OK,
so…….what is a scientist?
The
popular view held by most children is that the world of science is owned by wide-eyed, white-coated ‘boffins’ who spend their time poking in test tubes and looking into
microscopes.
I
opened my dictionary, looked up the word scientist,
and read the following:
‘A scientist: a person having expert
knowledge of one or more sciences, especially a natural or physical science.’ Mmmmm………not
terribly helpful, I thought. That’s not how I would describe what a scientist is to a young child. So, let
me make a stab at it. I know, for a start that:
· Scientists are very curious about what they
see around them.
·
Scientists are collectors – they collect
things and they collect ideas.
· Scientists
read books to find out more about what they collected.
· Scientists
carry out experiments.
· Scientists
write notes and draw pictures to explain what’s in their heads.
· Scientists talk with other scientists and learn from each other.
.
I do ALL these things, don’t I? SO,
I’m a SCIENTIST! Hey, hey!
We’re ALL scientists……… aren’t we? Don’t we explore our
environment in a scientific way, whether we are aware of it or not? Don’t we
look, touch, hear, smell, taste and wonder why
all the time? Isn’t that how we discover new things? When we discover something new, we often
experience feelings of pleasure. Which of us hasn’t seen an expression of magical
delight when a young child makes a discovery? You know, the ‘Oooh…... Aaah ‘ effect?
One
thing, though. That magical ‘Oooh..Aaah’
moment needs fanning as if it were the beginnings of a fire, doesn’t it?
In
my experience as an educator, I appreciated quickly that, even though being
curious is natural for all human beings, most young scientists need help understanding how to make sense of the
science around them. Teachers know that, but, don’t just leave it to your
children’s teachers. Who better to help them than mum and dad? Any teacher will
tell you that your involvement in your children’s education as a close family
member (mother, father, grandparent, carer, home-schooler) is strongly related
to their success in school. And that common sense view is backed by educational
research: “What families do is more important to student success than whether they
are rich or poor, whether parents have finished high school or not, or whether
children are in elementary, junior high, or high school (Robinson, 1995).
I
remember how and when I became a scientist,
someone who throughout his life has enjoyed exploring and finding answers
to the endless questions about the world of nature. It was my parents and one
teacher who ignited and fanned my science fire and got me going.
Born
in in the southwest part of England, I lived near the sea when I was young. When the weather was nice, Mum and Dad took me to the
nearby stony beach of Mount’s Bay. Sometimes we caught the bus and went a mile
or two to the abandoned tin mines perched on the cliffs that overlook the
Atlantic Ocean.
I
remember one day in particular. In fact, I can remember it as if it were
yesterday. It was my fifth birthday. I was really
surprised when my mum and dad met me at the end of the school day. Holding my
hand, we walked to the beach for a birthday treat, especially to search for
heart-shaped or dark grey pebbles with a vein of white quartz running through
the middle. These pebbles were very, very special. Mum and Dad called them wishing rocks.
I soon spotted a beautiful black and white wishing rock. I picked it
up and rested it comfortably in the palm of my hand. I slowly wrapped my
fingers around it and squeezed really tight.
When my fingers warmed the pebble, I closed my eyes and sent a really special
loving wish to my mum and dad.
“Hey,” said my dad, when
I opened my eyes, “did you just send me a
wish? I felt it, you know, like a warm tickle right down my back. Did you feel
that, Hazel?” “I did, I did,” said my mum.
Wow! I thought. It really works! Wishing rocks are brill! And, knowing
that, really lit a fire in my head.
Smiling, I put my wishing rock
into what Mum called my treasure tin,
a small red OXO tin. Then, I spotted something different. There, lying with all
the black, grey and white smooth pebbles, was a bright yellow object. It didn’t
look like any of the other sea-worn rocks. It stared up at me, wanting, badly I
felt, to be picked up, wanting to be touched and admired. I bent over, picked
it up and held it in the palm of my hand. I ran over to Mum and Dad. Even
though I thought they knew everything, I was really surprised they didn’t know what
I had found. “Take it to school tomorrow
and show your teacher,” said Mum. “Miss
Harvey will know. She knows everything.” Not wanting to scratch it, I
wrapped the pebble up in my white hanky and put it in my pocket next to my treasure tin.
