Last week I saw a kid walking down the street with a beautiful image on his tee-shirt - of a carbon nanotube molecular structure. Recently created complex molecules such as carbon nanotubes and buckyballs, along with carbon dioxide , methane and other greenhouse gases and DNA and are just a few of the molecules entering our everyday experience in this culture, at this time in history. You can even buy a tee-shirt online with your name written in molecules.
My research is showing children as young as six yesrs old today 'know' that H2O is water. They tell me, surprised I do not know already 'H2O is a brand of water'. This knowledge of the molecular is a major change from the recent past. Molecules have moved house. They are nolonger just in residence in scientists minds, they are moving into our everyday world. This is a major cultural change happening now in 21st century across communications rich societies.
And the knowledge is needed. We need to know what carbon dioxide is to think about issues of global warming. And just what are those nano-particle things that some people are so frightened of?
Unfortunately our education system does not seem to be keeping up with the times. Ideas of molecules and atoms, that material 'stuff' of the world is particulate is not included in school curriculum until early secondary years, in many places as late as Year 10. What does that leave our children thinking about and explaining ' the nature of stuff'.
I think this example of the child is representative of the current attitude towards science. Kids are quite aware of many aspects of the theory of matter, with words such as nanotechnology becoming quite common. However this often not backed up with any actual understanding of the terms and theories. And kids are so open to learning such things, they will often go and explore it themselves. With the use of technology such as Molecularium we can easily begin introducing primary school students to these ideas. The only problem is the curriculum is already full and since this is not included until Year 10, it will be hard for teachers to be able to justify including it, let alone find time.
ReplyDelete"Unfortunately our education system does not seem to be keeping up with the times. Ideas of molecules and atoms, that material 'stuff' of the world is particulate is not included in school curriculum until early secondary years, in many places as late as Year 10. "
ReplyDeleteThe curriculum and the workload at school for the students are very dense and full. They also have extra-curricular commitments so I think that the advance scientific experiences with atoms and molecular are best taught in secondary years where time and resources are readily available and structured. The expert science teachers can scaffold their learning better than primary teachers because primary teachers are inundated with immense amount of work load such as assessments, planning, report writing and personal development.
It is true that molecules and atoms are not always addressed well in the primary classroom. I think that one reason for this is that primary teachers do not always feel comfortable with the subject. In many cases this topic is something they may not have thought about since their own school days. I am not saying that this is an excuse, I just know that as a student teacher in a 5/6 planning meeting for an inquiry topic on matter, most teachers were very uncomfortable with the topic
ReplyDeleteThe concept of scientifically talking about molecules with students, to me, would benefit them. They are ever growing with knowledge, and all of this would either introduce them to new knowledge or reinforce current knowledge (provide them with vocab to assign to what they already know). The interactive and useful sites out there can assist teachers and students. I think it's beneficial to equip myself with this knowledge in order to better explain and... in-case students become inquisitive :) ... surely they expect teachers to know all the answers!
ReplyDeleteThe Molecularium was a fun and informative website for children to use to really gain a concrete understanding of the aspects that make up their world.
ReplyDeleteIn my experiences of learning and teaching in primary schools I have not experienced a situation where these understandings have not been explored, however I can appreciate that it has not been discussed at a level that creates explicit understanding. Giving children a language and experiences to support their understanding and relating it to their own worlds and cultures would be of benefit to all students.