Introducing kids to science

Introducing kids to science

I am a home-educating father of six living in Iowa, but I grew up in the Chicagoland area. As a young adult I was introduced to Fermilab through the late Dr. Sam Segler. At the time I couldn't care less about the science, since I really didn't understand it, but I loved the wonderful architecture.

Shortly after moving to Iowa I added myself to the FermiNews mailing list and found myself learning more about the work going on at the lab. Now I find myself teaching science not only to my kids, but also to a group of about 80 every Friday.

Our children nationwide are hungry for science, but I think we may be failing them because we figure that 7-year-olds can't understand physics, so we dumb it down. I'm here to tell you that is dead wrong. At one point I introduced the concept of gravitational lensing to 6- to 8-year-olds, and they do get it.

Might I share four things that I believe will help kids better understand science early?

1. Teach them the language of science, so they can understand what the media are saying about it.
2. Forget running facts down their throats. Kids don't care how many TeVs Fermilab sees. If they are hungry they will seek out people who can help them dig deeper, i.e. the Lederman Science Center and its docents.
3. More science, earlier in their schooling, for more years. Why are we surprised students are so science illiterate when we don't really start teaching it until the last four years of school?
4. Let's make science fun, not work! Trust me, I'm not alone. Just take a look at the last issue of symmetry; Jerry “Mr. Freeze” Zimmerman will back me up.

Maybe everyone at Fermilab, and at SLAC for that matter, should take a day off and go to school, look a kid in the eye, and see if they can plant the same seed in that kid that someone planted in them years ago.

Keep up the great science! We all need it.

Jeff Hauser, Lohrville, Iowa

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