Hi,

Surely it begins at home. When kids grow up in science-friendly homes, they are encouraged to ask questions, think critically, experiment, explain their reasoning, read, write, create models, and watch science programs on TV.

Perhaps the most important discovery is that kids benefit from explicit lessons in critical thinking. Studies suggest that students become better problem solvers--and even raise their IQs--when they are taught principles of logic, hypothesis-testing, and other methods of reasoning.

Studies also suggest that kids learn more when they are required to explain their own reasoning.

Best regards, Mourad

Hi,

Surely it begins at home. When kids grow up in science-friendly homes, they are encouraged to ask questions, think critically, experiment, explain their reasoning, read, write, create models, and watch science programs on TV.

Perhaps the most important discovery is that kids benefit from explicit lessons in critical thinking. Studies suggest that students become better problem solvers--and even raise their IQs--when they are taught principles of logic, hypothesis-testing, and other methods of reasoning.

Studies also suggest that kids learn more when they are required to explain their own reasoning.

Best regards, Mourad

Dear Derra Mourad,

Nice inputs 

Dear Dr. Aly,

Thanks a lot for your impressive question. I do agree with Dr. Derra Mourad.

Thanks again,

Emad

1) Music Lessons

Plain and simple: research show music lessons make kids smarter:

Compared with children in the control groups, children in the music groups exhibited greater increases in full-scale IQ. The effect was relatively small, but it generalized across IQ subtests, index scores, and a standardized measure of academic achievement.

In fact musical training helps everyone, young and old:

A growing body of research finds musical training gives students learning advantages in the classroom. Now a Northwestern University study finds musical training can benefit Grandma, too, by offsetting some of the deleterious effects of aging.

(More on what the music you love says about you here.)

The Brief NewsletterSign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample

2) The Dumb Jock Is A Myth

Dumb jocks are dumb because they spend more time on the field than in the library. But what if you make sure your child devotes time to both?

Being in good shape increases your ability to learn. After exercise people pick up new vocabulary words 20% faster.

Via Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:

Indeed, in a 2007 study of humans, German researchers found that people learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise, and that the rate of learning correlated directly with levels of BDNF.

A 3 month exercise regimen increased bloodflow to the part of the brain focused on memory and learning by 30%.

Via Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:

In his study, Small put a group of volunteers on a three-month exercise regimen and then took pictures of their brains… What he saw was that the capillary volume in the memory area of the hippocampus increased by 30 percent, a truly remarkable change.

(More on how exercise can make you and your kids smarter and happier here.)

3) Don’t Read To Your Kids, Read With Them

Got a little one who is learning to read? Don’t let them just stare at the pictures in a book while you do all the reading.

Call attention to the words. Read with them, not to them. Research shows it helps build their reading skills:

…when shared book reading is enriched with explicit attention to the development of children’s reading skills and strategies, then shared book reading is an effective vehicle for promoting the early literacy ability even of disadvantaged children.

(More on things most parents do wrong here.)

4) Sleep Deprivation Makes Kids Stupid

Missing an hour of sleep turns a sixth grader’s brain into that of a fourth grader.

Via NurtureShock:

“A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development,” Sadeh explained.

There is a correlation between grades and average amount of sleep.

Via NurtureShock:

Teens who received A’s averaged about fifteen more minutes sleep than the B students, who in turn averaged fifteen more minutes than the C’s, and so on. Wahlstrom’s data was an almost perfect replication of results from an earlier study of over 3,000 Rhode Island high schoolers by Brown’s Carskadon. Certainly, these are averages, but the consistency of the two studies stands out. Every fifteen minutes counts.

(More on how to sleep better here.)

5) IQ Isn’t Worth Much Without Self-Discipline

Self-discipline beats IQ at predicting who will be successful in life.

From Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:

Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success… Students who exerted high levels of willpower were more likely to earn higher grades in their classes and gain admission into more selective schools. They had fewer absences and spent less time watching television and more hours on homework. “Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic-performance variable,” the researchers wrote. “Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did IQ. Self-discipline also predicted which students would improve their grades over the course of the school year, whereas IQ did not.… Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.”

