What is Science Adventure? Great question. When most people think about science they think about nerdy folks wearing glasses and pocket protectors. Maybe even a lab coat. They think about graphs and numbers. They think about papers with complicated words that seem to make no sense unless you are already an expert in that field.

Some of those things are true. Some of them are not always true. For instance, I’m a pretty nerdy person, I used to wear glasses, but I’ve never worn a pocket protector. Lots of scientists do wear lab coats, but not all of them do. I’m a mathematician, so I spent a lot of time with graphs and numbers. Graphs and numbers are a very important part of documenting good science, and they are part of the process that allows us to make sure our findings are fact, not opinion. But, for most  scientists, the graphs and numbers are only tools to help us see deeper truths about the world.

We do tend to write papers that use complicated words, and we write those papers in a way that makes sense to other experts in our fields. If we didn’t use those complicated words, we’d be forced to turn already-complicated, lengthy papers into massive tomes that gave the complete introduction to our field before moving on to our findings.

Those facts, combined with the reality that much of our work takes place at a desk brooding over numbers and graphs that we meticulously collected over many weeks or years, can make science sound pretty boring.

But, if you’re doing the science and you’re making the discoveries, you know there is nothing more exciting than struggling with a complicated problem and finally conquering some aspect of it. It feels like climbing a mountain.

About half the time you feel like turning around and going back down, and every once in awhile you feel like you’re getting nowhere. But then you reach a peak, and from that peak you can see a broad horizon never seen before. The even better thing is that you get to bring that fire of knowledge back down to the rest of humanity and make the world a better place like the Prometheus of Greek mythology.

But how do we impart that vision to our kids? Should we sit them at a desk and make them collect numbers and graph things for hours until they make a new discovery and come to love that process through a sort of Stockholm Syndrome effect? Even if that would work I don’t think I’d want to do that to my kids. They might resent it later.  Plus, every single discovery they encounter is new to them, so we don’t need young kids to complete original research right out of the box.  Good thing. That would feel pretty hopeless and discouraging as a parent or teacher of young kids.

Why do kids want to be firefighters, policeman, pilots or astronauts? Why do they want to be professional athletes? Because those things sound exciting! Being a pilot is actually pretty doggone exciting some of the time! (Usually that is because your aircraft is malfunctioning or the weather is trying to kill you…) What we don’t tell people about those professions is that every profession in the world, at times, seems boring. That’s okay. Humans need down time and balance.

The philosophy of Science Adventure can be boiled down to this: focus kids on the mountaintop experiences. The younger a kid is, the more important it is to get quickly to the point. As they get older, they can work for the discovery progressively more. Moreover, every kid will be a little different in terms of attention span and tolerance for the investigative work. If it’s not fun for your kid, you might be trying to do too much too early. Focus on fun. Focus on imagining doing exciting things. My kids love to pretend, so I find small opportunities to talk about how the world works even while we might be pretending to ride on dragons. Make discovery exciting. Tell exciting stories through play and Science Adventure, and fit the Science Education in when you have the chance.

 

Good Luck Adventuring!

Kelly