Think back to your early years in school (or maybe your child’s early school years). You were fascinated with learning about “stuff” in the world, whether it was the giant beetle you found in your back yard, the leaves on a tree, planes flying overhead, or the toy boat in your bathtub. You liked figuring out how things worked and even conducting experiments. (“Can I get my toy airplane to fly just above Dad’s head while he’s asleep?”) You thought all these things were cool and interesting. You probably would go tell other kids something you figured out. (“Did you know cats can’t fly???”)
Now fast-forward to your middle school and high school years. You have science classes, with assignments like “Read pages 148-150 about buoyancy; make a list in your notebook of all the bold-print words and write the definitions you will find in the back of your book; complete the fill-in-the-blank review at the end of the lesson; and bring all that to class tomorrow so we can check it.” In class, the teacher has students read the textbook orally (the same pages you supposedly read the night before); she has students read the definitions they got for the important terms (and everyone has the same definitions, since they all got them out of the back of the book); and she goes over the end-of-lesson review questions to make sure all the students have the right answers. In a week or so, there’s a chapter test on buoyancy, and the students have to fill in the blanks with the answers they got at the end of each lesson, match terms with definitions (the same definitions that were in the back of the book), and maybe label a diagram of a boat on the water to illustrate principles of buoyancy. How exciting!!!! I’m sure you went home and told your parents, “Guess what??? We got to write definitions of words in science class today! I can’t wait until tomorrow – the teacher said we’re going to fill in some blanks!!!!”
So by the time you graduated from high school, you probably had little interest in science. Sure, there were the nerds who always won first prize in the science fair. (When I was in high school, one guy showed how he could use a burning flame of gas to produce sound, using it to play Don Mclean’s “American Pie.” But he was a geek. Most of us were just concerned to get through chemistry and physics so we could graduate.) You were probably just looking forward to not having to take science courses again.
What happened over the years? Where did the sense of wonder, awe, and excitement go? I know that, for young children, everything is new and exciting. (“Cool! I have fingers!”) But do we lose that excitement just because we have learned everything and it’s no longer new? Have high school students really learned everything there is to know about chemistry, so they are not interested in it any more? Hardly. I think the way we teach science is the problem.
Look again at the differences between the learning taking place in my first paragraph above and the second paragraph. The young child is interacting with “stuff,” he’s trying things out, he’s seeing what works and what doesn’t, he’s figuring out what’s going on with his stuff. The older student, on the other hand, is only interacting with a book and just memorizes facts. He reads about buoyancy, but he doesn’t see how it works. He fills in blanks in the biology workbook, but he never touches a plant. The typical frog dissection is a bit better, but it’s often so highly scripted that it can become just another drudgery.
What would happen if upper grade science instruction was more like how younger children experience scientific learning? What if that sense of wonder and play was inserted back into high school science classes? I’ve seen that happen in my school. We have an engineering class which is the capstone of our STEM-track diploma (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math). The students spent a year building airplanes (with 6-8 foot wingspans) which they flew yesterday (at least some of them flew). (Pictures above are from one of the final stages in their work.) In order to do that, however, they learned about aerodynamics and flight engineering, they learned how to use a 3-D printer to make some of the parts, they learned about how to place the battery at the right location in the plane for balance, etc. Yes, they had a lot of instruction from their teacher (a former instructor at the Air Force Academy). But they were learning in the context of working on a specific project, with a particular goal in mind. And they not only learned a lot of high-level science, math, and engineering concepts, but they enjoyed doing it. And I suspect they will retain what they learned a lot longer than if they had just read the material in a book and filled in blanks on worksheets.
Of course, that’s a specific engineering course. But why can’t all our science instruction be similar? Instead of having students memorize formulas involving acceleration and velocity, what about having them construct ramps on which they roll marbles while timing how long it takes to cover a particular distance – then use the data to develop those same formulas? Or teach the students about genetics by having them grow plants (varieties that grow quickly) and cross-pollinating them to learn about developing different varieties? This type of learning – project-based learning – enables students to learn the principles involved within the context of real-world applications. Students tend to remember the learning a lot longer than with simple memorization. And it tends to maintain student interest in science – students keep their sense of wonder and awe. Especially in a Christian school, the teachers are able to regularly point to the intricacies of what the students learn and use them as evidence of the amazing work of our Creator.
