Formula for interest in science is activity-based

How do you teach science to young children? Your answer to this question probably depends on how you view science. If you think of science as a collection of facts, then the way to teach it is to simply impart those facts on to the next generation. This way, you can tell beautiful stories about the burning of stars in distant galaxies and about the burning of energy within living cells. These are exciting and interesting, but what is completely lacking is any understanding of the process of figuring these things out.

To most scientists it is not the facts that are precious, but the method. If an experiment done well contradicts what was previously considered to be true, then we update our opinion on how things work. TH Huxley described this as "the great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact".

Science typically progresses not by a surprise discovery of something unimagined, but by gentle refinements to our current understanding.What makes science powerful – and fun – is that it is a process of experimenting, observing and figuring out.

These principles ("Play. Look. Ask.") are central to a new project called ExpeRimental from the Royal Institution in London that hopes to provide parents with pointers for exploring some accessible scientific principles with their young children. (rigb.org/experimental)

The Royal Institution has been at the forefront of science communication ever since it was founded in 1799. It is possibly most famous for the Christmas Lectures, established by Michael Faraday in 1825.

With ExpeRimental, science teacher, author and science communicator Alom Shaha has set out to bring his enthusiasm for science into the kitchens and living rooms of ordinary homes through a series of short films.

Dr Ruth Freeman of Science Foundation Ireland welcomed this initiative commenting: "The SFI Discover programme is always interested in new ways to demystify science for parents and the general public, and to encourage them to take a hands-on approach in their learning."

Shaha decided to do this project in response to the observation that many children are deprived of exposure to science at home because their families have no personal connection to science through their interests, jobs or qualifications. "Studies have shown that this lack of 'science capital' can have a detrimental effect on children's appreciation and understanding of science as they get older and we wanted to create a resource that would address this," he said.

For this reason, these videos are particularly aimed at encouraging those parents who might feel inhibited from giving it a go because they lack expertise in science. Just as you don't need to be an artist to encourage your children to play with paint and paper, anyone can get their children playing with scientific activities. "If we could get parents to take one idea away from ExpeRimental, it would be that they don't need specialist knowledge to engage their children with activities that are scientific in nature," Shaha says.

Shaha talks about the wide diversity of the projects. "There are lots of fun activities in the series of films, with some really interesting natural phenomena like the singing wine glasses or the 'lava lamp'." However, the emphasis is not on providing a set of instructions or lengthy explainers, but on engaging with the process.

As a science teacher himself, he has vast experience in what it is to teach science to school children. "Some of the fun of genuine scientific exploration and investigation is lost from science education after primary school and that's partly because there are tremendous pressures on teachers to get children to pass exams."

Thinking like engineers

These projects are out of the classroom and into the home using readily available materials. He is especially pleased with projects such as “Spaghetti Towers” which emphasise the problem-solving process over the finished product. “The delightful thing about this activity is that it really does give children the opportunity to think and act like scientists and engineers.”

Mary Mullaghy of the Irish Science Teachers’ Association also sees the value in these videos.

“The exposure to the scientific method will stand students in good stead when they progress to secondary school where inquiry-based science education is being encouraged,” she says.

This project isn’t aiming to persuade people to become scientists, but rather to give everyone the opportunity to appreciate what science really is. Rather than viewing science as a body of accumulated knowledge, it is better viewed as a human activity.

“Perhaps the project will go a small way towards making people feel that science is as much a part of their cultural heritage as music, art and literature,” Shaha says.

Spaghetti towers Jumping through hoops

Science educator Alom Shaha filmed me and my children as we attempted to make towers out of marshmallows and spaghetti – not exactly your standard building materials. The first attempts were pretty poor and collapsed as soon as we let go of them. Rather than a catastrophic failure, this was actually our first triumph because it led the children to ask themselves what they needed to do to stabilise the structure.

With a bit of playing around they discovered that adding diagonals to the cubes would do the trick. Then they spontaneously came up with the idea of building the tower in modules and piling them up after the fact, while also considering the properties of our building materials – long spaghetti breaks easily, but shorter spaghetti is more robust. This problem-solving and engagement with the project – as opposed to following a set of instructions – is at the very heart of ExpeRimental.

The philosophy here is that it’s not about instructions for children, it is guidelines for the adults. So, when building the spaghetti towers, I tried to stay as quiet as possible. I guided the process along with questions such as “How can we make this stronger?” but other than that let the children get on with it. They got a real thrill in figuring things out for themselves, and in the end we ate the leftover marshmallows.