Why Should I Do Kids Science Projects With My Child?

As a dad of young children, I'm constantly on the lookout for ways that I can help my children grow and be more successful. One of the things I've settled on is teaching them through the use of kids science projects. I believe that teaching science to our children is both helpful for them, ourselves as parents, and great for our country. There's probably a case to be made for it helping out humanity too, but I'll stop short of that for now. Getting your kids involved with science gives them the following benefits:

1) Build Team Work Skills

When you take the time to partner with your child to do a project it helps them learn how to work cooperatively with you and others. As a parent you should always be on the look out for things you can do with your child that allows them to think and interact with you. So much of a child's early life has to be dictated to them for safety sake or just plain making your and their world sane, that it's easy to forget how frustrating that can be. It also doesn't teach them effectively how to make decisions for themselves. Picking out fun, age appropriate science projects that you can do together helps them learn how to work with others. Don't miss the opportunity to let them make decisions for themselves as they do the project. Most of all, don't do the project for them or make them do the project completely themselves. Involve them as much as possible in the decision making and have fun with the project. It's a great way for both of you to enjoy each other's company and when they get to make some decisions now and then, they will be more apt to accept it when they can't decide on bigger decisions that they aren't quite ready for yet.

2) Teach Logic Skills

Ok, now I know what you're thinking. My child? Logic? Well not doubt most people believe that having sound logic skills help people solve problems, and people that solve problems are more self reliant, generally happier (focused on solutions not the problem), and often times they end up more financially secure. We're not born with logic and I could probably find many different opinions about whether or not there's a biological side of logic. I do know that logic can be learned and if you want your children to "get it", then you have to work on teaching them logic. A great way to do that is through the use of science projects and specifically the "scientific process". By working on kids science projects, if you approach it in the right manner, you can teach them how to be a problem solver. I'll do another article on the scientific process soon, but here's the basic steps. Don't worry about using these exact words with your children, but do go over them in words appropriate for their age:

1. Identify some problem or question;
2. Learn about it;
3. What do you think is true? 
4. Test it;
5. Does the test say you were right?
6. If so, you learned and proved something new, if not, then you rethink it and go back to step 2 to start again.

The scientific process isn't just useful for science... it is a basic way of learning about the world around us, whether it's "what our friends think about our new outfit?" or "how does a rocket work?", many, many (if not all) questions can be answered just like this. Teaching it to your child will help them to become more and more self sufficient in answering their problems and questions.

3) Increase Self Esteem

Self esteem is the key to getting your children to say "yes" to the things they should say yes to and "no" to the things that can hurt them. Study after study has shown that children get involved with gangs and other trouble makers because they are seeking approval. I take this to the next logical step and say that kids seek approval, because they haven't learned to be self approving or said another way they don't have enough self esteem on their own, so they seek it from those around them. As parents, we should always be looking for ways to positively build self esteem in our children. One great way of doing that is to help them accomplish on their own. Setting out to create or build something and then succeeding in creating it, is a wonderfully strong and positive way to build self esteem. One important thing to bring up is that whatever you set out to do with your child needs to be something they are interested in. Listen to them and ask questions about what you hear from their interest.

4) Helping them learn more about the world around them

Regardless of your position on items like Global Warming, Evolution vs Creationism, or any other hot political topic. Hopefully you want your children to be educated on the facts. And to be honest, we want to influence the way our children see the world. I for one am a believer that Parents should do as much as they can to help their children to learn. If we leave 100% of our children's education to "other people" like schools, friends, or TV, then we really aren't doing everything we can do as parents to help raise our children. Regardless of the area of science that you choose to work with your child in, by teaching them through the use of Kid's Science Projects, you really help them to gain a better understanding of the world around them and that the opinions they see from those other sources, might be write and might not be right. We / they have to evaluate them each on their own merit and determine based on the facts we can learn through researching the world around us, what is true and what isn't. I'm sure there are many other reasons to work with your children in Science endeavors...

I encourage you to get started if you haven't already and to keep after it if you already are. Good luck with your science projects and above all... have fun and happy tinkering!

Jimmy Harris is a father, engineer, educator and business owner of zoomba technologies in Tulsa Oklahoma and is interested in helping children and parents learn and grow through the use of science projects. Check out a growing list of science projects at his blog at [http://kidsscienceprojects.net] and our tech tips at http://blog.zoombatech.com.