Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Cindy Van Latum on 21/09/2012 09:38:58
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Cindy Van Latum asked the Naked Scientists:
Dear Chris and Team
I listen to you whenever I can on Fridays at 9am on 702! It is such a pity that my son is already at school as he came to see you at St John's high school last year and LOVED your show. I know we can podcast (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/) and we do as often as possible.
My son, Tommy, has been subscribing to Popular Mechanics for 2 years, I think we are currently in our 3rd year....and he is only 9 years old. He also has your book!
Clearly he has a passion for everything SCIENCE.
His most watched TV stations are Myth busters, How it's made, and everything to do with big construction projects...like the Olympic stadium and pool etc.
I would love him to have more avenues to explore how things work, but at his age, it is difficult to find supervised activities. ( I mean supervision that knows more about this than he does, that counts me and his dad out!!!!)
We completely exhausted all the things that toy shops have to offer in the way of experiments, solar energy etc, and he is way beyond all that already. I have had to pay electricians to come and check his experiments before he plugs them in, just to make sure he does not get shocked or burn the house down!
When we took him to the science museum last year in London, he completed circuits in a completely different way, and the supervisors were amazed at his thought behind things as it all still workedJ, which they did not expect.
What programmes do you have for young engineers/ scientists like my Tommy?
There have to be more of them out there and how wonderful it would be for you, or me for that matter, to arrange a science camp next time you are out here? I have also asked Popular mechanics the same questions, so maybe they will be happy to sponsor you in this....imagine that!!!!!
First of all, it would encourage kids to be interested in this field as a future career, which means we can stop importing talent for all our massive SA projects.
Secondly, if you capture them early enough, those science related pathways in their brains will become stronger, ensuring that their interest in the subject not only remains, but gets stronger as they get older.
Last year I contacted Murray and Roberts. One of their project managers sent me such a wonderful response, saying that LEGO and meccano are the best things at this age, but Tommy has already motorised anything and everything imaginable, I need to feed this desire to learn, with new and more challenging things!
Please let me know if you have any ideas or if the above interests you?
I think Tommy feels a bit isolated because when he starts talking about all things science, the other kids just shut off as he is speaking a language that they do not understand, nor keen to learn.
If you offer something like this in the UK, we are prepared to travel.
I look forward to hearing you on the radio tomorrow!
Best Regards
Cindy Van Latum
What do you think?