Keeping Kids Creative By Teaching Them The Scientific Method

In mentioning the scientific method many people automatically turn their thoughts to biologists, physicists and chemist. Few people realize that each one of us uses a simplified version of the scientific method every day. If you really think about it, the scientific method is a mature way that we use to make sense of the world around us. Let’s first be reminded of what steps are involved in the scientific method:

1. Formulate a question – Observe something in your environment that you have a question about.

2. Make a guess – Think of a theory or form a hypothesis as to why the occurrence is happening.

3. Experiment – find a way to test your theory to see if you are right.

4. Result or repeat – If you find that your theory was correct you have your answer. If your theory was not correct start at step #2 again. Make a new guess or an alternative hypothesis and test this theory. Keep experimenting until you are satisfied with an answer.

Experimentation, that’s another word that gets people thinking about lab coats and test tubes. Kids are experimenting all the time. They experiment with how far they can push their parents, they experiment when cooking you breakfast in bed, they use their senses to experiment the world around them almost constantly. After all, to a child so many things are new and unknown. Many children are anxious to make sense of the things that they see.

When we teach our children the scientific method we give them a book of instructions or a blue print that they can use to be creative, especially when it comes to problem solving. As adults, we forget that some of the most basic principles of learning have to be taught, we are not born with natural problem solving skills. Children do not naturally draw conclusions the way that adults do because they have not yet been taught how. The scientific method is all about having ideas, asking questions, and trying to figure things out. Without the scientific method, there would be chaos and confusion all the time. Even the most creative thinkers need boundaries and natural rules that they can follow.

One suggestion of how you can foster both a working knowledge of the scientific method and a child’s creativity is by doing simple science projects together. Science should not be something that you allow to be restricted to the class room. Science experiments at home not only help a child learn or have reinforced important scientific principles but they also encourage productive and educational play while at home. Science experiments do not have to be complicated and you can determine how often you think doing a project would be appropriate.

Many of the project ideas can be done in as little as an hour; even bigger projects do not take more than a day so you don’t have to worry about having the experiments take over your household. So take the time to foster your child’s creativity by teaching them the scientific method. They will be better off because of it.

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