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It's Science Fair Time!

Submitted by Administrator on Mon, 06/27/2011 - 7:41am.

Not sure if you should gear up for science fair work this year?    Well, hear this: Science is for everyone and so are science fairs. All you really need to participate is curiosity, and an understanding of the scientific method. Still, you say, why bother?

Throughout history every person involved in an important discovery was simply curious at the start. And from this curiosity came real progress through discovery.

And so it will be with our kids.

Give them this opportunity to get their hands dirty, ride the roller coaster of trial and error, and make their own discoveries.

Children should be encouraged to read, read, read and do, do, do. As home educators, we know this. We have already embraced our children’s natural curiosity. Introducing your child to science through a science fair project is simply an extension of that philosophy, a natural outgrowth of the choices we have already made for our kids.

Science fairs encourage rigorous thinking and perseverance, rather than flabby acceptance of whatever we are told. Science fairs can help counter the passivity of our culture; a culture that can churn out immature, zestless kids who don’t know how to do anything, because their every move has been dictated to them.

That’s not what we want for our kids.  Science is something children DO. And, so, it can only be a good thing.

This seems like the right place to recount some of the world’s important accidental discoveries, made during the course of close study, trial and error, and just plain old fiddling around:

  • electric current
  • practical photography
  • vulcanized rubber
  • x-rays
  • radioactive penicillin
  • the telephone

Thomas Edison, arguably the most prolific inventor in American history, returned home from school after only a few miserable months. His teachers declared him “addled”.  His mother took up the job.  She read to him, until he took up that job. His favorite books?  Science.  This man had 1,000 patents.

Our kids may not be destined to be the next Thomas Edison, but we should all be promoters of the “get in there and see what happens” approach to science.

As one famous sage has said:

"I hear, and I forget
 I read, and I remember
 I do, and I understand."

Think about it!

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For more detailed information on the Garden State Homeschool Science Fair and the scientific method visit www.lwhe.org and click on the Science Fair menu link.  Or go directly to the Garden State Homeschool Science Fair page now!!

If you live in Camden County, Gloucester County, or Burlington County you can also get more information at www.coriell.org. This is the fair to which Garden State Homeschool Science Fair middle school and high school students will first progress.

Rosemary Laberee
LWHE, Inc

Copyright 2011, All rights reserved

 

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