LaPaz Home Learning

Ah,the dreaded  high school science. Just the thought is enough to strike fear into the heart of many a homeschooling mama. I think this is because of the vision of high school science that many of us hold. Perhaps it is a vision left over from our own high school days? A vision of complicated experiments, tedious procedures in labs full of expensive equipment that we could never replicate at home. Ponderous, deadly-dull textbooks. It’s an intimidating prospect, to be sure.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. As my contribution to this month’s Homeschool High School Carnival(which will be hosted right here on Monday!), I want to share with you a different vision for high school science. One that coincides more closely with what science really is–inquiry, exploration, and discovery.

Take a look at the next 4 photos. This is probably close to what many envision high school science (and science in general) to be about. Chemicals, lab equipment, model-building.

 

Don’t get me wrong, these things have their place. We can and do learn this way sometimes.  But I want to encourage you to think outside that scientific “box” of a laboratory setting and see how enjoyable and full of life science can be.  Because that, my friends is what has, for centuries, driven science. It’s why Newton and Einstein and Darwin did what they did– simply the desire to know more about the world we live in. Science at it’s core is an insatiable curiosity about everything we see. It’s the need, deep inside to answer the burning questions, such as…

What secrets are buried here?

What happens if I do this?

What is under this rock?

What happened here?

What’s around the corner?

Who came here before me?

Science is curiosity fulfilled; it’s questions answered that lead to more and more questions and more to explore. Endless possibilities!

Children are natural scientists. It’s us adults who sometimes forget. Who take a field rich with possibilities and turn it into something to be checked off a list. I’m begging you, please don’t do that!  Be a child! Dive right in with them and explore the beautiful, fascinating, amazing world we have around us!

There is so much to see and it all has a lesson for us if we only open our eyes!  From the large …

To the small…

Up high…

And down low…

And everything in between.

The world is your classroom, your lab, your textbook. Go explore it!

I will be hosting the Homeschool High School Carnival this month, with the theme of High School Science. I hope you will stop by Monday and see what a lot of other fine ladies have envisioned for science in their homeschools.