What Can 4-yr-olds Understand About Science? 192
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 (Score:3, Funny)
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!
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And that is why pub-ed has degenerated (Score:2)
>> I have no idea what goes on in high schools today.
You should be ashamed.
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You should be ashamed.
Why?
Really. Was that a measured, reasoned, rational response, or just some kneejerk crap?
If GFP has no children and will never have children, why would the state of high schools mean jack crap to him? Maybe they're solely burdens on his tax-paying butt, in which case their mere existence is more than he needs to know about them.
If it's of no personal consequence, shame is not indicated. Altruism isn't altruistic unless it's truly voluntary.
Put your glasses on (Score:2)
Think having a bunch of illiterate hoodlums running around doesn't have a negative impact on a childless member of society? Think some more, you might eventually get the correct answer.
Altruism is not required. For entirely selfish reasons I want good schools, attentive responsible parents, and my tax dollars well spent rather than wasted.
Re:4 year olds and science (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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The catholics say it's not symbolic, but that you are actually eating his flesh. It turns into his flesh and blood literally.
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Preacher: Yes.
Peter Griffin: Wow, that guy must've been wasted 24 hours a day, huh?
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Re:4 year olds and science (Score:4, Informative)
Let us pray to the All-mighty God, creator of the Universe, who came down to us Himself in the form His son Jesus Christ - He who was reborn from the dead, risen so that He may cleanse us of our sins and grant us eternal life. By eating the bread that is the body of Jesus and drinking the wine that is His blood, we pray to Jesus to accept Him as our Savior, whom we worship and none other. We pray that He remove our sins, both those we have committed ourselves and the original sin Of Adam and Eve with which we were born.
I'd say the two are presenting the identical facts, albeit using slightly different terminology and phrasing... and heck, you might actually hear the second one in a church on any given Sunday.
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I wouldn't assume from the GP that the poster is irritated, rather amused. I know I'm amused. Was that representation of christianity inaccurate?
Perhaps when you see the basics of a religion put like that, you might start to see why some of us believe religion has no place in government.
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I'm not making fun of religon, I'm making fun of those who would pollute science with their superstition in an attempt at creating a theocracy.
The whole idea that no religion == no morality is crap. Morality is ingrained in us as a social animal, the loner of the tribe wouldn't have likely had survived long enough to reproduce. There are countless books that touch on the subject (ie.: The Moral Animal, Breaking the Spell, etc.) The "Let the children decide after exposure to both" is an absolute cop out fro
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> they need something to believe in
> I'd rather them not grow up to be a douchebag that makes fun of religion.
Instead of a douchebag who gets upset and throws a hissyfit because some other guy is a douchebag. Then claiming that douchebag is representative of "the opposition."
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> with no girlfriend or wife, so therefore you just hate everything and lead yourself to believe that it's by your own choice that it happens
I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. If I had no wife/GF, you are saying I should blame everyone else? That I'm powerless over my life? Thanks for justifying any terrible act anyone in the
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> But if you make sure they are not exposed to anything that offends your religious sensibilities
then they will not be able to do that.
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And I'm fairly sure that right now, you are thinking "man, this guy's an asshole!" But...
> there has to be some reason to go on when times get hard, ya know?
the lack of religion does not indicate IN ANY WAY the lack of hope. Even if I know I'm going to die and just rot in the ground (as opposed to dancing on golden streets in
Hell, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hell ... self-motion perception (Score:3, Informative)
>>> "... self-motion perception, from basic-science vestibular processing to the role of real-motion cues in flight simulation".
So basically he tries to work out "am I moving, am I dizzy, can I see".
I figure he's a professional drunk.
>>> "We can easily compete with amusement parks"
The queue for the water cooler must be horrendous.
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Me too, and I am nearly five.
Re:Don't forget the Left Brain (Score:5, Insightful)
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Applied math is great, but saying science is a sub-specialty of applied math is like saying music is a subfield of math, painting is a subfield of chemistry, or writing is a subfield of computer science because everyone uses word processors nowadays.
Science is an approach to finding out about the world. Math helps with that tremendously, but lots of scientists have done great work which didn't involve significant math--Galileo and Darwin among them.
As to the original question--practice explaining w
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Fick's first law is about as simple as diffusion gets, and it requires an understanding of derivatives (which I would clasify as simple calculus).
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Well... (Score:3, Funny)
Kids are BORN scientists.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Until they hit 5 or 6, at which time pop culture, peer pressure, and the public school system start working together to stomp the spark of interest wight out of most of them....
