Homeschooling Science Made Simple: Why teach science at home?

Why do we learn science anyway? 

I don’t ever need to know that the “mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” in any real life scenario. 

Or Cations have a Pawsitive charge, unless you’re working with batteries

But then it tells you right there (+) on the positive side. 

Well, you’re right! Some of those memorized facts aren’t really that useful. BUT WAIT

Science is more than just the memorized facts of physics, biology, and chemistry. Science is an evolving way of learning and thinking. When you learn to think critically or explore how things work, then you’re able to apply that to all sorts of scenarios. 

I love going on walks with my dad. On one occasion, we stumbled upon a birdhouse that I would have just looked over, but apparently it was built in an interesting way. 

Sooo we spent the next 15 minutes discussing, looking from different angles, poking and prodding (there were no birds living there at the time) and finally my dad figured out how it was built. 

Spoiler: The back was attached to the tree first and then the rest of the house was attached to the back piece of wood. 

I loved just exploring and learning based on what my dad knew and could share with me. It made such a memorable moment that I’m telling you almost 15 years later!

That is how we were meant to learn science. 

Through experience! 

Some of you may recognise the scientific method pictured on the right. LINK

The first piece is observation. This occurs with inspiration by what attracts our attention. If your attention isn’t attracted to the mitochondria, then you’re not going to learn much unless it’s forced upon you by rote repetition (which isn’t fun, and can be painfully boring)

That brings us to school.

Science in School

No offense to public school. I love the community and ways that schools make their own culture. I tutored or taught in public school for over a decade. 

Many people will complain teachers don’t make enough money or schools don’t have enough resources or any and all complaints. 

Well it really depends on the school. 

Some schools are fantastic, kids are fantastic, teachers are happy and paid well, sports and programs are well funded, etc. 

But unfortunately that might not be where you are, OR you’re there, but there just isn’t enough hours in the day to do all of the things that your child wants or there isn’t enough time for the teacher to teach all of the things in the way that your child understands. 

Now many schools are going 1:1 with technology to make it easier for students or teachers and that has a whole other can of worms that was opened. 

Many teachers are able to do fun and chemically challenging experiments, but most have to tailor their class to the lowest denominator of student direction following ability. 

 “Gather your supplies before starting the experiment…be careful with your sleeves and hair!”

In my experience turned into 

“Don’t touch the hotplate” 

Which devolved into 

“Please don’t eat the cups we’re using for the experiment…” 

A little sadly, but truthfully I knew these kids would be better served if their families or communities took a larger interest in what they were doing and learning. 

I only had them for 50 min at a time, a few days a week, and that wasn’t enough to make the inspiration happen. 

Other Science Curriculum

Are you looking at other science options? 

Different options work for different people. 

Do you like learning from reading or videos or audio books? Do you have people nearby to take care of other things while you learn? Can you understand what the person is explaining? 

Many have had one or all of these questions, and science curricula try to answer them as best as possible. 

ONLINE

As a teacher I appreciated CK12 (LINK), an online platform that had reading, videos, and quizzes all embedded. This was a free platform that explained the best it could without a teacher and I as the teacher would bring the concepts to life. 

As any online platform, it can’t be as enticing or fun as something in person. There’s the lack of community aspect that we as a classroom brought together when it worked perfectly. 

Also, many of the experiments were via videos or moving pieces online like playing Minecraft. This can be fun for a time, but the transfer to daily life wasn’t as good as I knew it could be. 

ON PAPER

Another option for a science curriculum is buying, renting, or borrowing multiple books about different science topics and reading a lot as you go through the material. 

This is similar to the online portion, but without screens. 

Any experiments that you’d do would just be following instructions and completing things like a recipe. 

The goal currently in education is to have students create higher forms of knowledge (creating their own recipe) instead of just memorizing (or just following directions). 

Now don’t get me wrong, following directions is an extremely difficult task that must take much effort to master, but it’s definitely more fun when you gain the confidence to read instructions, understand what the goal is, and then make it your own. 

That brings me to…