All kids learn at different speeds and with different methods, and some take a liking to some subjects over others. Having had 3 kids go through the education system here in New Jersey, all in different schools I might add, one subject that I have always had to work on with them is science. I have personally always loved science and the fundamentals that it teaches, but my kids not so much. There are any subjects which the federal government have been working on in order to inspire more girls and boys, and the science department is one of them. In order to support what the education system is doing, here is how you can get your kids more interested in science.
Making it Relative
At the root of encouraging your kids to gain a liking for something, especially when it comes to education, is the need to make what they are learning relative to their life. For example you could talk about the science behind something which your kid love, let’s take food for example, next time you go to a restaurant, try to talk your kids through the main menu in terms of how the food is made. Each food and ingredient is cooked differently according to their cellular properties, talk this through with your kids to try and engage them more.
Wow Them First
If you really want to get your kids involved in science, give them something which will wow them into being interested. A simple way of doing this is through chemistry, more specifically with regards to reactions. Take a Mentos mint and a bottle of coke to make a rocket, the mint reacts violently with the drink and forces it to propel a rocket into the air. Once you have wowed the kids with this, talk about the theory behind it, and then set them a challenge to make an even stronger rocket, see how they get on.
Make it Career Based
One of the reasons why older children aren’t interested in science, is because they can’t see any value in it. For these kids, discussing the menu in your local restaurant won’t work, and instead you must focus on how it can help them in heir job. A few examples of this could be a computer programmer’s need to understand science, an engineer’s requirement for physics or even a police forensic unit’s superintendents need to understand biology, chemistry and physics. You can make a huge number of jobs relatable to a scientific approach and this could be something which greatly inspires your older child to focus on the sciences.
If you require any information for yourself about science, which you can then use to help your kids, there are many online resources such as government sites, the Jay Eitner site or even informative YouTube videos which can help you out.