Re:Kids are BORN scientists.... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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German guy: you really screwed up by asking such a question on Slashdot. Most of the readers here are American (makes sense since it's an English-language site), and the rest of the world should know by now that we Americans know absolutely nothing about science, and most of us believe the earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaur fossils are fakes placed there by God to test our fa
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Concrete examples (Score:5, Informative)
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I say, keep the words small, the concepts basic, and accept that maybe a few of the kids will remember and learn something from the memory when they're older.
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Pennies & light sockets (Score:2)
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</evil>
4-year-olds don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up (Score:2)
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Re:4-year-olds don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me stress (again) that this doesn't mean you can't teach children of that age valuable lessons about science, it just means you have to be careful with your goals. You can lecture the kids on the scientific method, and they'll repeat it back to you beautifully (kids of that age are incredible sponges for information), but that won't mean they'll understand it. I think you'll hve greater impact by playing to their understanding than their remarkable ability to absorb facts. Teaching them that there is more to the world than what their senses tell them, by demonstrating to them (via nice practical demonstrations that they can take part in) that their senses can be easily fooled, is a very valuable lesson. If that goes well you can cover more.
By all means don't underestimate kids, but overestimating their understanding will be at least as bad. At that age (and with the sort of time frame we're talking about) it is far better to give them questions that they can think about and explore themselves than answers which they may or may not understand.
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Creativity (Score:2)
It would help if you prepared some funny examples of hair-brained failures that eventually led to workable concepts... something like the (now) comical early attempts at flying vehicles that helped refine the field and lead to the first viable
Anything Non-Numeric, with Patience (Score:5, Interesting)
But, she's just learning basic addition and subtraction now, so I'm not even bothering with conceptual models of chemistry, physics, etc. I also don't think she gets how far it is to her grandmother's house, much less what a light-year is.
These are a few guidelines I find useful:
Because of the building-blocks nature of science, I'm not sure how much you can teach to an entire group of kids who may be at square-1, but you can start with square 1. Maybe make them aware of their physical presence. Have them notice that they feel something when you flip them over. Play a movie for them with lots of motion while they're standing up and have them notice that they sway side-to-side.
Perhaps the greatest realization is that those first basic concepts are just as important as understanding the curvature of space in a warped fifth-dimension string theory, because you can't get anywhere without any of the underlying layers. And the sooner you start, while the brain is making connections like mad, the better off they're going to be later in life.
Oh, and make it fun. Science is a kick.
Re:Anything Non-Numeric, with Patience (Score:4, Funny)
I'm starting to worry here that your daughter understands more than me.
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be careful (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem arising from that is a very high psychological stress the kid must cope with. High expectations from their parents cause headaches and other health problems, especially when a kid fails at some task. Give a kid free time.
In fact at that age all kid's time must be a free time. Your job is to find a method to put fun into a learning. Small kids decide what they want to do with their free time only directed by their enthusiasm at some activity. When you find yourself trying to convince him to do something you have already failed. You can only show your own enthusiasm, and show how fun it is. It's in fact easy to convince a kid when you are enthusiastic yourself (which is not frequent with teachers who are bored with their job). But when you see that the kid loses an interest you must immediatly stop.
And expect nothing! If you will expect that the kid will be successfull at anything you will only increase the stress level.
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I'm Norwegian, and I've travelled a fair bit, and my experience is that 'utterly insane parents with ridicilous expactations' are a largely American phenomena (and interestingly enough, the Swizz too). Here in Norway we do have some failed soccer-players wanting their sons to be the best, but what comes off here as utterly insane seems mainstream over at your side o
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Either way, soccer has very little to do with physical size, and alot to do with technique, balance and how well you read/understand the play. As far as depth goes, it's the most complicated sport I've ever played (complicated as in doing it, not complicated as in the manager does decisions, or you have to remember xxx formations).
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While conceptually you are correct, reality gets in the way. So for example being ab
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Well, I'm just plainly not going to believe that untill I see a source.. and even if it is correct, I'd still be vary of drawing conclusions from it, English football is rather savage compared to just about everybody else.
Either way, schools don't have football teams.
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This sounds exactly like my memories of kindergarten.
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Oddly enough he is very good at giving the impression of understanding without actually understanding at all.
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My son is 3 1/2, he is fluent in French, English and understands some Dutch. He has gone swimming once a
week for the last 2 years and loves it - he make us take him extra times on the weekend or Friday
night as well.
We don't take up much of his free time at all. We have
If I recall correctly... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't expect them to learn much from a field trip. The best you can hope for is that some of them will say "wow, this stuff is cool" and might pursue it later in life.
