And
speaking of lesson plans, Chris had an inspired one the other day for
Cailyn. It doesn’t really take much when
the curiosity is already there. Cailyn
took one of those see-through plastic containers out into the back yard to
play. Or so we thought. She was actually in the throes of scientific
curiosity. What would happen if I put
some dirt in this container and then put water in it and then shook it all
up? Well, that’s not something you just
wonder about all your life. You have to
give it a try. So she did. And the water did its part by dissolving much
of the dirt. Fascinating. She raced inside to show us the results. And as she revealed her findings to Nani,
another idea struck her. What would
happen if I put the container in the freezer and froze it all? Hey, you have to try that one out, too, don’t
you?
The
next time she came over, she went right to the freezer to check out the progress
of her little experiment. This is the
point where I entered the picture as an outside observer. That was probably the best place for me,
since my bachelor’s and master’s degrees both end in the letter “A” for “Arts,”
not Science. But I can ask
questions. Together we figured out that
there was a lot of dirt on the bottom of the ice cube and some branches and
even a little dirt on the top. What
happened there? As the water calmed down
after being shaken up, the dirt settled to the bottom. The stuff that floats anyway, rose to the
top. And the rest froze. Good observation. Then she wanted to know what would happen if
she left it out all day while she was at school. Now up to this point we had been following
the ignorant arts student approach to science, also called the “Let’s see what
happens” approach. It works great for
getting into trouble as well, but let’s not go there. Way back in the back of my feeble brain I vaguely
remembered something about what I think was called the “scientific method.” I recalled it not being nearly as fun as just
doing something and being surprised by the results. This way you have to make a guess at what you
think might happen, then see if you were right or wrong. I guess that’s part of what bothered me about
the whole thing, yet appealed to me as well.
It was OK to be proven wrong. Who
ever wants to be proven wrong? That was the negative part. The good part was, I was pretty much always
wrong in what I predicted, so it was always easy to write about my
results. So we came up with some
predictions. Will it still be frozen
when you get home from school? Will it be like a slushie? Will it just be dirty water again? She decided on the still-frozen option and
made her way to school. And when she got
home, she dutifully checked out the container on the bar. The ice was completely gone. The dirt was all in the bottom. A few branches floated on top. She quickly made her scientific observation, “Hey,
look at this stuff. It’s water.” I couldn’t help myself. I countered with, “Are you thirsty? It looks clean enough to drink.” And she bested me, once again. She shook her head from side to side in a
blatant display of abject pity. Without
saying a word, she shook the jar violently to stir up the nastiness. A sly grin spread across her face. And, still silently, she handed it to me as
if to say, “You first.” Ouch. Not very scientific, but I gotta hand it to
her, though. This experiment was a lot
more fun than any of the ones I ever did in school.
Hebrews
4:13 says, “Nothing in all creation is
hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes
of him to whom we must give account.”
Father,
thank you for a child’s thrill of discovery and the massive amount of it yet to
happen for him. Gives them so much to
look forward to. Amen.
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