Inspiring Your Kids Natural Inquisition

Our resident Forest School Teacher Natalie Jones shares her thoughts on inspiring children’s natural inquisition and interest in the science around them, in a generation where interest in science is diminishing.  Children are born inquisitors and therefore born scientists. It fills me with sadness to see children often lose interest in science as the joy of discovery gets overtaken by the dullness of writing up reports or the pressure of exams. We are aware of the shortage of people taking up STEM subjects, and this disengagement with science seems to start from an early age. In a 2005 survey of 950 British students aged 13 to 16, 51% said they believed science lessons were ‘boring’, ‘confusing’ or ‘difficult’. The lessons that engage children the most are those that allow them to fully explore the endless possibilities of scientific discovery.  Outdoor learning is a perfect vehicle to counter the effects of disengagement outlined by the children in the study and make science fun! The Royal Institution have developed a series of a short films which demonstrate the type of science learning that captures children’s imagination but which doesn’t require a classroom.  It is important that children remember that we are connected to the world around us. In her book, ‘The Beautiful Basics of Science’, Natalie Ancier, writes about her concerns with a growing lack of understanding of our world. She requests that we look at the moon a few evenings in any given month, and look at the phase it’s in, and when it sets and consider why this is happening. Even telling children that they are made of stardust, might encourage them outside to study the stars and the moon, and consider how we know what we do, and what other discoveries are yet to be made. Something to think about...