IMO, hype up all the cool 'fun' stuff now, because that will stick in their minds. Then, in a few years, try to have another field trip when they'll be able to understand more about what they're seeing.
If you really want to figure out an educational plan, take the teacher(s) on a tour first & ask them to help you relate it to the kids.
P.S. The comprehension abilities between a 3 yr old and a 6 yr old are wildly different.
I'm guessing not much (Score:2, Informative)
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First, lose all the jargon (Score:5, Interesting)
For a small child, they'll be able to understand that they know when they are moving, and in what direction, and they might even be able to tell you how they [think] they know that. If you have models of the canals in the inner ear, (I'm imagining tubes filled with coloured dye) you can provide an excellent demonstration that they should easily understand.
(BTW, I agree with Janek Kozicki's comment on high expections. While I was able to understand fairly advanced concepts at a young age, it wasn't because I was under pressure. My environment simply encouraged it; one family friend was a physics professor, another let me help out at the local natural history museum, etc.)
Re:First, lose all the jargon (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you can't translate it into words of one syllable, you probably don't really understand it yourself. :-)
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"I make pict--"
"I draw on the Compu--"
"I make stuff for the screen in your room which is bright and shows films which you watch. I put the stuff in the frame on top of each other with math. I make the fake stuff look real and not stand out from the rest of the real stuff in the frame." *Blank stare*
"I make cool spaceship battles like in star wars." *whheeeeee!*
Let's not forget "Gameboy" is two syllables. Computer is three syllables. Mac is one. Which is a 5 year old more lik
Wouldn't work in germany (Score:2)
We don't say "car", for example, we say, "Personenkraftwagen" (basically, "powered wagon for persons") or abbreviate it to PKW. But even if you abbreviate it, "Pe-Ka-Ve", is already 3 syllables. Buggerit. You can't explain cars in one syllable words down
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Vygotsky and others have th
Display, Involve, then Explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi kids! I'm a scientist, and I get to help figure out why people don't just fall over. Everybody stand up. Now, stand on one foot! Good -- Your muscles help keep you up, but why don't you fall? That's part of what I work on. OK, sit down, and I need a volunteer...
I study self-motion perception, from basic-science vestibular processing to the role of real-motion cues in flight simulation.
Ok volunteer -- have you ever caught a ball? Well, step back a little bit, and try this (tosses brightly colored sponge). You caught it! Toss it back, go a little further, and I'll try again. (Tosses sponge again) Great! Now -- just how did you know to do that? One time you were close, then you were far away! What happened to make it work? That is part of what I study too!
Who wants to pretend they're a tree? Stand up and hold out your arm! Wave arm with flappy winged bird doll. (Talk about flying birds coming in for a landing and not hitting the branch, or smacking into the tree.) Airplane pilots have to land their planes too, and not hit the ground too hard. I help figure out better ways to make that happen.
Visual stimulation and silly setups lead into simple explanations that kids can understand because they were entertained and their curiosity aroused. If they're giggling, they're able to learn becaue they're paying attention!
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A couple of examples (Score:2)
On the other hand, in some ways you have it easy: I have tried to explain to my kid that his dad is a Geschaeftsfuehrer...he cannot understand. Finally I gave up and told him I dig up the road and he seemed to find t
Kids are honest (Score:2)
It depends on the science subject. (Score:2)
Of course - they are better off learning concrete science than they are of abstract concepts, since abstract concepts almost always requires good understanding of the written word and mathematics.
Any 4-year old should be able to grasp the use of a hammer and a crowbar, even if that may cause some interesting (or annoying) results.
How much did you grasp at that age? (Score:2)
It's all about fun (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew from an early age that I would not be happy doing anything else but using my brain for a living. Despite a momentary lapse in sanity and earning a Bachelor's in Philosophy, I am now working full time as a network engineer while I spend my nights working toward a Computer Science degree. People don't know where I get the energy to spend my evenings after a long day at work doing mathematics and programming, but I say this-- if you had had the opportunity to look through a periscope that your own father had built, or help your father set up a helium-neon laser in front of the rest of the Cub Scout troop, or any of the other countless cool things I was able to do because of science-- you'd have no end of enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge either.
