What do you love about science? Here’s a little known fact about kids ( okay this might actually be well-known): they can tell whether you are excited about something. If you are not excited about teaching it, they probably won’t be excited about learning.

Think about the things you find really interesting. You don’t have to be a professional scientist to be interested in how the plants in your garden  grow, or how the moon makes the tides, or why salmon jump up waterfalls even when bears are waiting to eat them. Heck if you can’t think of a single thing in the  real world that interests you, you probably still have some kind of story that you like to read or watch on television. There is definitely a way to find the science related to the topic you love. Once you figure out some topics you love, think about how you can fit that topic into your kid’s favorite stories.

 

3. How do you play with your kid?  Action figures? Pretending? Dress up?  Sports? Fishing? Hunting? Nerf Guns around the house?  Cooking?

Whatever you do for fun with your kid is your “in” to teach them about science (or anything else, for that matter). Try to look at the world like a kid again and realize there’s always something interesting and “sciency”  happening. Baseball has physics, baking has chemistry, fishing has biology and zoologie, and pretending has whatever you want. High energy particle physics? Knock yourself out. Wikipedia would probably be a good first stop for most of us before we tackle that topic,  though!

Secondly be sure to remember that when you’re teaching science during play, it should still be mostly play. I like Oreos, so I’ll use them as my example here:  start with play, put some science in the middle, and then end with play. I could have talked about sandwiches, but Oreos are better.

 

4. How do we naturally migrate from play to teaching and back to play? Well, the way I do it  is by reading a little bit about my topic on Wikipedia ahead of time. I pick an interesting article, and snag a few interesting and not obvious facts out of it. Then, while we’re playing, I ask my kids something like “Did you know that…”  and then I tell them one of the facts. If they seem fascinated by that, Then we’ll talk about it more. If not, we keep playing and I’ll try again later with another fact. If we get to the end of play time without finding a topic they want to learn about, then I’ll either not worry about it or ask them if they’d like to watch a YouTube video about that topic. If they do, great! If not, great!  Rome wasn’t built in a day.

 

And now, at long last, I’ll answer the first question: How do we  actually make science an adventure? Once again I will reference one of my kids’ favorite movies: Kung Fu Panda 3.  When it comes to my kids: “I’m not trying to turn you into me; I’m trying to turn you into you.” Meet them where they are, focus on their interests, play however you play best together, and find small ways to sneak in the amazing things you love most about our world (or space, or high energy particle physics, or whatever…)!

Good luck adventuring!

Kelly