A Parent's Guide to Raising Scientifically Literate Children

Science is meant to be fun. It is an academic discipline that focuses on curiosities, exploration, formulating hypotheses, testing through experimentation and documenting findings. Learn ways to get your child interested and engaged in science at a young age, by removing the fear that science is all about endless reading and writing. Once you hook them, you can gradually introduce them to the academic rigorous aspects and process. The world needs more scientists to fuel innovation in a variety of areas.

What can you do to encourage your child?

* Foster your child’s natural curiosity. Take a 10-minute walk around the backyard, your neighborhood, or a local park. Start a collection of natural items such as leaves. Take the leaves home and identify the trees they came from (visit The National Arbor Day Foundation at www.arborday.org for help). You and your child can make rubbings of the leaves by placing white or notebook paper over the leaves and using a crayon to rub over the paper. You should see an imprint of the leaf on the paper. Create a journal by writing one or two sentences that describe what you and your child observed. Read the journal as a bedtime story.

* Take your child to a museum or a nature center. Many cities and towns have museums, technology exhibits, and nature centers designed specifically for children. If there isn’t a center or museum in your town, take a virtual field trip on your home computer or a computer in the library.

*Encourage your child to take science every year she’s in high school. Typically, colleges are looking for students who take two to four years of laboratory science.

*Take family time and do an experiment together. It can be as simple as filling up the kitchen sink with water and testing items to see what sinks and what floats or shaking heavy cream in a jar until it turns to butter. Ask your child to predict what will happen before doing the test and ask why he thought it happened after the test.