Grades have more to do with conscientiousness than raw smarts.

Via How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character:

…conscientiousness was the trait that best predicted workplace success. What intrigues Roberts about conscientiousness is that it predicts so many outcomes that go far beyond the workplace. People high in conscientiousness get better grades in school and college; they commit fewer crimes; and they stay married longer. They live longer – and not just because they smoke and drink less. They have fewer strokes, lower blood pressure, and a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

Who does best in life? Kids with grit.

Via Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

The best predictor of success, the researchers found, was the prospective cadets’ ratings on a noncognitive, nonphysical trait known as “grit”—defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”

(More on how to improve self-discipline here.)

6) Learning Is An Active Process

Baby Einstein and braintraining games don’t work.

In fact, there’s reason to believe they make kids dumber.

Via Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five:

The products didn’t work at all. They had no positive effect on the vocabularies of the target audience, infants 17-24 months. Some did actual harm. For every hour per day the children spent watching certain baby DVD’s and videos, the infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them.

Real learning isn’t passive, it’s active.

What does Dan Coyle, author of The Talent Code recommend? Stop merely reading and test yourself:

Our brains evolved to learn by doing things, not by hearing about them. This is one of the reasons that, for a lot of skills, it’s much better to spend about two thirds of your time testing yourself on it rather than absorbing it. There’s a rule of two thirds. If you want to, say, memorize a passage, it’s better to spend 30 percent of your time reading it, and the other 70 percent of your time testing yourself on that knowledge.

(More on how to teach your child to be a hard worker in school here.)

7) Treats Can Be A Good Thing — At The Right Time

Overall, it would be better if kids ate healthy all the time. Research shows eating makes a difference in children’s grades:

Everybody knows you should eat breakfast the day of a big test. High-carb, high-fiber, slow-digesting foods like oatmeal are best, research shows. But what you eat a week in advance matters, too. When 16 college students were tested on attention and thinking speed, then fed a five-day high-fat, low-carb diet heavy on meat, eggs, cheese and cream and tested again, their performance declined.

There are always exceptions. No kid eats healthy all the time. But the irony is that kids often get “bad” foods at the wrong time.

Research shows caffeine and sugar can be brain boosters:

Caffeine and glucose can have beneficial effects on cognitive performance… Since these areas have been related to the sustained attention and working memory processes, results would suggest that combined caffeine and glucose could increase the efficiency of the attentional system.

They’re also potent rewards kids love.

So if kids are going to occasionally eat candy and soda maybe it’s better to give it to them while they study then when they’re relaxing.

(More on the best way for kids to study here.)

8) Happy Kids = Successful Kids

Happier kids are more likely to turn into successful, accomplished adults.

Via Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents:

…happiness is a tremendous advantage in a world that emphasizes performance. On average, happy people are more successful than unhappy people at both work and love. They get better performance reviews, have more prestigious jobs, and earn higher salaries. They are more likely to get married, and once married, they are more satisfied with their marriage.

And what’s the first step in creating happier kids? Being a happy parent.

(More on how to raise happy kids here.)

9) Peer Group Matters

Your genetics and the genetics of your partner have a huge effect on your kids. But the way you raise your kids?

Not nearly as much.

Via Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference:

On things like measures of intellectual ability and certain aspects of personality, the biological children are fairly similar to their parents. For the adopted kids, however, the results are downright strange. Their scores have nothing whatsoever in common with their adoptive parents: these children are no more similar in their personality or intellectual skills to the people who raised them, fed them, clothed them, read to them, taught them, and loved them for sixteen years than they are to any two adults taken at random off the street.

So what does have an enormous affect on your children’s behavior? Their peer group.

We usually only talk about peer pressure when it’s a negative but more often than not, it’s a positive.

Living in a nice neighborhood, going to solid schools and making sure your children hang out with good kids can make a huge difference.

What’s the easiest way for a college student to improve their GPA? Pick a smart roommate.

Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work:

One study of Dartmouth College students by economist Bruce Sacerdote illustrates how powerful this influence is. He found that when students with low grade-point averages simply began rooming with higher-scoring students, their grade-point averages increased. These students, according to the researchers, “appeared to infect each other with good and bad study habits—such that a roommate with a high grade-point average would drag upward the G.P.A. of his lower-scoring roommate.”

