What Can 4-yr-olds Understand About Science?

dr.karl.b asks: "My 3 and a half year old son is in Kindergarten. Here in Germany that includes 3 to 6 year olds. He is supposed to explain what his parents' occupations are. I am a scientist, and despite all the advice I have received saying he can't understand what I do, I am determined to try. I study self-motion perception, from basic-science vestibular processing to the role of real-motion cues in flight simulation. We have several cool labs in my institute, like robot-arm motion simulators and full-immersion virtual reality set-ups. We can easily compete with amusement parks for wow-factor, but I have 2 questions: How can I explain my work to my son? How can I invite his class (3-6 yr olds) to our institute to have them learn AND have fun, rather than ONLY have fun?"

4 year olds and science

[grub]

What Can 4-yr-olds Understand About Science?

They can understand that 6000 years ago a superbeing created the universe and all things within. That dinosaurs lived on Noah's ark and that... oh wait, you're in Germany. Forget all that, you can teach your son actual facts!

Hell,

[Anonymous Coward]

I can barely understand what it is you do.

Well...

[0racle]

Given what most adults and High School graduates currently seem to understand about Science, nothing.

Re:4-year-olds don't understand

[markov_chain]

My dad is a jet propulsion scientist. When I was 4, he had a hard time explaining what he did until he showed me the Navier-Stokes equation. Then I was enlightened :)

Re:I'm guessing not much

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to check AC, too. =)

Re:4-year-olds don't understand

[Timesprout]

I beg to differ. At age 4, I was quite capable of understanding concepts such as memory, sentence structure, and scientific method.

Perhaps because it's a well known fact that Mooses develop faster than humans.

Re:Anything Non-Numeric, with Patience

[mattpointblank]

She understands quite a bit conceptually - how our bodies work (most organs, muscles, bones, red vs. white blood cells), how the Moon was created, what the atmosphere is like on Venus, why we see the moon in different phases (use balls and flashlights!), why the sky is blue, how trees reproduce, why magnets attract (as much as I do anyway...), why balloons go up, why pancakes rise, and lots more.

I'm starting to worry here that your daughter understands more than me.

Re:First, lose all the jargon

[asninn]

Hey, this is German we're talking about. "Monosyllabic German" is a contradiction in terms. :)

Dear Little Hans

[hey!]

Your father's job is proving what other people think is wrong.

It is a hard job and very few people can do it. Fortunately, those can do it probably could do few other jobs.

Sinerely

Slashdot Reader

Re:4 year olds and science

[adisakp]

Son... this is the honest truth about the universe:

The universe was created by an all-powerful all-knowing being who came down to us in the form of a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father who can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

Your little friends might laugh at you when you tell them, but trust me... pretty much all us grown-ups actually believe this is true.

Re:Kids are BORN scientists....

[kestasjk]

That must be why kids never sit down to watch TV until you explain exactly how TVs work, and why they treat santa claus, the easter bunny and monsters under the bed with such skepticism.

The other day I did the pull-off-my-thumb magic trick to a cute four year old girl, she coldly said "what the hell kind of idiot do you take me for? I've got a trick for ya:" And then she flipped me off and walked away! These toddlers have such an incisive sense of skeptical intuition.