Better Science - Out Of School

It appears I'm somewhat addicted to 4th through 8th grade science. Who knew? Has it always been at this level, or just declaimed as such now for the kids at home?

I've been watching this on TV for years, though never regularly. Some of it just appeals. And frankly, I was offended when I saw that age label on the screen corner. This is kids' science? Isn't that the realm of Bill Nye, the science guy? Something just to prove science can be fun? Surely this PBS show is for adults? I mean, prime time, not daytime, plunk-'em-before-the-electronic-babysitter level "science". It's way beyond Myth Busters too, and that was science with a lot of fun mixed in. Not as compelling though - or maybe it's a guy thing to have all those explosions and stuff.

But then, why can't something as in depth and interesting as this is be also directed at students kept away from their classrooms? There are plenty of boring science teachers out there. When I grew up, it was the class taught by the coach, apparently a way to justify his payroll.  Incidentally it never got into the physics of sports, for example, something which might (?) have given him some real interest in being there. He could have been an excellent coach for all I knew, but I managed to get out of high school thinking I hated science. The only memorable thing about it all was the day the P.A. system announced that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.

Yeah. I'm that old.

So what's all this fuss about? Nova. I used to pick up a show here and there, but never had time enough working long hours and raising kids single-parent style while also working to recover from my first marriage without giving up on the males of the species completely. Now, kids are grown, years of support groups and therapy have made great strides, and retirement allows much more entertainment and learning time. With sheltering in place, everybody's got more time to fill. Kids gotta learn something too, something interesting, and this presents the very best of teaching with the best of technology and educators.

I just set the timer for "all" and watch them whenever I get to them. I don't have to turn in any papers, after all. They just finished showing a series on the planets. When I learned about them in school, not much was really known. Telescopes were limited and nobody had sent satellites out of orbit on fly-bys. Astronomy was a process of learning how many planets (wrong!), how  many moons (wrong!) what they were made of (wrong!), how they rotated (wrong!) and so forth. Boring numbers and names. Memorization only, no imagination needed. Ever.

We also didn't have those wonderful Hubble photos of the universe, nebulas, black holes, gazillions of other galaxies.... I wanted to be interested in astronomy as a kid, growing up in a small town where you could clearly see the Milky Way or pick out "all" the Pleiades. (There were more once I got glasses.) Even college astronomy's most memorable part was having to fight for telescope time and discovering that the moon had already moved out of frame for whatever it was we were supposed to see. Class ended before my turn at Saturn.

Nobody managed to make it as fascinating as it truly is.

Nova does. I envy today's students who are assigned watching it for school. Better yet, they cover all sorts of topics, and by far the majority of them I find interesting: things I wished I'd known, things I never knew I'd missed out on. These days they are particularly good at getting me out of my head, away from covid numbers and staying home frustrations. I still have to make sure it's not the last thing I watch before going to bed. Even the most exciting drama can lull me to sleep under those conditions so I miss the good stuff. Just not a fair way to judge.

I am sure though, that had I had that quality of science training back in school, I'd have been a different person in a different career throughout my life. I am glad to have found good ways, periodically, of learning more science along my way. I'm hoping today's students can get good starts in fields which interest them, and keep it up throughout their lives as well. Whatever their topic.

It's not "fake news" that we landed on the moon when a decent telescope can show what we left behind. When knowledge of physics shows what a sufficient number of people with simple technology are able to accomplish, you don't need space aliens to explain the pyramids, Nazca Plains, or the Easter Island statues. Even drunken high school students can work out elaborate crop circles and scrape a few flecks of radium from a watch dial in the center - and do. Perhaps with more of that knowledge we can solve other critical problems, producing more good leaders and fewer blind followers.