(More on the how others affect your behavior without you realizing it here.)

10) Believe In Them

Believing your kid is smarter than average makes a difference.

When teachers were told certain kids were sharper, those kids did better — even though the kids were selected at random.

Via The Heart of Social Psychology: A Backstage View of a Passionate Science:

…Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968) did the same study in a classroom, telling elementary school teachers that they had certain students in their class who were “academic spurters.” In fact, these students were selected at random. Absolutely nothing else was done by the researchers to single out these children. Yet by the end of the school year, 30 percent of the the children arbitrarily named as spurters had gained an average of 22 IQ points, and almost all had gained at least 10 IQ points.

Science but with sense

Gives science to them as they loved, such cartoons. We should try to do this in cartoon films, this will believe them to do.

Dear Ali hadi Ghawi,

Thank you for 10 advice to make our children believe in science  and become much smarter. Could you please write a link to get people back to it. 

Dear Mushtaq Ahmad,

I agree with you sense is important to meet different needs and situations.

In my opinion, a very good method is to show children different chemistry or physics experiments and to do it also by children.

Kind regards

Dear Waleed M Razuki ,

I agree with you give them as they loved and also simplify science for them. I have remembered now a British programme on BBC years ago when I had been to England called Eurokera was exciting programme lean children scientific facts in simple ways.

Agree

I have 4 children but I live in a free and for the most part scientific area of the world.

However as a parent I have seen to many time where the children only believe what the mother and father have told them.  If this is in magic then they believe that magic is real.  If the thought is that science is true then they may not understand all they are taught but they think it is real.

In areas where science is not seem as important the students must be shown how science can prove things they already know to be true.  They must be shown the practical side of science.  One can not start with equations and numbers and try to show them how this is real.  One must show them how a system works and why then back into the numbers.

Even where I live too many children are totally lost with math but when you explain how it works and then show them how numbers can be applied to that they are not afraid of the science. 

People do not want to think they are not vary smart so if you introduce a concept to them and let them ask questions about it, one can teach them to like science and then understand that everyone can benefit from being able to use what they know to be true to figure things out.

Math is not the answer, math is the problem.  There are only a few special people in the world that math comes naturally to them but for the most part it is what gets in the way of them learning about science.

I am blessed with children that seem to get math but I struggled with calculus and started realizing the issues that are raised with math and its inability to solve problems.  Math does not solve problems people use math to help them solve problems.

George

Improve the science and children will believe in it. When science tries to remove traditional values without a firm scientific basis, confidence is lost. Science becomes strong when it discovers the best of traditional values and builds a structure of knowledge to support them.

The following is similar to my answer I wrote for a question about recognizing and supporting a child with a scientific predisposition, but I think that it might also be adequate here, too.

The Nobel-prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman was a person full of scientific curiosity, and how his father taught him in his childhood gives a good example of awaking a child to science and making the child believe in it. Feynman tells about his childhood in the first story of his book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" as follows:

Before I was born, my father told my mother, “If it’s a boy, he’s going to be a scientist.” When I was just a little kid, very small in a highchair, my father brought home a lot of little bathroom tiles—seconds—of different colors. We played with them, my father setting them up vertically on my highchair like dominoes, and I would push one end so they would all go down. Then after a while, I’d help set them up. Pretty soon, we’re setting them up in a more complicated way: two white tiles and a blue tile, two white tiles and a blue tile, and so on. When my mother saw that she said, “Leave the poor child alone. If he wants to put a blue tile, let him put a blue tile.”

But my father said, “No, I want to show him what patterns are like and how interesting they are. It’s a kind of elementary mathematics.” So he started very early to tell me about the world and how interesting it is.

…

More can be read on pages 3 and 4 of the link below.

http://bpsscience.weebly.com/uploads/2/2/1/3/2213712/4.2_feynman_-_the_making_of_a_scientist_close_reading_exemplar.pdf

How to make children believe in science?