Let’s rethink science instruction. There’s probably a time when students just need to buckle down and memorize things. But I believe most of their science study should be hands-on, real-world learning. So the first-grader goes home saying, “Guess what! I learned that air weighs something!” The high school senior goes home saying, “Cool! I learned how to create a working nuclear reactor from regular household products!” And both of them say, “We have an amazing God who has created all these things for us to enjoy!”
Now fast-forward to your middle school and high school years. You have science classes, with assignments like “Read pages 148-150 about buoyancy; make a list in your notebook of all the bold-print words and write the definitions you will find in the back of your book; complete the fill-in-the-blank review at the end of the lesson; and bring all that to class tomorrow so we can check it.” In class, the teacher has students read the textbook orally (the same pages you supposedly read the night before); she has students read the definitions they got for the important terms (and everyone has the same definitions, since they all got them out of the back of the book); and she goes over the end-of-lesson review questions to make sure all the students have the right answers. In a week or so, there’s a chapter test on buoyancy, and the students have to fill in the blanks with the answers they got at the end of each lesson, match terms with definitions (the same definitions that were in the back of the book), and maybe label a diagram of a boat on the water to illustrate principles of buoyancy. How exciting!!!! I’m sure you went home and told your parents, “Guess what??? We got to write definitions of words in science class today! I can’t wait until tomorrow – the teacher said we’re going to fill in some blanks!!!!”
So by the time you graduated from high school, you probably had little interest in science. Sure, there were the nerds who always won first prize in the science fair. (When I was in high school, one guy showed how he could use a burning flame of gas to produce sound, using it to play Don Mclean’s “American Pie.” But he was a geek. Most of us were just concerned to get through chemistry and physics so we could graduate.) You were probably just looking forward to not having to take science courses again.
What happened over the years? Where did the sense of wonder, awe, and excitement go? I know that, for young children, everything is new and exciting. (“Cool! I have fingers!”) But do we lose that excitement just because we have learned everything and it’s no longer new? Have high school students really learned everything there is to know about chemistry, so they are not interested in it any more? Hardly. I think the way we teach science is the problem.
Look again at the differences between the learning taking place in my first paragraph above and the second paragraph. The young child is interacting with “stuff,” he’s trying things out, he’s seeing what works and what doesn’t, he’s figuring out what’s going on with his stuff. The older student, on the other hand, is only interacting with a book and just memorizes facts. He reads about buoyancy, but he doesn’t see how it works. He fills in blanks in the biology workbook, but he never touches a plant. The typical frog dissection is a bit better, but it’s often so highly scripted that it can become just another drudgery.
What would happen if upper grade science instruction was more like how younger children experience scientific learning? What if that sense of wonder and play was inserted back into high school science classes? I’ve seen that happen in my school. We have an engineering class which is the capstone of our STEM-track diploma (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math). The students spent a year building airplanes (with 6-8 foot wingspans) which they flew yesterday (at least some of them flew). (Pictures above are from one of the final stages in their work.) In order to do that, however, they learned about aerodynamics and flight engineering, they learned how to use a 3-D printer to make some of the parts, they learned about how to place the battery at the right location in the plane for balance, etc. Yes, they had a lot of instruction from their teacher (a former instructor at the Air Force Academy). But they were learning in the context of working on a specific project, with a particular goal in mind. And they not only learned a lot of high-level science, math, and engineering concepts, but they enjoyed doing it. And I suspect they will retain what they learned a lot longer than if they had just read the material in a book and filled in blanks on worksheets.
Of course, that’s a specific engineering course. But why can’t all our science instruction be similar? Instead of having students memorize formulas involving acceleration and velocity, what about having them construct ramps on which they roll marbles while timing how long it takes to cover a particular distance – then use the data to develop those same formulas? Or teach the students about genetics by having them grow plants (varieties that grow quickly) and cross-pollinating them to learn about developing different varieties? This type of learning – project-based learning – enables students to learn the principles involved within the context of real-world applications. Students tend to remember the learning a lot longer than with simple memorization. And it tends to maintain student interest in science – students keep their sense of wonder and awe. Especially in a Christian school, the teachers are able to regularly point to the intricacies of what the students learn and use them as evidence of the amazing work of our Creator.
Let’s rethink science instruction. There’s probably a time when students just need to buckle down and memorize things. But I believe most of their science study should be hands-on, real-world learning. So the first-grader goes home saying, “Guess what! I learned that air weighs something!” The high school senior goes home saying, “Cool! I learned how to create a working nuclear reactor from regular household products!” And both of them say, “We have an amazing God who has created all these things for us to enjoy!”