In my last post, I said science is curiosity. Science IS curiosity. Science is also wonder, intrigue, and a mystery. That’s right, science is a mystery! It’s a puzzle, an enigma that must be investigated. Clues need to be found, like pieces to a puzzle, and evidence to support the claim must be gathered. These are things scientists do when they perform experiments. No hocus pocus potion magic. No crystal ball or magic 8-ball. It’s all very methodical like unfolding a mystery. Although, to see some of my students this week, one would think they were shaking a magic 8-ball and listening to it speak to them.

This week as we dive into unpacking the scientific method, we are checking out mystery boxes and trying to discover what is inside them without opening the boxes. The students are using some of their senses and looking for clues to help them find out what is inside 6 little metal boxes. They are shaking and listening to these little containers and recording what they think it sounds like. Using their sense of touch, they are weighing the boxes and using what they know about things to get a sense of what it could be inside the box. And, yes, some are even smelling the boxes to see if there could possibly be food or candy in there. Although, I’ve told them there isn’t anything of the sort in there, that could spoil and go bad, or even worse, attract creepy crawlies. Then they are working together having a mock scientific conference to discuss their thoughts about what could be inside the boxes. They must support their claims with evidence and reasoning. They must come up with their best idea based on their evidence. The students work in groups ruling out ideas that couldn’t be in the boxes and establishing one group answer per box. These answers, then, are written on sticky notes and posted on a chart to be shared with the rest of the class.

Each group is given a different color sticky note pad to post their answers to the mystery on.

Each group is given a chance to go and look at all of the possible answers from all of the groups in the chart. Then, another conference is held in which we come to a class consensus about what could be in each of the boxes. All leading up to the big question, when do we open the boxes to see what is really inside? The answer is, never. Absolute silence for about half a second as they ponder the meaning of this statement. Next comes the yelling and disappointment – What?! Why?! I tell them this was a lesson in discovery. And have them stop and think, and write down all the skills and approaches they used to work out what was inside the boxes. This represents how scientists work. Then, I’m asked the question, again, now can we open to boxes to see what’s inside? And, again, the answer is, we don’t. The boxes are to remained sealed and never opened. No one will find out what is really inside. It will remain an unsolved mystery.

This is like the work a scientist does. Scientist never come up with definitive answers to life’s mysteries. Instead, they come up with theories based on the evidence they have at the time. All scientific theories are open to future revision or possible rejection as technology and understanding improves. From this, students learn that science is ever changing and waiting for new discoveries. Until then, science is a mystery.

Albert Einstein once said, “The important thing is to never stop questioning.”

Never stop trying to solve the mystery.

This week in STEM Science we have been learning about what science is. More than learning, we have been trying to describe what science is and what exactly scientists do. When asked what a scientist does, often the response is something volatile and explosive. Visions of mad scientists working in a labor-a-tory making potions and blowing things up come to mind. My younger scientists are often surprised to learn that scientists are ordinary people just like them who see the world and wonder about it. The students beam with pride when I tell them scientists are curious just like they are. They ask a lot of questions. About everything. Scientists use their senses to observe things. They ask questions about how things work or why things happen the way they do.

A quick look through the Online Etymology Dictionary tells us that science comes from Latin scientia meaning knowledge, from sciens meaning intelligent, skilled, and from scire, a verb, meaning to know. In the 14th century scientists were known for “book learning” and “collective human knowledge”, especially that gained by systematic observation, experiment, and reasoning. A far cry from the common thought of old school alchemists. Systematic observation, experiment, and reasoning – this sounds like the scientific method! And the first part of the scientific method begins with asking questions about something observed. So, scientists are curious. After all, curiosity is defined as a strong desire to know or learn something.

We read a poem about what science is, and then pulled out the descriptive words from the poem about what science is. After discussing it some more, we made a circle map about what they thought science is.

I like how some of the students included engineers into the map along with solving problems. In STEM, the students are taught that an engineer is a special kind of scientist that uses math and technology to design things that solve problems.

Next, we talked about how scientists observed the natural world using their five senses. The students were able to use hand lenses to explore different items such as fossils, rocks, birds’ nests, cattails, snake skins, feathers, old bee hives, and a cotton blossom. The students talked about the different textures, describing them, as well as the difference it made when using a hand lens to examine the items. They also came up with questions that might help them explore the items more in depth.

Curiosity at work on cotton blossom during a lesson in the nature of science

When asked what I teach, I often say, “I inspire curiosity.” Children have a natural curiosity about the world around them. This curiosity leads to asking questions, lots of questions, which helps them think like a scientist.

Sally Ride said, “Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It’s posing questions and coming up with a method. It’s delving in.”

As we enter a new school year, let’s think about ways in which we learn. One of the ways we learn is through failure. Failing is a big part of learning. It is something we should embrace rather than fear. Without failures we cannot grow. Think about a little baby creeping on the floor beginning to take his first steps. He will most likely fall a few dozen times, yet he continues to get back up and try again. Yes, he may even get hurt and cry when he falls and bangs something. But that doesn’t stop him from trying again. Each time he falls he learns a little bit more about how to walk. His brain is learning what works and what doesn’t work. In time he will have succeeded to walk through all those failed attempts.

Often we are afraid to try because we are afraid we will fail. We receive an F on a paper and think, “That’s it! I’m no good at this!” And this stops us from wanting to try again. However, its moments like this when we need to think of that little baby trying to walk, dust our proverbial pants off, and try again. We should ask ourselves, or our teacher, why we received the F. What did we do wrong, and how can we get better? This is not to say that you may not get an F again. If you did, then try to see if there was an improvement, any improvement. Focus on what was right, and go from there.

Albert Einstein, one of my heroes, failed at least 7 times when he was developing his E=mc² equation. He also failed many times while coming up with his Theory of Relativity and many other failures in his work as a mathematician and scientist. In fact, 1905 was said to be Einstein’s annus mirabilis, his year of miracles. He wrote a series of papers that year including his particle theory on light. However, that year also contained at least 6 major failures for him, including his first proof of his famous equation. Are you surprised? I’m not. Failure is practically built in to the scientific method, and the engineering design process. Without failures, there would not be any improvements.

Einstein was not the only scientist who experienced failure. Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, Sir Isaac Newton, and Galileo all experienced failure. However they did not let that stop them. They continued on to do the great things we know them for today. In fact, if we really were to examine any great from history, we would be able to find their failures, along with their successes. Failure is a part of life, a part of growing. We should not let it stop us from learning.

There’s a motivational baseball quote that I love, “Never give up. The last swing could win the game.” So true.