Perhaps following approach can be considered:

I would show children that science and religion do not conflict but actually complement each other. So after telling a child, "God made that butterfly," you say, "Here's how God made that butterfly" and explain briefly the evolution of the butterfly. This will pique children's interest in science.

Encourage the innate thirst for knowledge in children and help them to get plausible answers for the same. Try to answer their questions like the cause and reasons of various natural things around them. They always ask "why does this happen" and in turn expect an answer to their query which they can understand bereft of technical jargon.  Make them curious to search for some of the answers themselves.  Their 'curious nature' knows no bound to explore the ambient environment and beyond,  and the same needs to be encouraged. They showed be shown the things as they exist wherever. possible. A beautiful mountain range, a glacier, a memorable rainbow in the sky, a night sky full of stars, meteors/shooting stars falling across the sky, an aurora if possible and the reasons behind these natural aspects and events.  No amount of perusal through websites per-se would give them the experience they deserve by performing/visualising these things themselves  Make them learn from simple (table top) experiments. The more they learn, the better they would appreciate science, in its entirety.

By creating an atmosphere of learning and experiencing science.

Dear Debashish Sengupta,

Thank you for your distinguishing answers, I will hire some words that come in your answer: Encourage them, Answer their questions,  Make them curious to search for some of the answers themselves.  Their 'curious nature' knows no bound 

Best regards

Aly

Dear Amit Ranjan,

I agree with you

All the best

Aly

Dear Kirk MacGregor ,

I agree with you and like your insight. There is no conflict between religion and science, that made me remember old famous TV programme in Egypt  called Faith and Science that hear no sound in the Egyptian streets when this programme working.

Best regards

Aly

Dear Han Ping Fung,

Thank you very much for the five nice scientific steps to make children believe in science.

Best regards

Aly

Dear Edyta Gheribi,

I agree with you to have a good/simplified method to learn children science to see and do safe and enjoyable experiments.

Best regards

Aly 

my opinion is,

Child can't understand scientific or any language, thus we have tell them truth, only truth about anything, not any imaginary story, because their memory strongly follows what you tell and they are started to believe it.

They don't understand any scientific theory and experiment, but we can introduce them to scientific world. They can watch different animal or organism, travel different place hill or river or any kind of natural sight and besides it, we have to give brief explanation of this things and answer any question if they asked. And can visit or watched by video different type of industries where how to make toys, food products,  etc what ever child like, anatomy of human body from picture or doll any thing,.

Always speak with them only truth.

Dear Md Bokhtiar,

Thank you for your input, let me hire some helpful words that come in your answer: truth, learning by travel, watching  nature and videos.

Best regards

Aly

George E. Van Hoesen,

Yes what you say is true specifically about math! I have some experience with that as child I was afraid of math. Math is a problem for children in many areas to do!

I will hire nice paragraph you said "People do not want to think they are not vary smart so if you introduce a concept to them and let them ask questions about it, one can teach them to like science and then understand that everyone can benefit from being able to use what they know to be true to figure things out.  Agree with you to introduce concept and let children ask questions.

Another nice words: Math does not solve problems people use math to help them solve problems. I agree with that math is a tool for people to help solving problems. Thank you very much for the distinguished answer that touches a practical area to make children believe in science: Mathemtics

Best regards

Aly

@Jerry Decker

Yes I agree with you we need to work much more to make science is good and children with our help will make them believe in science

Best regards

Aly

@Tatsuo Tabata,

Thank you very much for your input, that remind me with the answer of @George E. Van Hoesen he said that children see life through parents. It is interesting play that your father done with two white tiles and a blue tile, and so on,  that learn children consistency and introduce calculus in a simple way. I am not sure how this idea comes to the mind of your father, great appreciation to him and other parents like him.

Best regards

Aly

We should first make them love science. If you love something you will be believe in it.

Dear Dr Munaf,

Thank you for your input. However, how can make children love science?

