Science Documentaries for Youngsters? 383
An anonymous reader writes "My 7-year-old daughter is asking some interesting questions, such as, 'How did everything get created?' I've explained, in general terms, our family's non-religious views on the subject of creation and the Big Bang. I'd like to find some documentary videos geared to this age level that may explain better these concepts and theories. I've found a few PBS specials online - Stephen Hawking stuff - but they seem to be geared for young adults and older. Does anyone have recommended titles that might be better geared to children of this age bracket?"
Any series by Albert Barillé (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure, some are a bit outdated and a bit wrong here or there,
but all in all, they're the best for kids that age.
Magazines and the Public Library (Score:3, Interesting)
Slightly OT: "Parenting Beyond Belief" (Score:1, Interesting)
Kids can handle it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Beginnings. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's worth a big damn.
Observe your daugher carefully (Score:5, Interesting)
By far the biggest screwup of modern western education - with huge, seemingly unrelated consequences for society - is that it treats kids under teenage and even teenagers far to much like intellectually fully developed grown-ups. Appealing to pure reason and logic in a 7-year old does more damage than good, with consequences that show up far later in life (lack of will and motivation, concentration problems, undeveloped social skills, restlessness, etc. - we geek kids of the 80ties know all this). If here questions are of the usual nature (her *praticing* the process of questioning!) then see it as a game and follow along, even if it turns into seemingly strange circular Q&A sessions. Ask her repeating questions in return yourself - she's praticing the act of questioning, the subject hardly matters ("Where do you live?" and a few other related questions repeatadly asked and answered, is a classic for this sort of thing). You'll actually notice that this questioning goes away after a while and comes back during the teenages if it was dealt with appropriately at younger age.
The first specs of true scientific interest come at the age of about 9. And then a trip to the library or the zoo or a science park and you sticking to personal and live explainations (that needant be all that scientifically detailed) of real phenomenon (weather, "Where do rivers come from?" "How can a car drive?", etc.) are all she needs. And don't worry - if you give her the right kind of education at the right time, she'll be a bright kid all by herself when her intellect and her strength for own reasoning fully awakes. Usually at the age of adolescence - as parents all around the world know very well. In fact, her reasoning will be far more healthy and her own if she doesn't get intellectually challenged to early in life. And it will be supported by a healthy own will, if she has the correct treatment as a child to look back on. There are other things children need to develop before they can develop a healthym intellectual reasoning. It's for that exact reason that the question "What would you like?" often is totally misplaced towards a toddler or small child.
And FYI: Yes, that is an essential conclusion of waldorf education. An educational methodology sometimes considered heretic by other educational trends. I've found it to be spot on. Make you own experiences, but do your and your sibling a favour and don't burry your kid in all kinds of media to early before you know what's really going on.
My 2 cents as a father of a 10 year old daughter.
Check out "A Cartoon History of the Universe" (Score:3, Interesting)
This combines basic cosmology (a bit dated now), some palentology, and mainly history or the world. One does need a pretty good vocabulary to handle it, but it's good.
Most of it originally came out as comic books (black & white only), but it's been rebound into some fairly thick books. (If you want, at the end of each section there's a bibliography of his sources, so you can check him for accuracy.)
Re:Wikipedia lessons for kids (Score:3, Interesting)
WP should not be used as source material. That does not make it useless. The same is true for any encyclopedia.
WP is an excellent resource for several things. It provides a good overview of a subject. Often, if you're only somewhat knowledgeable on a subject, it can fill in some gaps in ways that are obviously not horribly wrong. For example, I've learned a lot of math on WP -- I can follow the derivations, and see their correctness independent of any other source, but I couldn't produce them on my own. This is, obviously, a limited case -- especially for a kid.
The best thing to use WP for, once you have a high-level grasp of a topic, is its bibliography. Nearly all articles contain at least a couple references; some contain quite extensive bibliographies. These are useful places to start your research. Need some data on global warming? I wouldn't get it from WP, but I would happily go to the WP page, find what appeared to be the data I wanted, find the citation for it, and then go read the referenced material.
Avoid TV, go for discussion and books (Score:5, Interesting)
As parent says, get the kid interested in books and magazines. Take them to public lectures. These are all typically higher quality than TV/video. Read up yourself and do some of that quality time stuff.
I'm a homeschooling parent and spend a lot of time having discussions on a wide variety of subjects with the kids. Sure, this is a bit more effort (I have to read up on stuff I don't know about), but that gives you a second chance at an interesting education too.
... And don't give me that "I don't have the time" BS. It does not take a lot of effort to read up on stuff, instead of watching crap on TV. If you don't have the time to interact with kids, get yourself sterilized.
Re:Think of the children! (Score:3, Interesting)
NO! The problem with doing this is that without very good guidance from her parents, she is almost certainly not mature enough to weed out "snake oil salesmen", of which many religions are far too rife with.
If you read some of my previous posts, you may find that I am quite staunchly atheist (I actually strongly believe religion to be a harmful mental delusion), but putting that aside, let's try a little thought experiment. Can you imagine a strongly Christian person accepting their daughter being exposed to Islamic religious texts and discussions on a "fair and equal level" to Christian philosophies? I think not! There would be too much fear about the child being "indoctrinated" in to that religion under "false pretences". In the same way, I put to you that the vast majority of religions will attempt to "indoctrinate" in this manner, and it is not responsible parenting to allow the impressionable mind of a child to be exposed to this without some kind of guidance.
Now, if you're a strongly Christian family, you would probably want that "guidance" to be towards Christianity, however one day when I have the great joy of becoming a parent, I will "guide" my children towards science, logic and reason. I will go so far even as to point out my views on religion and if they get it in to their heads that there's a great mystical man in the sky, I'll happily debate with them to change their minds (as I will with ANYONE who brings it up and is open to discussion, whether they're related to me or not).
Actually... (Score:2, Interesting)
From what I understand, to explain things to her in terms of how things were created is still based on Judeo-Christian religion (in a sociological or historical sense). I've been listening to these lectures by Alan Watts on iTunes, and according to him, the West's view of the universe as an artifact (something that was created) is rooted in Judeo-Christian religion (the creator who created the creation). There's a long and involved explanation for that, but I don't recall it (nor do I wish to type it). The Hindus view it as a drama that is acted out, and Asian cultures (at least some of them) view it as an organism. So, to give an example that Watts uses, while it's very natural for your daughter to ask "How was everything created?" (given the culture she is growing up in), that would be a very strange question coming from a Chinese child. It would be much more normal for the Chinese child to ask "How did everything grow?"
Just food for thought. I think it's very interesting.
Re:Symmetry (Score:3, Interesting)
Seventh-graders have demonstrated that you are completely and utterly wrong [fnal.gov] .