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Question: How can I help my daughter love science? and be motivated to study it?
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anon answered on 24 Apr 2018:
How old is your daughter? There is a series of books including “Ada Twist, Scientist”, “Iggy Peck, Architect” and “Rosie Revere, Engineer” that you might find useful. They are stories for children (around age 5-8 years) that are focused on a character that has a dream of becoming a scientist, engineer etc. They are great to read through with children and are designed to inspire them to be curious about science – I bought them for my 7-year old niece and she loves them! There is also an activity book as well now I think.
In my own experience, I would suggest drawing your child’s attention to the creative aspects of science. Scientists are constantly predicting and testing hypotheses, which can often lead to failures and having to work out how to fix it. This is a really creative process and a fun part of science – often when children don’t like science it may be because the scientific terms and concepts are difficult to understand and connect with what they can see in an experiment. So highlighting the fun parts of science – making experiments and working out how things work – may help them see science from a different perspective.
In terms of the research, there are various studies that have shown motivation can have a powerful influence on learning. I’ve come across a short article that neatly summarises how we can motivate children to be interested in learning science ( see link here: http://www.ngspscience.com/profdev/monographs/SCL22-0419A_SCI_AM_Butler_lores.pdf)
Here is a brief summary of the main suggestions:
– Making the science real – this involves encouraging children to explore science in the real word. For example, exploring an urban community and considering the transportation options and how this might affect pollution. Or exploring a rural environment and inspecting the local wildlife and/or agricultural systems.
– Making the science relevant – what is relevant to a 6-year old compared to a 10-year old when explaining science ideas may be very different. So focusing on a child’s natural inquisitiveness and teaching them how to mould that into investigable questions will make science relevant to their own questions about the world.
– Making the science rigorous – it is important for children to learn that science is rigorous in order for them to be able to understand concepts. Its suggested here that encouraging children to write or draw/sketch the concepts will help ground understanding, and this will allow them to keep learning and move onto more complex concepts.Hope that is helpful! Let me know if you have any follow up questions.
Comments
Victoria commented on :
Hi Mahabd,
I love this question as I have a three year old and am determined for her to grow up understanding the importance of evidence and learning through exploration! I’m always amazed by how many inspirational ideas there are out there, the Royal Institute have some great activities http://www.rigb.org/families/experimental?gclid=CjwKCAjwq_vWBRACEiwAEReprPngYaHXdas2C-z3oErUHVcNWbLlILgoSlcTgj5yteMsAPbiJ8PoxBoCRMgQAvD_BwE they’re quite formal though. Really I think the key to making sure kids are enthusiastic about science is by letting them see that you are. I don’t mean talking excitedly about equations at dinner, but rather always asking why things work, how they work, what you can see and hear and feel to learn about an object or figuring out small logic problems- how can you tell what sort of metal something is, or how best to build a bonfire.
Also, CBeebies have a new show called Bitz and Bob- it’s all about a little girl who solves problems with engineering, and it’s pretty great!
Yvonne commented on :
This is a great question and I think the previous responses have some excellent ideas. Another suggestion I have from my own research is that often people think that some people have a ‘maths brain’ or that some people have a ‘gift’ for science. This can then lead to a negative situation where success in science is seen as being more about your abilities than your efforts and techniques. In addition, these abilities are often associated more with boys than girls and this can put girls off. In our research we found that by giving feedback that focuses more on what your daughter does to learn and experiment and create rather than her being ‘good at science’ can help with this.
Also lots of girls choose their careers based on an interest in helping others, therefore often showing the real world impact of science can be a good way to encourage girls to get involved.