As I dressed for school the next morning, I put my treasure tin in my pocket to take to
school to show my teacher, Miss Harvey.
Even before all the boys sat in their seats, I was standing by
Miss Harvey’s tall wooden desk, the OXO treasure
tin in my hand, spluttering, “Miss
Harvey, Miss Harvey, see what I found. I found it on the beach, after school,
yesterday. Went there with my mum and dad. You know, when the tide was out,
when you can see what the waves brought in.”
As Miss Harvey looked inside my treasure tin, her eyes widened. It
wasn’t, apparently, a rock at all. It was ancient fossilized tree resin, and,
she said, it was called amber. Miss
Harvey knew amber was millions of years old and began its life inside a tree.
Resin? Fossilized? Amber? Ancient? What beautiful words, I
thought.
Miss Harvey held my golden amber in her hand, smiled, looked down
at me through her wire glasses that balanced on the end of her sharp nose, and
said loudly, so everyone in class could hear, “THIS is amber…..it’s fossil tree sap………it’s been washed ashore after a
long, long trip in the sea. Johnny Paull found it.” Miss Harvey handed the
amber back to me and then wrote the word A M B E R on the board. “Show it to everyone, pass it around.” Miss
Harvey said. “Share it – that’s what scientists
do. And, Johnny Paull, you’re a real scientist!”
What’s a scientist, I
wondered? Is that something dead good? I turned a little red as I faced
everyone in the room. As I held out my hand and showed the class, everyone
stopped chattering. They were curious and wanted to see what I had found. I
handed it to Johnny Hoskins. Almost immediately, Edgar James hissed, “Pass it ‘ere, boyo. Quick. Lemme see!”
“Quiet, everyone, quiet!” Miss Harvey said, turning to me, “Johnny
Paull, why don’t you draw a picture of your amber? Here, here’s some white
paper. Use this. Don’t just draw the amber, draw the other beach pebbles, too.
Just as you remember. Can you see them in your head?”
Closing my eyes, I remembered just how the amber looked when I saw
it lying on the beach with all the other pebbles. I couldn’t wait to grab some
yellow, black and brown crayons from the big biscuit tin lying on her desk.
When I’d finished my drawing and showed it to Miss Harvey, I could
tell from her eyes that she liked it. Quickly, she glued the picture onto some
black paper, then taped it to the wall close to my desk, and told me to write
my name and the date underneath.
As I was drawing another picture of one of my wishing rocks, Miss Harvey came next to me and, with a broad smile,
said, very emphatically so that
everyone could hear, ”Keep it, Johnny
Paull. The amber. Keep it safe. And that wishing rock. They’re wonderful. You’re
so lucky. Keep them. Keep them in your oxo tin - your treasure tin, sorry - and
save them. Save them forever.”
My
head glowed. It was on fire. I was a scientist
– whatever that meant! That was it. I was hooked. I’ve been a scientist - and a treasure tin collector - ever
since, thanks to my mum and dad and my teacher.
So, you adults, put on your scientist hats, take the time to
positively interact, as learners, as
team players, with your children. Nurture their curiosity – and yours - and
their sense of being scientists. Start
and fan their fire.
How?
Well, flick through the book, check the science activity on each page and see
if they are age and ability appropriate for your young scientist,
then:
·
Give
him/her your time, a worktable, and the resources required for the science
activities in the following pages.
·
Help
(but, careful, don’t be overbearing!)
your young scientist actively engage
in the fun science activities.
·
Encourage
him/her – when it’s appropriate – to act, think, talk, read, draw and, yes,
write like scientists.
·
Appreciate
that most young scientists have a need
to ask questions about what s/he sees – as talking, it seems, aids understanding.
·
Know
that your science discussion with your young
scientist will usually raise new and interesting questions, so that one
inquiry leads to another.
· Know that when young scientist uses his/her own efforts
to discover something, the flash of insight seems to give special satisfaction.
