Homemade lemonade. A great time to show the difference between trying to dissolve sugar in warm water vs. cold water.
This weekend, I wore the kids out hiking around town, biking, and playing ball at the local playground. The sun was out and the air was warm, so when we got home for lunch and our eight year old wanted to make lemonade with the last lemon in the fridge, I said “sure!”
During snack earlier, we had saved several pear and cherry seeds, so we added the lemon seeds to the pile. Our five year old joked that if we soaked the seeds in all the juices from our various fruits, they would grow into a tree with bearing all the fruit. Then we could have lemonade all the time! Hmmm, sounds like a hypothesis.
On their own, they girls decided to plant the seeds and try it out. I got out some potting soil and they found some pots. Then they each picked a few seeds and planted and watered them.
It didn’t take long to plant the seeds and it didn’t cost much, but it only takes a few minutes each day to train them to think like scientists. The moral of the story is: never miss an opportunity.
One day, a lemonade tree will grow, unless the local birds get the seeds first.
If you’re like me, you installed Pokemon GO, um, for the kids to play, yeah, that’s it. It’s a great game for getting out and exploring the neighborhood together. You and your kids probably learned all about what kind of biome is likely to hide a Squirtle and what creature is best suited for fighting a Jigglypuff. If only there was a similar app that would get you and your kids outside learning facts about real plants and animals…
Oh Magikarp, are you in for a treat. Check out the iNaturalist site and accompanying app. It’s a nature cataloging project run out of the California Academy of Sciences. From the site: “iNaturalist is an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature “. They don’t do scientific research themselves, but by creating a huge plant and animal database that includes location and date, scientists can use the data to gain all sorts of knowledge about what lives where, what time of year it’s around, etc. Since non-professional scientists like us are helping out, they call it “Citizen Science” (search that term for lots of projects you can join).
I’m sure the plethora of data the app can generate will be a boon for researchers, but for parents of junior scientists, it offers a great way to get exercise while stimulating curiousity. With my girls, I call it “Real Life Pokemon Go”. Whenever we’re out and about, I have them keep there eyes open for interesting life. Usually they spot bugs and birds, but sometimes we capture flowers that catch their eye. It’s a good tool to get them thinking like a scientist a little bit each day, and it doesn’t drain my phone battery as fast as Pokemon GO.
Sometimes though, you want to go big with a project. For that, we head out to one of the local hiking trails and do a nature scavenger hunt. We form teams with one kid, one parent, and one smart phone with the iNaturalist app per team. Then we set off and try to collect as many different plants and animals as we can by the end of the hike. Hikes often end with lunch or snack at a favorite restaurant, and waiting for food gives us a chance to compare notes.
A big part of doing science is gathering data. This app lets you become a field scientist as you gather gather gather data. Your kid may wonder what happens with all the data. When you first submit a picture (or three), you have a chance to identify the species. Don’t worry if you don’t know, however, because while there are a lot of folks out gathering data, there are also folks working to identify all of the submitted observations. For you and your kids, that means that usually within a few days, someone will have suggested the proper species name. When you open your app, you can find out what it was you saw. We’ve learned a lot about what lives in our neighborhood that way.
Check it out, and when you submit observations, be sure to add them to the Science With Your Kid project. How many different species can we observe? Check the project link to find out.
One of the primary ways to turn your kids onto science is to train them to think like a scientist. You want them to try something, then make a little change and then try it again and notice the difference. By the way, the same is true for engineering.
Take paper airplanes for example. You make one, throw it, and see how it flies. Does it go flat and level? Does it turn? Does it rise, then stall, and then nose dive? Now refold it with different sized wings or bend the wingtips up or down. How does it fly now?
Be sure to only change one thing at a time, that way you can build up and understanding about cause and effect. Adding weight to the nose does this. Throwing it hard does that.
Here’s a short video showing a paper airplane design that isn’t too hard to fold, but which flies really well. I also show some of the things you and your kid can change during your tests.
