Ask Slashdot: Teaching Chemistry To Home-Schooled Kids? 701
First time accepted submitter mikewilsonuk writes "I have a 10-year-old grandson who has shown an interest in chemistry. He is home educated and doesn't read as well as schooled kids of his age. He hasn't had much science education and no chemistry at all. None of his parents or grandparents have chemistry education beyond the school minimum and none feel confident about teaching it. My own memories of chemistry teaching in school are of disappointment, a shocking waste of everyone's time and extreme boredom. I think there must be a better way. Can anyone suggest an approach that won't ruin a child's interest?"
A book so good it was banned! (Score:5, Informative)
A good place to start is "The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments" by Robert Brent. Some of the material is a bit dated but the overall presentation is great.
Maybe concentrate on reading. (Score:5, Informative)
Via these magazines he can learn to read AND learn science at the same time:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/ [clarkesworldmagazine.com]
http://www.astronomy.com/ [astronomy.com]
http://www.sciencenews.com/ [sciencenews.com]
AND audio/video courses on chemistry (a lot of this stuff you can download for free off isohunt.com) http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/search/search.aspx?searchphrase=chemistry [thegreatcourses.com]
General CHemistry (Score:0, Informative)
A good chemistry book you can buy is General Chemistry from Linus Pauling.
I suggest you read it and try to teach him what you learn, or just give him the book and tell him that if he read it he will know chemistry.
Not boring... (Score:0, Informative)
Thermite [wikipedia.org] and one-pot reactions of silver [unl.edu]. Mature adult supervision required for either.
Parents care, school systems don't (Score:4, Informative)
Re:i have an idea (Score:3, Informative)
As long as you don't make the mistake of living outside one of the civilized zones, you can actually see results pretty similar to the wealthy bits of Europe and even parts of Asia. Certain other states, by consistently achieving results that make you wonder if they are actually telecommuting from some hellish African warzone, really drag us down...
We home shcool: Youtube/Google/Amazon, or co-op (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This (Score:2, Informative)
you will at glass etching companies though ;)
Start simple (Score:5, Informative)
Explain basic reactions. Don't get into Moles, or math.
Give him the tools, get him to ask question and experiment.
When something happen and he want to know why, don't tell him. Show him how to find out. My kids are quite internet savey because often when they wan to know something, I'll find a good page, and read it with them. You're not lecturing, they are digging. I never said 'just cause' to my kids. when they wen through their Why phase I answered everything as accurate as reasonable, and if I didn't know, we looked it up. Every time I hear parent create a disengenious answer I cringe a little. ITwill be so hard to gte that piece of bad information out of their head.
If he is into something, have a goal related to that that can be solved with what you want to teach, in this case chemistry, then do that.
For example, maybe he is into trains. Well, what chemicals can you get to have him experiment with to make smoke?
Volcanoes? well , that's an easy one.
When he figures something out, but wan'ts it to be better, then introduce to some more complex chemistry ideas.
If you want to impress him, make some elephant toothpaste. Get your supplies from a chemistry supply place.
Mentos at soda is another great way to get them to ask question.
OTOH, if his homeschooling was done by lazy people, he may have had the why in him buried deep under a lie of belief. SO you need to gently get it back out.
Khan Academy (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.khanacademy.org/#chemistry [khanacademy.org]
Sounds to me like home schooling is letting the kid down a bit. I loved my public Chemistry / physics education... Making rockets, playing with Science Olympiad, Egg Drop contests. I remember on the first day in my High School chem class, the teacher demonstrated infra-red radiation and the speed of light by taking a bowl filled with soap water, and a propane tap, and creating (and then lighting on fire) propane bubbles. He pointed out that as soon as you saw the flash, you felt the heat, and then went into a lecture about wave radiation and the light spectrum.
You can probably do that with your own kid, but there is something to be said about the benefits of learning something from someone who is passionate about the material.
