Meet Jupiter's Mother (Part 2)

Today, we welcome back Tracy Zollinger Turner, of Tiny Mantras. Tracy is the mother of a four-year-old astronomer (above) and has been sharing her tips for encouraging a child's love of science. You can read the first part of our interview here.

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Welcome back to Mama Joules, Tracy! I've gathered from reading your blog that astronomy was not one of your primary interests prior to your son falling in love with Jupiter (and the rest of the universe). How do you foster your son's love of astronomy?

For someone like me, I think remembering the connection between art and science (or science and everything!) has been helpful. I bring the science he likes into projects I enjoy more. We make planets and galaxies and nebulas out of clay. Or we do things like make egg tempera paint and encourage color mixing so there's a scientific process that's part of painting.

Tracy and her son made these planets and stellar objects
out of Play-Doh and FIMO clay.

I've promoted his interest in letters and reading by spelling and helping him write space-related words (we have used so many space metaphors in this house). When you actively notice what your child responds to, it gets easier to realize that shimmery fabrics can be used for imaginative play when he feels like being a comet or a black hole, crystals that hang in the window make rainbows around the house, and that it's okay for an apple to be sacrificed in the name of understanding gravity now and then.

What suggestions (for websites, books, etc.) do you have for parents of other would-be astronomers?

Websites

There are plenty of great astronomy sites out there, but few of them have stuff for younger kids. I like KidsAstronomy.com. There are science songs and reasonably simple games there.

Television, Music & Books

[My son] loves watching Powers of Ten, which may be one of the best videos ever made when it comes to illustrating the vastness of the universe, as well as the microverse! The TV show Zula Patrol is actually pretty great [too].

They Might Be Giants CD, "Here Comes Science" is our new soundtrack around here. It's actually taught or reminded me of a number of basic [scientific] concepts.

I wrote a post a while back about some of the astronomy books for kids that I like. [Note from Mama Joules to Tracy: Kerm reviewed George's Secret Key to the Universe; he thought it was great!]

Places to Visit

We've used Google Earth a lot to find our house, and [my son's] favorite places nearby from space. Incidentally, his favorite places are...

COSI - our local science center

Perkins Observatory - where the telescope was formerly the most high-powered in Ohio and used for astronomical research. It's now an educational center with lots of old-school astronomy displays, and lots of volunteer amateur astronomers who love to help people of any age develop a love of space and telescopes.

We have had the chance to go to a couple of NASA sites - one was a rare open house. [NASA scientists] are really good at figuring out how to talk to and educate kids!

Of course, we want to take him to Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Hayden Planetarium in NYC, the Air and Space Museum in DC and any [other] NASA site that we can, but we haven't had the chance just yet.

Tracy, those are some wonderful suggestions. I know that I will be visiting those websites soon. Thank you so much for stopping by!

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If you'd like to contact Tracy, or read further about her adventures with her astronomy-loving preschooler, please visit her at her blog, Tiny Mantras. She is also the occasional host for the Carnival of Space, a must-read if you want to keep up with astronomy in the blogosphere.


Photo credits: Tracy Zollinger Turner (used with permission)

The baby and the toothbrush

Yesterday, I was feeding my seven-month-old daughter, Princess. She likes to grab the spoon away from me (which, as I commented here, isn't such a bad thing), so I usually give her a second spoon to play with to distract her.

Well, I couldn't find another spoon. Our "everything" drawer of kitchen utensils had quite an assortment of items in it, but no extra baby spoons. I wound up handing her a (clean) toddler toothbrush.

Watching my baby meet a toothbrush for the first time was a real treat. First, she waved it up and down, in the "I've got a new thing! See!" way that babies do. Then, she passed it from one hand to the other and started running her fingers down the bristles.

"It's a toothbrush," I told her.

I stopped feeding my little scientist and just watched her play with the toothbrush. She kept passing it from hand to hand, touching it, exploring it. Finally, she shoved the toothbrush in her mouth and began to move it up and down, just like a big kid.

