science or any other core subject.....

[morethanpotatoprints]

Hello.

Just wanted to get a few views please.
Is it important to encourage dd in science, past the usual early primary topics.
She seems to be embracing subjects she wasn't so keen on at school such as art. She will do Maths and English as she knows these are important, but really doesn't enjoy them. I know she will be/ is the same about science and has shown no interest at all.
Would I be doing her a disservice if I didn't instil an importance to science like other core subjects, or does it really not matter.
It is the core subject that set me thinking, I'm sure it wouldn't matter with something like RE, PE, Geography etc.

How old?

Being a scientist, I'm rather biased, but yes, I do think you would be doing her a disservice to completely ignore Science. She must have some curiosity about how things work and, if she doesn't, then it's up to you to find a way to make it more interesting for her, with lots of hands on experimentation and observation. Plants and the parts of a flower can be easily combined with her art work, for example. If she has any interest in music, then that's a good vehicle for learning about sound.

Oh sorry, she is 9.

I mentioned it to her again today and she said its boring. So I asked if she was interested in doing experiments, seeing how things work etc.
"No its boring".
Now I'm not a lover of science, and neither is her dad. But would readily encourage and facilitate it for her, if it was the right thing to do.
I just feel that already she feels she has to do maths and english and that science would really need to be pushed, which seems wrong.

Ouryve.

Yes she loves music and also enjoys helping dh take saxophones to bits and rebuild. She will sit for hours helping him.
Can you suggest anything we could discuss or utilise around this maybe.
Many thanks.
Have only just thought of this

Dont call it science call it nature! And get outside! Lots to see at the minute. Just go outside and see what you can find. You can also combine with english. How about a nature walk diary? Look at the flowers and what what happens over minutes ( with insects visiting) discuss why this happens... Write about it at home. Then over the next few weeks as the flowers fade and change into seed pods/fruits. My kids have always liked collecting seeds and then scattering them in our garden. But you dont even need a garden just a window box tub outside. "Weeds" are especially good/easy think like poppy, ox eye dasies...these are in flower now! Look out on unkept verges. You can do reproduction, pollination, seed distribution... Could also draw what she sees! You can also get some plant/insect/bird/animal picture guides and tick off what she has seen.

Also in wet days call it cooking and make some food and discuss what we need the different types of food for (meat helps us grow, bread abd cerals give us energy etc..)..

Call it music and talk about how pitch etc can change, why do string on a guitar differ?

Call it star gazing and look at the stars etc..

Give her an ice lolly and as it melts talk about how things change with temperature (change of state), allow a small amount of water to boil away... Where does it go?

Science is really crucial but it is more than just learning facts or even doing "experiments".
Science is: cooking, riding a bike, looking at stars, animals, materials, mixing colours, nutrition, and so on.

If school has put her off "Science" I wouldn't bother with it as a formal subject, but encourage her to observe closely (watch ducks interacting on a pond or find how many different things you can find inside a hula hoop on the lawn or how leaves change as you go up a tree).

Then maybe in a few months you could go to a Science discovery centre or access the Royal Institute Christmas lectures (lots of years worth are on their website) or do some of the fun activities from the Institute of Physics. Also if an "experiment" doesn't work that is part of science too.

Sound is a huge part of Science, you could discuss what is sound? (Waves of compressed air, a slinky can be used to demonstrate it.). What makes different pitch noises, my DD made a little pan pipe from drinking straws. What about different materials? How do different instruments make the air move to make a sound.

She will quickly be able to pick up the facts of Science when she is older, the key thing is to develop observational skills and an interest in the world around her.

Similarily for English, let her read and write on things she is interested in. For Maths work on the maths all around, shapes, adding up prices in a shop, measuring for a new kitchen......

Ps nature and food=biology, sound and stars=physics, melting/boiling =chemistry. Live and love science!

I agree: I very much doubt that your dd could really be uninterested in all of science. Chances are that something called "science" was presented at school in a way she found uninteresting, and her feelings against it became stronger because of being made to do it.

Don't use the word for a while. Just learn about all sorts of interesting subjects. Eventually, in a few years, if your daughter still claims not to like science, point out all of the things she has done and seen and read in the last few years which she has liked and which ARE actually science. Meanwhile if she genuinely appears not to have any interest whatsoever in how the world works, leave it for a while. There is no hurry. With the pressure off she will rediscover all sorts of interests.

nostress's post has reminded me of a conversation I had with DS1, the other day. He's 9, too, and asked me "what are trees for?" I told him that trees were living things and he looked for a while before we talked about all the things that a tree can do that a rock can't.

Regarding music, the natural things to work on are pitch and loudness or volume. At a simple level, how can you make a musical sound and how can you make it louder or quieter (this is KS1, stuff, but home made musical instruments are fun and having real instruments to hand is even better). How do you change the pitch on an sax, a guitar, a xylophone etc? How can you make the note an octave higher or lower? How can you measure these things? For research: What's the highest or lowest pitch that people can hear? How loud is a sneeze? What's the loudest thing there is? How is it measured? I wonder....

You're just being really curious about a subject dear to your heart. There's lots of science involved, but it doesn't have to be called that.

Wow, what an amazing set of responses, thank you very much.
I'm afraid i haven't been on the ball with this up to now, but certainly have something to go by now.
Its strange how we have done several of the activities mentioned but never looked at them in a scientific way, although I will take the advice and not call it science.
I do agree that it is important and was slightly worried that if she went back into the school system at secondary she wouldn't have a clue. I also presumed that to keep up with the subject she would need to do experiments, which tbh scared me to death as I can't remember any I did at school.
Thank you all again,

I think cooking is a great way to stay with science, especially yeast cookery - making bread, making beer, also cheesemaking; but also anything that involves taste changes, such as caramelizing onions/meat.

www.facebook.com/ScienceIsSeriouslyAwesome this is the swear free mirror page of I fucking love science on Facebook. I am in awe of the universe every day via my newsfeed.

Thanks joan and IWipe

the link is brilliant and will get her thinking I'm sure. I think I need to understand that science is all around us and there is science in everything.
Just looking in her bedroom tonight I found xmas presents not used yet like body parts and blood packets, plastic lungs etc. Also bath bombs and volcano making. I also found crystal making that the 2 older ds didn't use. None of my dc have been into science, except ds1 who did a lot in PE/ sports science. . I feel bad now for not opening their eyes to it a bit more. Although the two older ds went to school, so they can take some blame too.

To be fair the only aspect of science I enjoyed at school was reading about it - Mary Anning's Treasures was one of my favourite books, but I never went looking for fossils, Two Ponies For Jill I loved, but I never enjoyed riding... just look for side angles to it IMO.

My 10 year olds have been growing sunflowers and measuring how fast they grow - measure every 3 hours - and amazed to find they have grown 3cm in that time, or 6 cm over night.

Find some good science or nature documentaries to watch - eg Ice Age Giants was recently on BBC

This might be fun here

Something here to watch ?

BBC's Bang Goes the Theory is quite digestible too.

Thanks joan and throck

I think we had break through today. i asked dd if she wanted to do art in the park as was a nice day. So she said yes, can i do some nature as well. So she picked some wild flowers, not the ones that had been planted by the gardeners, and did some lovely sketches. I asked her if she could remember all the parts. she did this in y2/3 I can remember it well. So she labelled what she could remember then looked the rest up at home. We talked about the importance of water as she did a sketch of the water fountain. I think she learned loads today, and still doesn't know she did science