The Story of Science

“I’m convinced, and I hope to convince you, that science is not just for scientists. In the twentieth century, we compartmentalized knowledge; in the information age, that doesn’t make sense. Today, you can be a hermit on a mountain peak and still have access to the world’s learning. For scholarship to be so available, so democratic, is unprecedented in world history. To use that opportunity well, we all need to be generalists first. And no field of knowledge is as basic or as creative as science. . . . that human quest to understand the universe underlies almost all other creativity."
-A Writer’s Reasons, from The Story of Science, Aristotle Leads the Way

The above quote is from Joy Hakim's website. She is the author of a 3-part series called "The Story of Science." We've been slowly making our way through the first book, Aristotle Leads the Way, this year, alongside our studies of physics and history and philosophy. This is the book that ties so much of the subject matter together. Early scientists were writers and philosophers. They were historians and mathematicians. The science could not be separated out into it's own compartment, the way it so often is now.  We find ourselves frequently moving from this book to the Ponderables books on Philosophy, Math, and Physics.

We've been using the companion student workbook, which is helpful for reinforcing material, but I'm not sure we'll use the workbook for the next book, as we're using Hakim's books as a supplement, rather than a core. One could certainly use it as a core curriculum in middle school (5th-8th grades?). The material is very readable and could be a great science spine in earlier years. (And this is exactly the kind of material that makes me want to homeschool another child through the younger years now that I've learned the ropes!!) As an older student, Mane is studying more detailed and technical science material. This book has been a great "story" to tie it all together and to make sense of how science impacts the world. And, although it's very readable for younger students, it is fantastically well-written and appealing to older students and adults...sort of in the way a great, classic picture book can have layers of meaning.

The Thinking Toolbox

A fabulous follow-up to The Fallacy Detective, The Thinking Toolbox has been a delightful addition to our logic studies this year. Again, I appreciate the formatting of these books - a quick lesson with examples and cartoons followed by a quiz. The quiz is typically 10-15 scenarios that relate to topics from the current and previous chapters. So, students circle back around to previous material on a regular basis. This book has a generous and light-hearted way of covering subjects like the difference between friendly, respectful arguing and angry, disrespectful arguing. The word "argument" generally gets a bad rap, but it isn't necessarily negative. It's how we argue that determines whether it's a positive or negative conversation. The book also covers scenarios when it is not appropriate to argue and when pointing out the logic in a situation is counter-productive. This is a lesson we could all probably stand to learn! The examples range from silly to serious and frequently targeting political, theological, and cultural issues: the existence of God, evolution, and taxes.

A side note: These books do have a political and religious bias. It isn't overwhelming. I just see it popping up in the use of particular examples. Examples regarding the existence of God are obviously biased toward faith and belief, rather than atheism (which is fine with us, since we believe in God). This book presents a sample conversation near the beginning that seemed to favor young-earth creationism. One could easily extend the example, though, to discuss responses to the arguments presented. The authors do not take a position, though they do discuss how the creationist was able to make his argument better by planning for the responses of the evolutionist. It's a valuable lesson about looking at your own argument from the opposite perspective. Overall, it's not enough to stop me from recommending this book to others.

Philosophy for Kids

We received Philosophy for Kids by David A. White as a Christmas gift in December from Grandma Philosopher...and we've been answering questions like "What is Friendship?" "How do we define intelligence?" and "Is charity a human obligation?" ever since...

The book is laid out in a fairly simple format. Each chapter/question is about 3 pages long and presents a question along with the perspectives of 1 or 2 well-known philosophers. The author leads the student through a series of questions to sort out their own thoughts and finishes the chapter with MORE questions for further discussion or writing. We've been using those final questions as writing assignments. By the time we're finished with this book, Mane will have her own philosophy book! We've enjoyed working through the questions and making connections to The Story of Science (more on that in another post) and the Ponderables Philosophy book:

Environmental Science

Hey...I wrote this back in September 2015 and forgot to hit "publish"... 

