I have just been helping my 5th grade daughter with her science homework which has been an extremely painful process to both of us. Though it would be easier to blame the lack of interest on her (most children her age are inherently lazy and disinterested, etc...) this would be all too easy. In reality the problem should be apparent - let me demonstrate;
Suppose you wanted to learn about the way parachutes work? How would you begin? You might read a book about parachutes or you might investigate on your own. An investigation is a procedure that is carried out to gather data about an object or an event. An investigation can be as simple as measuring an object or observing a response to a stimulus.
This is an excerpt directly from the text. Now to the eye of an adult not sitting with an actual 5th grade kid - might see this as a fine statement. Closer inspection through the eyes of a 10 year kid - has now likened reading this material to having their teeth pulled. The only long term affect this has had is to further distance my daughter from science. With the assistance of a 5th grader - let me rewrite;
What is an investigation? Lets start with gathering data, something we all do without even thinking about it. Have you ever watched a baby given a new toy? They will turn it around in their hands, they will look at it, they will put it in their mouth, they will sit on it. In short they are investigating the new toy - their little minds are gathering data about the object.
Do you gather data? Well - has your mother or father ever tried to feed you a new food. Do you blindly eat the food or do you sniff it, take a little taste and then make a judgment to whether the food is edible. You are gathering data about the food.
How else can we gather data? It helps to understand the concept of a stimulus. The smell of the food is a good example of a stimulus. Whether you wrinkle your nose and say gross, or smile and say yum - would be a response. You react to stimuli (the word for more than one stimulus) all the time. Heat, cold, tastes, smells, pokes, prods, and tickles - they are all stimuli.
If you watch how something (or somebody) reacts to a stimulus - you are conducting an investigation.
We took this new language and actually conducted an experiment, determining that our 4th grade daughter will resist a tickling stimulus 100% of the time, giggle 75% of the time, and be silent 25% of the time.
Science is all around us - and is not as boring and dull as we make it. What really needs to be done is science texts need to be written with scientists AND people who understand children (like a child psychologist). The effectiveness of the book needs to be tested on actual children (our school system spends a lot of money on these texts - how hard is itto demand good ones?). For those who read this who do not have children (but plan to) - you will all soon feel my pain. For those of you who have felt my pain - this is a shared pain, not only children feel it - but also the parents who work through this with their kids. I also applaud all those wonderful science teachers out their who breathe life into science - had it not been for them my life might have gone much differently. And special thanks to my 9th grade physics teacher at Spartanburg High School who opened class the first day by driving a nail through a board with his hand - and then showed all of us how the principles of momentum make this quite easy to do - and also fostered a small group of future scientists.
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