A Science Program Just For Homeschoolers

Some museums are starting to realize that there are a lot of eager learners who are looking for programs during traditional school hours. The Children’s Museum of Science and Technology has created a monthly series of homeschool programs that align with New York State’s curriculum standards. They are intended for 7 to 12-year-olds, and cover a wide range of subjects. Perhaps it is the introductory nature of these programs or the wide-ranging age level of the targeted audience, but they don’t always succeed in engaging the audience.

We have attended two programs. The first, It’s Air-Stounding, was billed as an exploration of the “amazing properties of air” as well as an introduction to physics. This class was informative and provided an introduction to difficult concepts such as Bernoulli’s principle. Some of the material was a stretch for an 8-year-old (and this middle aged mom) but the concepts were accompanied with concrete, hands on activities that illuminated the ideas. Afterwards, we watched Astronaut in the planetarium. I’m still not sure what the connection was between the discussion of the properties of air and a movie about the effect of sending human bodies into a gravity-free environment. I suspect there really wasn’t much of a tie-in. However, the movie was thought provoking, humorous, and entertaining to this audience.

The second program, The Wonderful World of Weather, promised the audience that they would “get wild about the weather through games and experiments.” There was a larger audience for this program, and yes, they were a little wild but mostly there was a lot of chatting and fidgeting. Most of the material was obvious and there really wasn’t much in the way of hands on experiments. The highlight was a trip to the green wall where the kids could make their own weather reports, but this was an opportunity to joke around rather than scientific exploration. I would have liked to see the use of weather measuring tools, but that didn’t happen. Instead, we concluded by watching a Zula Patrol show on the weather that is intended to attract pre-schoolers through second graders. I thought it was fairly silly and not particularly informative, but I can see how it would appeal to the pre-school crowd.

During the weather program, I noticed that the instructor was often surprised by the knowledge base of the audience. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. I would imagine that, since these are students who are choosing to attend a science program, they are mostly a self-selected group who have an interest in the topic or at least in learning in general.

Hopefully, future programs will take into account the interest and motivation of this very bright audience of homeschooled students.