This school year we've making a lot of connections...connections between history and politics...between fields of science like biology and physics...and between science and our lives...  We've done a lot of exploring the connection between the food we eat, the environment we live in, the air we breathe, the products we produce, and the money & politics connected to those products. Here's a list of some of the things we've read, movies we've watched, and websites we've used so far:

1) It started with the audiobook version of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp (Kingsolver's husband) and Camille Kingsolver (Barbara Kingsolver's daughter) . I was reading it for book club, and I was reading huge chunks of it our loud to the family. Finally, I just started playing the audiobook for everyone. I became part of the daily conversation to talk about where the food in our fridge originated. We started making a point of checking labels before we bought...not for nutritional information but for location. We took this statement to heart from Kingsolver's book:

“If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week” (Steven L. Hopp, p. 5)

I wouldn't reach for this book a whole lot sooner than 7th or 8th grade, and I wouldn't expect even an 8th grader to care about every single word of the book...but as background audio while knitting, drawing, or painting, it was perfect. The chapters by Camille Kingsolver were especially helpful in making the book "user friendly" for a younger audience. The audiobook is read by all 3 authors. So, the listener literally hears the change in voice and perspective.

2) We started visiting farmer's markets and discovered the rules for our local markets. Just because a food is at the market does not mean it's local. I've had to jump out of my introverted comfort zone to converse with food vendors about their food. Mane had the experience of learning how a local Hmong family grows peanuts in Minnesota. (Yes, peanuts in Minnesota!!) 

3) We used the Minnesota Grown website to learn about what is in season when in Minnesota. 

4) We started listening to the Climate Change podcast on public radio.

5) Back in 2009, Mane and I attended a pre-release showing of No Impact Man at the Walker Art Center and heard Colin Beaven speak in person. This year we shared the movie with some friends and watched it again. (A word of caution: The language is not all rated G and pregnancy loss is mentioned in the film.) The movie such a contrast to Barbara Kingsolver's book. Kingsolver and her family carefully planned (for several years, actually) how they would spend a year eating locally. Colin Beaven and his wife, Michelle, jumped into their "no impact" project with very little preparation. It's interesting to see people coming at the challenge of living differently from some extreme ends of the spectrum, and it was a great opportunity to reflect with Mane on how change is a process. 

6) Then we watched Food, Inc., a difficult but valuable film. We learned to look away when the scenes got a little too graphic. This movie brought our focus in from local eating to ethical eating. A friend of mine talks about her daughter, who won't eat a chicken unless it's been hugged. This film brought us to that place...where we want to know how our food has been grown, not just where. 

7) We started to move out from the food discussion and into a discussion of plastic consumption with the movie Addicted to Plastic. You can see a brief presentation with a few of the relevant facts here: Addicted to Plastic by Jamie Lamourt.

8) Today we watched Plastic Paradise. As I type, Mane is creating a blog post for her own blog of things she learned from the film. (Another word of caution: The film shows scientists cutting open dead birds to see all the plastic inside their bodies. Not for the weak-of-stomach.)

9) AND we freaked out a little bit about plastic in our clothes...

There's been a fair amount of talk in educational circles about how and when to present environmental issues to children. There's some argument about how much is too much and whether too much information too early has the backward effect of depressing children, rather than inspiring them.

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UPDATE in May 2016:
It has certainly been a year of tackling the environmental issues! Mane wrote a blog post for her Go Green Club on the problem of plastics in the world, we followed our local political movement toward getting plastic bags out of Minneapolis stores, and we've converted to bar soap and re-fill-able shampoo bottles! We're currently working on solving the problem of plastic use while camping. (It's really easy to put everything in the cooler in a ziploc!) And we're wondering about hosting the Bible study kids for outdoor summer play without plastic toys. I would say that, far from depressing Mane, she's been so inspired by the current movements toward reducing plastic use and production. And she's still working toward making a difference in our corner of the world.