Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Science - A Creation Story

A great idea came to my mind today.  I should teach science as though it is a creation story.  Science already has many similar qualities as a story: problems are solved, settings differ, multiple characters, and created by people.  These qualities are well understood by students, for they are told stories throughout their life.  This makes the transition to science easy for students, for they already have schemata constructed for stories.  Too many students view science as out of their reach; it is important to help the students understand that science does the same thing as other stories, but how it is developed differs.

Science as a creation story also allows you to get to very important ideas.  By having students imagine the very beginning, you can get to the concept of energy.  This is one of the most important concepts, for without understanding energy, nothing happens.  This also allows you to introduce the concept of matter, for something has to exist!  Every story has characters, and matter and energy are the main characters in the  story of science.

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