Little Brother was delighted. "Look, Mommy! Look what she can do!"

I never thought that a toothbrush could be a teaching tool. But then, I tend to forget that, for a baby, the whole world is a new thing to explore. You can find science anywhere.

Sustaining a baby's love of science

Now that baby Princess is seven months old, I've been thinking about babies and science. How do you nurture a love of science in one so young? Based upon my (admittedly small) sample size of three kids, here are some tips to get you and your little one moving on the road toward scientific literacy:

Talk to your baby. Describe the world you see around you. Point at the clouds and the bird in the tree. Show her items and let her touch them. Is this thing hot or cold? Wet or dry? Soft or hard? Observation is a key component of science.

Listen to your baby. One of the hardest things for me, as an impatient person, is to wait for baby to respond. I tend to babble incessantly at babies unless I really think about it; this does not open up a dialogue. Give your child the time and space to reply to your questions. For example, show your son two items and ask him which one is his favorite. Wait until he reaches for one thing or coos at it, and then hand it to him.

Sit back and watch your baby. Again, this is a challenge for me. If Princess shows an interest in something, I tend to want to replace it with something bigger and better. For example, yesterday we were sitting outside and she started craning her neck to stare at the sky. My first thought? What's wrong with her? Second thought: Oh, she's staring at the sky. I'll bet she sees a neat pattern of leaves in that tree. And my third thought, which I had to sit on: Wow, I'll bet she likes patterns. We should go right now & check out some books about patterns from the library and then we could ... Stop. Stop right there. If your little scientist is observing something and enjoying it, let her. Don't try to change a thing. Our society is so intent on bigger, smarter, faster, quicker that we forget to sit quietly and concentrate.

Get messy. Cause and effect is key for a baby to learn about her world, but it's so hard for parents like me. When Princess grabs the spoon from my hands or wants to stick her foot in the baby food while I'm feeding her, my first instinct is to contain the mess. Unfortunately, that prevents her from learning about her world. Sometimes, she needs to grab that baby food jar and just dump it in her lap. Or mine!

And remember to enjoy your little one. They grow up so fast. When Kerm was a baby, I remember just staring at him in his car seat because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with him. Oh, how I wish I had that much time now!

P.S. Note to self: Pick up The Scientist in the Crib.

P.P.S. How about these I Love Science onesies from Neat0rama?

Life lessons of a once-young scientist

What makes for a good science learning experience? I was thinking about this today and realized that, in my experience, fun isn't a requirement. In fact, some wonderful learning experiences aren't fun at all. When I really understood a scientific concept for the first time, there was usually some pain involved. Here's two examples:

When I was around four, my family went for an easy hike through the redwood forests of California. I saw something yellow against the carpet of pine needles and, thinking that it was a piece of banana, reached down to pick it up and eat it (hey, I was only four). But the banana moved! It wasn't a banana at all, but a banana slug! I was so startled that I probably dropped the poor thing and started to cry. I will never forget the shock of realizing that I nearly ate a slug!

Then in second grade, I got into a fight with a boy in my class. But he wasn't just any boy. He was smart and cute and I really wanted to make a good impression on him. We were talking about the weather (one of my favorite topics) and I said that when it rained, the sun wasn't in the sky. Obviously. There are only clouds up there, duh! And he said, no, you're wrong, the sun is up there, you just can't see it. Well, we argued about this for some time and -- I've blocked this part out of my memory -- somehow, we determined that I was wrong. I will never forget how embarrassed I was. (I told this story to second-grader Kerm recently and, upon learning that the boy won the argument, he just nodded and smiled.)

There are other experiences -- how I never understood my college chemistry labs until I banged my head upon every concept for the entire three hours, the way that identifying flowers in a field guide always meant more after I'd hiked up a mountain to see them, or how I spent my 21st birthday with friends, gorging on cake and cramming for a final exam in ecology class.

For some reason, the hardship involved cemented these memories -- and the concepts that went with them -- into my brain. I learned something new. And now that I'm older, I appreciate those memories for what they were -- good science learning lessons.