·
** Take your young scientist out on a countryside walk. Remember, though, you
don’t need to point out and name everything. Just take a couple of empty tins and
ask your young scientist to fill them
with anything that catches his/her eye.
·
When
you do, show your young scientists
your positive interest in whatever they pick up from the ground with your body
language, especially your eyes.
·
If
you can, provide access to a computer or smartphone so s/he can, if they wish,
research science questions.
·
If
you can’t, go to your local library and help your young scientist access its children’s science books, its technological
and scientific resources.
** When you return from your walk, why don’t you help your young scientist make a pocket museum to display what s/he
collected?
Pocket
museum? What’s that,
then, you might well ask. Well, many years ago, when teaching a class of 10 and
11 year olds, we were sharing their treasure
tins at the start of another day. Michael put up his hand and, with a
twinkle in his eye, said, “ Like a museum,
ain’t it? Me dad says mine’s a pocket museum. Can we call ‘em pocket museums,
Mr. Paull? Go on, can we?” Like me, everyone in class thought it was a
great idea to rename the treasure tins. And, so, from that day to this, a tin
containing a personal treasure is a pocket
museum.
Kids love them. Over the years, in loads of classrooms,
making and sharing stacks of pocket
museums has helped me nurture the excitement and joy young scientists naturally feel when interacting with and learning more
about the world around them.
So, how do you make a pocket museum? All you need is a small tin, a piece of
felt, scissors, glue, and something really cool your young scientist found on your collector’s
walk.
Cut the felt to
the size that will fit inside your tin. Glue the felt to the bottom of the tin.
Then, glue your best finds on the felt, and, hey, you have your pocket museum – forever.
And, when you
and your young scientist are making the pocket
museum, why don’t you CAPTURE a Young Scientist MOMENT – forever!
I came up with this idea many years
ago when teaching upper juniors:
After a wonderful but windy walk
around the woodland near school, my class of ten year-olds began to talk about
the afternoon’s experiences. Dianne said how much she enjoyed the walk in the
long grass around the trees. “Everything
was beautiful, Mr. Paull…………….everything smelled dead good. Did you hear the
wind, though? It was making a howling noise and it made the leaves on the trees
shake.” Then she added, wistfully,
“Pity we can’t bring back the smells and the sounds of nature.
How
could we do that, Mr. Paull?”
That made me think. Then I had an
idea. If you half fill a plastic bottle with water and then turn the bottle
upside down, the water rushes out. For a split second, there’s nothing in the
bottle. Then the air rushes in and fills the bottle. The air carries everything
……doesn’t it? J
The next time we went for a nature walk, I took
a bottle half filled with water. When we reached the tall grass and trees, I
turned the bottle upside down and let the water gush out. As That made me think. Then I had an
idea. If you half fill a plastic bottle with water and then turn the bottle
upside down, the water rushes out. For a split second, there’s nothing in the
bottle. Then the air rushes in and fills the bottle. The air carries everything
……doesn’t it?
J
The next time we went for a nature
walk, I took a bottle half filled with water. When we reached the tall grass
and trees, I turned the bottle upside down and let the water gush out. As soon
as the last drop ran out of the bottle, air rushed in, filling the vacuum. I
immediately pushed in the cork. “Look,”
I said, “we have captured the sounds and
the smells of nature………forever.” Dianne was particularly excited. I stuck a
label on the bottle:
June 8th 1966
This bottle holds the smells and sounds of the flowers
and the trees around our school.
And that started something. Every
time things were really humming in the classroom, I filled a bottle with all of
the energy, sound, wit and wisdom of my children, labeled it and displayed it
on a shelf.
So, when your
young scientist is engaged, capture the moment.
HOW? It’s easy. At a critical ‘Oooh,
aaah’ moment, take off the top of a tiny bottle. Blow across the top. The
fast-moving air sucks out the air inside the bottle. When you stop blowing, the
air, and the atmosphere of excited learning, rushes in.
Think about what you’ve done!
You have captured the time and the
moment, the joy of being a young
scientist……forever!
