It’s been a while since I posted on The Skeptical Dad. Since around the time our second one – a sceptical daughter – came along, in fact.
It turns out that having children vastly diminishes the time and energy for properly researched blogging. Or for anything, for that matter.
Who’d have thought?
I’ve got a stack of ideas jotted in random places and half-written posts waiting to be worked on. So I’ll get back to regular postings from now on.
Promise.
For now, here are a few things I’ve noticed in the last year or so, which might be interesting to science-y parents.
ExpeRimental
From The Royal Institution, the UK organisation dedicated to scientific education:
ExpeRimental is a series of short films that make it fun, easy and cheap to do science at home with children aged 4 to 10. Our films give you lots of ideas for kids’ activities that will help you explore the world around you, question and experiment together. We’ll show you how to do the activity and how to make sure adults and children get the most out of it. Tell us how you get on and share your photos and any funny things your kids say!
What I like especially about ExpeRimental is that it’s not just a series of fun activities (though it is) but it teaches a real scientific approach. By tweaking variables, predicting what will happen, then observing the effects, it takes these practicals from demonstrations to experiments.
Citizen science
The brainchild of Sophia Collins and funded by The Wellcome Trust, Nappy Science Gang is taking a citizen science approach to answer some key questions.
…it will be the first citizen science project where the users set the research priorities, design their own protocols (with advice from scientists) and then run their own experiments. We’ll find out some useful science for cloth nappy users (a growing group as the environmental imperatives become clearer), and we’ll tackle a lot of persistent urban myths, with scientific thinking and evidence.
Find out more and get involved at the Nappy Science blog and Facebook page.
Introducing kids to evolution
Here’s a great resource for books on evolution and Charles Darwin aimed at kids, courtesy of Evolution for Kids!
Happy science-ing!
Dad With A Curious Mind 