Our friend Emma: Scientific Super Sleuth

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Dr. Thompson. He's a scientist who has come up with a line of science kits for children ages 9 to 12. The science kits let children learn about what real-life scientists do by asking them to solve mysteries. The young scientists are given links to a secret web site, so they can check their results along the way and learn if they've solved the mystery correctly. It sounded like a great idea. I love to encourage science, but Arielle and Linnea are just too young. I asked our friend Emma and her mom to help us out. They wrote the following review:



The other day Secret Science Team member, Emma, got a kit from Ectropy. It seems they needed a super sleuth like Emma to do a little case work for them.

Emma carefully opened the box. It contained all the evidence and the supplies needed to solve the mystery -- find out who was behind a devious plot to steal, duplicate and sell pirated video games!



Emma and her two assistants took this case rather seriously -- they followed the directions and recorded their findings in the chart that was provided -- they even carefully returned the samples to their little baggies hoping to "be scientists" again.



When she began the project, Emma thought that she'd do one or two of the experiments/observations....





but then couldn't resist doing another,



and then another,



and then another,



until she had completed the whole kit and found her results --



we went to the website provided and confirmed that she was correct! Oh the joy!



Scientist Emma wants to share this with some science loving friends of hers -- it was a lot of fun.

Emma is 10 years old and in the 5th grade, her assistants are 8 years old and in the 2nd grade. They would likely have been able to do most of this experiment on their own, but they lack a certain *carefulness* that is required. I reminded them often about not contaminating their samples.

The Secret Science Team Missions cost $34.99. All of the products Ectropy offers are designed and selected to meet National Science Education Standards. This makes them great for home school families. The Secret Science Team line is specially developed for grades 4 -7 to encourage scientific exploration, analytical reasoning, and literature. Ectropy also offers science consulting, experiment design, and science kit building services to help home school families meet NSE standards.

Birds

I think it was November. Arielle stopped being a girl and turned into a bird - a Rainbow Cockatoo, to be exact. Rainbow Cockatoo's are an imaginary species. They are very rare and are the only cockatoos in the Northern Hemisphere. Most live in Australia.

Arielle has always had an imagination. But, six months later, she is still a bird. I've been trained to refer to her hair as her "feathers" and to tooth-brushing as "beak-brushing". When I ask what she'd like for dinner, she asks for "worms and grubs", so I'm creative with food names. Spaghetti is now "juicy worms".

So, we've been growing our imaginations. But, we've also been learning. In January, we took a trip to Ottawa, where we visited the Canadian Museum of Nature. The museum was being remodeled, but they have a wonderful bird exhibit complete with a tiny lab where children can pretend to be ornithologists (scientists who study birds). Arielle was thrilled. Now she is determined that when she grows up she will be a bird scientist.

Pictures from the museum






When we left the museum, we bought a bird book. This sparked an interest in bird identification. We put up bird feeders in our trees and bought some identification guides. Grandma gave Arielle a pair of binoculars.



When the weather turned warmer, we saw new birds every day. We bought a CD to teach us about bird songs and listened to it in the car. We built a bird house.




And we didn't stop there. Cockatoos are common in Australia, so Arielle wanted to learn about Australia. We found Australia on the globe. We cut out pictures of Australian animals - there are lots at OzAnimals.com - and we decorated our geography area. Arielle practiced writing the names of Australian birds and animals in her notebook. We learned about Aboriginal art and decorated homemade rain sticks. We got stories from the library and from Amazon and learned about Aboriginal myth and about animals.





I have learned a lot, too. Even two-year-old Linnea can identify robins and starlings. Arielle's interest shows no signs of waning and it is both fun and a challenge to find new ways to direct her curiosity and eagerness to learn. Here she is painting an outline of a bird that I drew for her - a homemade coloring book of sorts. The bright water colors and heavy duty paper are from Stubby Pencil, of course.



And here she is playing pet store... finding good homes for those birds and also a chance to learn about money.





Taking advantage of your child's interests seems like such a natural and fun way to learn, doesn't it? There is such a fine line between learning and play, and there are so many more things we can and will learn as long as she is interested.