Best regards

Aly

Since we both are from Egypt, I really like your question and it concerns me similarly. Given the current circumstances in Egypt and the devaluation of the value of science and the quality of education, relative to the desired standards that could push our country forward. I believe how we raise children is what really matters. I agree with Md Bokhtiar Rahman, that the first step is exposing them to nature and truthfully answer their questions, will open their eyes to the wide world around them and unchain their brain power to think, invent and discover. the second step is a collaborative step between educational facilities and parents to promote their early talents and gifts that usually being submerged under the study curricula, exhausting school days and the number of 'NO' expressed by everyone around. Highlighting these talents, that can be of whatever kind, drawing, writing, singing, discovering things, searching in the soil, using computers, etc. As I say, highlighting these talents and supporting these young minds' attempt to express to the outside world, I am free, let me do what I like, is the second step in this path of developing the children scientific minds. 

Dear Sherif,

Welcome you to my question. I agree with you it should be a collaborative between education and parents. You really said some issues we need to cooperate as individuals and institutions to reduce the exhausting days of studying at Egyptian schools and discover talents of children, and leave some free time for children for something they really like it. Thank you again for your participation.  See you soon.

Best regards

Aly

The most popular answer on this research question , posted by @Derra Mourad, is a pure copy/paste plagiarism!!! The link to the origin of this answer is attached.

Science for kids?  

Surely it begins at home. When kids grow up in science-friendly homes, they are encouraged to ask questions, think critically, experiment, explain their reasoning, read, write, create models, and watch science programs on TV.

 But what are the best activities and resources? And what about school? What do studies suggest about the best and worst ways to teach science in the classroom? 

Perhaps the most important discovery is that kids benefit from explicit lessons in critical thinking. Studies suggest that students become better problem solvers--and even raise their IQs--when they are taught principles of logic, hypothesis-testing, and other methods of reasoning.

Studies also suggest that kids learn more when they are required to explain their own reasoning...

http://www.parentingscience.com/science-for-kids.html

Dear Ljubomir Jacić,

Thank you very much for paying attention to plagiarism run in the answers of questions. I appreciate that much and I wish other colleagues to pay attention to cite the link in case of copy and paste.

Why I really appreciate that, I am editing now my book about Home Economics  in Egypt and found a pioneer book written in 1930 about cooking and recipes in Egypt, then I found  another book  appeared after 10 years similar to the first ones and never cited the first one! this episode repeated many times until 1980. That makes me sad and did not get enough info about  other books may dropped through years and ignored to be cited .

Also in cooking classes we have notes for students to work from, and I always ask myself who wrote that I am saying that since 1984 and I have discovered now that notes  back to 1950 for a died author but people never cited this author. That means that authors died twice once naturally and another when people  ignored to cite her books .

Thank you very much

Aly R Abdel-Moemin

Home is where every thing originates. There must be some one for a kid to believe in science either his mom, dad or big brother. Take  my experience for instance, I am from Ethiopia, one of the least developed country, I didn't go to private school, my dad had a college diploma, didn't go to university but he was good academically. He was just showing science while I grow up. He had a reason for every thing he did. He was obsessed in science simply. he had been telling me stories about successful people in science and engineering. He always opens up our only tape recorder to show me the internal electronics part though he couldn't answer all the questioned I asked. He just made me think how things work. I remember he once took me to a military camp to show me a helicopter from near bye when take off and he was almost in trouble. with his little knowledge, he taught me the basics in  English language and mathematics helped me develop speaking. This whole things he was doing created something in my mind, developed my mind ...at least I was unique in my village though my friends think I am a freak ...haha. What I want to say is, if there is some one in a family that lives science transmits science to others. And my dad is my hero! 

Dear Samuel Tesema Lakew,

Welcome you to my question. I agree with you home is a key role to cultivate science in children. Sometimes asking myself who made me love science and teaching? probably I am a different story; teachers, mosque men and some media people affected me much. Never ignore your curiosity!

Best regards

Aly

You are right Aly. This is also the second most influential part in my life too. Schools, teachers, everyone and every thing you meet and encounter keep on adding some value. But may be curiosity is something a gift or we may develop it at early stage of our lives. .

good greeting

Wonderful what my dear colleagues said

I add that when we were young we believed everything the teacher says so that we reject what the parents say and say (the teacher told us)

Teachers must therefore have a great culture in teaching methods and how to deal with students

My good wishes to all