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In reply to the discussion: 1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)nature, the natural world, and the science that helps us understand it, are just as easy and even more natural to us.
Problem is, our educators do not encourage us to discover science through nature and the natural world but rather through boring text books. The basics of science are within us and the food we eat, the animals with which we live. But science is simply not taught from early childhood.
I started reading about biology because of gardening. Biology then leads one to wonder about chemistry and then physics and on. And now I see how interesting science is, and I am really sorry that I found it so boring when I was young.
So the secret of teaching science is to relate it to reality, to the experience of the child.
Same with math.
Also, I believe that math and science learning begin much earlier than five years old. We read stories to children when they are very young. Now, when I go for walks with my 18-month-old grandchild, I pick up bugs and other things, rocks and such, that he likes and show them to him. His first word was bird because I kept talking to him about the tiny stuffed and chirping bird he had. I'm hoping that will help him discover how interesting science and nature are.
I don't think you can just put a teenager in a class with a biology text (as it was done with me) and expect that kid to relate what is in the book to experiences the child had. What was helpful to me was having a small garden plot at might school when I was in junior high school. Unfortunately, my garden plot was not put into any perspective or related to science by my teachers. It was just something kids could sign up for and do on their own.