Crack open those books, kiddies!
Posted 10.18.2012 at 12:15 pm
8 Comments
Get Them Hooked Early
Lotzman Katzman via Flickr
Low-income minority fourth-graders from south L.A. improved their test scores in math and language after they got just a handful of science lessons, a new study found. College students studying science presented 10 separate one-hour lessons, and the kids rose up whole percentile ranks in other subjects.
"A lot of students say things like, 'I didn't know science was fun,'" said Samantha Gizerian, now a clinical assistant professor at Washington State University. Apparently they also showed a greater interest in taking books home to read, and a greater willingness to practice math. The lessons were simple, too--in one case, a college student just brought in some microscope slides from his lab.
Gizerian says the lessons taught science, but also acted "as a spark to ignite a child's interest in lifelong learning in all areas." She presented her findings at a recent Society for Neuroscience meeting.
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Science is exciting!
Share the excitement and wonder of the world!
It can be wonderful, sharing those WoWzers, Geewiz, Oh my gosh, moments!
If every person on this planet got 10 hours of science per week, the human species would be even more awesome.
Ummm.. where was the "Control" group for this study. The kids who got "NO" science exposure at all? Of COURSE kids who are TAUGHT THINGS are going to be smarter.
Breaking news!! Exposing your kids to MATH for any length of time throughout the year makes them more capable of doing math!!!
Did anyone ever stop to think, its not WHAT they are being exposed to, it's the TYPE OF PARENT WHO TAKES THE TIME TO TEACH that is actually making the difference.
Science confirms the obvious: People work harder at that which they care about.
They made the kids care about science by making it cool so the kids worked harder in school.
Hush kitty.
whatre you gonna do with a telescope in the daytime, burn your eyes out? that poor kids probably gone blind. no wonder scientist stereotypes always have glasses.
This experiment looks like it might have the flaw that's caused bad conclusions before.
The kids might have been reacting to the fact that they were getting special attention.
There was a famous experiment in which they increased the lighting in a work area. Every time they did, productivity jumped. Then they progressively lowered it -- productivity
kept jumping.
The workers liked the attention.
Still, science education is a good thing.
It's ironic that they use an example from the LAUSD. I recall an independent study done a couple of years ago that put the K-12 cost to California taxpayers to produce a single LAUSD high school graduate with a demonstrated grade-level competency in math/science at over $1 million.