Video vice Reading, try Khan (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.khanacademy.org/#chemistry
Re:i have an idea (Score:5, Informative)
As a student of the US education system, I can personally attest to the problems of the public system. I didn't fail any of my classes, perfect attendance for years, and in my senior year I was told I would be there again next year. Turns out those 'qualified educators' scheduled and taught me classes, but not the ones needed to meet state requirements, my parents pulled me out and I finished that year in a private school taking independent study.
Now I have a 8 year old boy who seems fine to me in second grade, that is until the 4th nine weeks and 2 suspensions from school. One for eating his sandwich into the shape of a gun, then later that day making "finger guns", and going "pew pew" like boys do. They said he was threatening the school with violence. Two weeks before he was suspended for "not keeping his hands to himself" I asked the teacher and found out he was trying to play tag at recess.
I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance school policies.
FYI all of this occurred in the Florida, Treasure Coast area.
Hold on, you have something else to fix first ... (Score:4, Informative)
Before you ask, their mother (my sister) did not go to college, nor did she attend any secondary school. She didn't load up on extracurricular activities in school, and she didn't marry into an intellectual family. Her husband is an MBA, but he directs their learning far less than my sister. It's not impossible for a high school grad to learn how to do it right, but it's not easy to actually *do* it right. You have to be willing to let them go learn. Both children are far more outgoing with people of all ages and flavors than most adults I know. They are well spoken, polite, and fit well into almost any civilized conversation.
Get your grandson to read. That's critical at this point. Throw the chores out the window if you have to, let him skip church to read, let him read all night in bed (for now), but put something in his hand that will engross him. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Artemis Fowl, *anything* by Rick Riordon, just get that kid reading something besides the bible. Now is NOT the time to censor his reading, it's time to let it go. All the books mentioned above are great for pre-teens and young adults, though perhaps the Hunger Games could wait a year or so.
And mark my words, if religious censorship is the reason he hasn't read these books already, then I'm guessing chemistry is not going to be a good choice anyway. Too much science, not enough faith.
Home schooled children don't have to be idiot god-botherers, and they don't have to be idiot hippies. They can be very intelligent, creative, and amazing. But only if their parents *LET* them. Don't direct their learning, EMPOWER it. There's a big difference.
Re:This will fix your life. (Score:2, Informative)
from building a mini fire extinguisher to writing with invisible ink.
That's nice, but we're talking about chemistry.
Re:A book so good it was banned! (Score:5, Informative)
There's a link to a Free Download of this book here:
http://chemistry.about.com/b/2011/11/02/download-the-golden-book-of-chemistry-experiments.htm
Re:Saddened :( (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't shock me at all, since the statement "half of all children that attend school perform below average" is THE DEFINITION OF AVERAGE. I'll even bet you that the other half of all school children perform above average. Ever seen a bell curve??
I agree with the GP, if you're school sucks in your area, do something about it! Saying "our nation's schools are horrible, let's all homeschool or send everyone to private schools" only moves the problem around and shits on all of the good work that public school teachers have been doing for decades (my mother retired from teaching your kids after 40 years). There are definitely real problems in public education, but scrapping the system completely and starting over is not a solution, nor is bleeding it dry financially and "standardized testing" our kids into little Scantron-bubbling morons.
KEEP HIS INTEREST ALIVE? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, you can teach him to make things that blow-up and things that burn through counter-tops. Thatt ought to maintain the attention and interest of a ten-year-old boy, for many years to come!
Seriously, try Aurora Lipper's site. She produces age-level appropriate, experimental science education for home schoooling and kid's programmes.
http://www.superchargedscience.com/ [superchargedscience.com]
Science teachers, in underfunded districts use this, too.
Re:Why isn't he in school? (Score:4, Informative)
Being a scientist generally doesn't pay well (either here in the USA or in the UK, where the submitter is). You probably get paid more being a chemistry teacher.
Chemical engineering, OTOH, is totally different.
Re:Parents care, school systems don't (Score:4, Informative)
Creationists don't want to "dumb down" science classes. They want to smarten them up by presenting scientific challenges to current ideas that are held for mostly political/ideological reasons
Not according to the creationists [wikipedia.org]:
According to the Discovery Institute's own internal strategy documents the goal is to defeat science because they think science makes people evil.