Just take your kids to work. Build rockets. Build anything with them, really. Anything but science or engineering simply will not be an option for their fervid minds.
your job description in 4-year-old's terms (Score:5, Insightful)
As for your job in particular, it sounds like you figure out how people can tell whether they're upside down, and whether you can trick them into thinking they are. Tell the kids you tried putting upside-down photos in front of people and that didn't fool them, so you're trying to figure out what would do it. See what they say about that. (Hint: every suggestion they give, no matter how ineffective you know it'll be... will be brilliant. Because as far as they know, no one's ever tried it, and they came up with it out of nothing but their own imagination.)
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Some good ideas so far (Score:2)
1) that a scientist is a person who tries to figure things out. They are into figuring out problems.
2) There are different kids of scientists.
3) These Scientists are interested in different kinds of things
4) Your interest is in how and why people feel things, such as hot cold dizzy, etc. You can use the ten dollar words, just explain them really clearly.
5) Show and Explain a cool but simple magic trick showing on how you trick people. Explain the trick so
Things 4 year-old boys can understand (Score:3, Insightful)
2: Loud explosions
3: Loud explosions that make bright flashes
4: Loud explosions that make bright flashes and make their sister scream
5: Hot Wheels
6: Very loud explosions
It's all about motivation. Sell your kids on the possibility of making stuff happen, and when they grow up they'll do whatever it takes to understand how to make stuff happen. The trouble with most science teaching is that it's just too abstract. 4 year-olds are not good at abstract, and, actually, much the same is true of the rest of us.
Cut out the abstract, put in the concrete (Score:2)
Forget anything abstract. Forget presentations, sheets of paper, drawings, schematics, and especially forget any kind of writing or numbers. Kids of that age are very tactile, give them something to touch and to "play"
What definitely works (Score:2)
When we had red cabbage for dinner, he always asked my mom to save some of the boiling water- then would show how vinegar woul
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Math (Score:2, Interesting)
I would bet that most 4yos understand the scientific method, even if they couldn't explain it. My daughter is 2 years 7 months and I can see the wheels turning in her mind. She has delaying her bed time down to a science. She has learned thru trial and error that being fussy at night results in her being put in bed. So she is e
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Dear Little Hans (Score:3, Funny)
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
Lots of things (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Hiking - you can talk about biology, geological processes, etc.
3) Visit the local zoo - discuss different animal species.
4) A trip to the local airport, or (better yet) - an air and space museum.
5) Legos and other 'construction' toys.
6) Toy plastic dinosaurs and (if available) a visit to a natural history museum.
7) Read bed time stories about science and exploration.
8) Computer games and simulatation.
9) Visit a planetarium or an observatory that has an open house.
10) Enroll the kid in martial arts, so later when other kids call them a nerd, they can kick their ass.
Summary (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, let him have a normal life... (Score:3, Informative)
scientists answer questions (Score:2)
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Oh, and it has no plural form either.
What Can 4-yr-olds Understand About Science? (Score:2, Insightful)
"I learn, then I teach." (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what science is.
I dealt with this situation last week. (Score:5, Interesting)
The 6 year old then said "But our Dad's a scientist". The youngest then said "So you mix things together to make explosions then Dad?"
I said "Some Scientists do that, but I don't. But all scientists ask questions, measure or count things, and then write about it".
"Oh" he said. "so what do you do then?"
"It's like this - see how the road is a bit slippery?" - it had just rained that morning. "I start by having an idea that might explain why the road is slippery. Maybe there's lots of tiny little slimy fish on a wet road, and that makes it slippery". He had been amazed by how slippery fish are just the week before.
"That's silly Dad!" he retorted.
"Well, let's see if we can find a way to check if that's why the road is slippery. What do cats do when there's a fish lying on the ground?"
"They lick it" He said. suddenly looking very serious.
"Is our cat licking the fish on the road? What about the cats that live in both houses next to ours?"
He looked about. "No, I don't see any cats"
"So if we counted the number of cats licking little tiny fish so small we can't see them we'd get the number zero."
"Yes" he said.
"And we all agree that if there were tiny slimy fish lying on the road making it slippery there would be at least one of the 3 cats licking them?"
"Yes" he said.
"So is it likely there are tiny slimy fish on the road making it slippery?"
"No, there are no cats there".
"So we decide that the fish idea isn't right. A scientist will then get another idea about why the road is slippery, and he thinks up a way to measure or count something to see if it's a good idea. We keep on going until we get an idea that we can't prove is wrong. That's what all scientists do, no matter what sort of science they study"
He now has a fair understanding of the scientific method, and he knows that we have to measure (or count) things.
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Will be glad if four years olds know ... (Score:2)
What I say about "take your children to work day" (Score:2)
your son? (Score:2)
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Frat party? [douginadress.com]
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