5 Tips to Help Children Develop an

Appreciation for the Sciences

“We should not teach children the sciences

but give them a taste for them.”

– Jean Jacques Rosseau

Children are naturally curious. They ask questions about things that adults may take for granted, and they see life in a unique way. Some children may break toys just to see how they work. Despite their natural curiosity, numerous studies have found that children lose interest in science and mathematics by middle school. Some potential reasons may be a perception that these subjects are harder, that children do not see their relevance to everyday life, and that they may not have the support needed to foster success. We hope that these five suggestions will help your children develop an appreciation for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and inspire them to achieve their educational goals.

1. Include science everyday

“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated,” Rosalind Franklin. Show children how important science is to their everyday life. Everything in life requires STEM in some form. Mathematical skills are extremely useful whether you are negotiating at a car dealership or preparing recipes for a dinner party. Doing hands-on experiments with your children at home and going on fun field trips around town can bring science to life for them. Discuss their observations and highlight some of the scientific jobs associated with these activities. Watching a video on how their beloved cell phone works could spark their interest in computer sciences. There are also many tutorials that teach children how to code, which is increasingly becoming an essential skill.

2. Get fun STEM books

High-interest non-fiction STEM books can expose children to science and engineering from an early age so that they naturally develop a love for the sciences. Consider getting books about space exploration, the inner workings of the human body, creatures in the deep ocean, or our incredible world to broaden your child’s breadth of knowledge. Children’s levels of general knowledge in kindergarten have been linked to science achievement and overall success in elementary and middle school (Morgan et.al (2016)). Parents should find books that are fun and educational with beautiful illustrations and interactive features that will keep children engaged while learning. You will improve their chances of academic success and may spark an interest that leads to their life’s career.

3. Include the arts

Exposure to science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) will help your child develop into a well-rounded person. Encourage children’s natural curiosity and creativity with hands-on play. You may get magic science kits or create kitchen experiments with ingredients from your pantry. Some children may have a limited perception of science because of a lack of exposure. When they hear science and engineering, the only things that may come to their mind may be laboratory work or building construction. Those things are great; however, STEAM entail so much more. It is very important to show children that science can also be beautiful and artistic through painting, blending colors, photographs of nature or intricately designed skyscrapers. Reading classical works of literature can strengthen their critical thinking and writing skills. Children who play an instrument also achieve higher scores in science and mathematics than their peers who do not (Guhn et. al 2020). Learning a foreign language could also make it easier to learn computer programming (Pratt et. al 2020). The world’s problems are inter-disciplinary; therefore, they require problem-solvers with a diverse set of skills.

**This was an excerpt from an article written for the New Orleans Mom blog. Please click here to read the complete article.

Sources

Guhn, M., Emerson, S. D., & Gouzouasis, P. (2020). A population-level analysis of associations between school music participation and academic achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(2), 308.

Morgan, P. L., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., & Maczuga, S. (2016). Science achievement gaps begin very early, persist, and are largely explained by modifiable factors. Educational Researcher, 45(1), 18-35.

Prat, C. S., Madhyastha, T. M., Mottarella, M. J., & Kuo, C. H. (2020). Relating natural language aptitude to individual differences in learning programming languages. Scientific reports, 10(1), 1-10.

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