Melinda George is a Mom Congress Advisory Board member and the Senior Director of PBS TeacherLine and National Education Partnerships. She talked to Mom Congress about how important science programming is for kids' television and the improvements that need to be made in science education.
How would you sum up the state of elementary science education in the U.S.?
This is such an exciting time for elementary science education in the United States. There is an unprecedented emphasis from federal, state and local governments to infuse science education into the curriculum and to make it a priority. Of course, this emphasis comes following a lot of questions and concerning data about whether American students are prepared to compete in a global economy and particularly how prepared they are in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
My advice to parents is to take advantage of this emphasis on science. Help your children to understand that science is everywhere and that it is exciting and real. Encourage them to ask questions and then explore together to find the answers. Science does not only happen in a laboratory and everyone has the capability to be a scientist. Being a scientist just means that you feel free to ask questions and then you have the motivation to go and answer them.
What's holding teachers and kids back from getting more involved in science?
I believe that there is a prevailing myth in our society that scientific skills are limited to a very small subset of our population. Many teachers and students are afraid of science because they believe it is too hard or you need to be too smart or you don't have the resources to do science. This myth needs to be unraveled.
Kids, at their very core, are the most natural explorers and scientists. Parents can become exasperated with their children because they ask too many questions. But truly, that is how a love of science begins. One of our PBS KIDS shows Sid the Science Kid keys in on that very theme. Sid has a question about almost everything. "Why do bananas get brown and mushy?" "Why do my feet grow out of my shoes?" "How do I measure a whale?" But the key for Sid is that he has a lot of adult guides in his life -- his parents, his teacher, his grandmother -- all of whom encourage him to give voice to those questions and then they work with him to answer the questions.
Teachers are really strapped for time these days with the objectives they must cover in the classroom and the assessments on those objectives. And some worry that they can get sidetracked with all of kids' questions and then finding all of the answers. Instead, science needs to be embedded into the work that teachers are already doing. PBS TeacherLine, PBS' online professional development service for K-12 teachers, has a course for teachers called "Teaching Reading in Science." In this course, teachers can hone their skills around helping students unravel the mysteries and complexities of scientific concepts by training them to approach science texts in new ways, all while they are teaching reading skills.
This year's line up of shows on PBS Kids has a clear science focus. You've even created an online game that allows kids to rebuild an entire ecosystem. What can kids get from exposure to these programs that they may not get anywhere else?
PBS Kids offers all children the opportunity to explore new worlds through programming, games and activities that kids not only love to experience, but that they can learn and grow from. What better way to motivate a kid to learn than to engage them in an activity -- like rebuilding an entire ecosystem -- where they don't necessarily even recognize all of the learning that is taking place because they are too excited and caught up in the adventure. My own children, ages 8 and 10, will choose pbskids.org as their destination for "screen time" because they know that it always has something interesting for them to do and that I will be okay with them spending time there because it is a safe and trusted place. What they don't know is that I can watch them -- either over their shoulder or through our online history -- and actually have an idea of what they are learning on the site. I am also always excited when that online experience carries over to the dinner table and they raise a topic they were "playing with" (a.k.a. studying) and ask further questions about it. Then I know that real learning and exploration is taking place.
PBS Kids also does a tremendous job of encouraging kids to be scientists. This is done primarily by unraveling the myth that scientists are few and far between. Curious George or Sid the Science Kid make science cool for your kids, but it doesn't end there. As kids get older, PBS helps them to see and experience that being interested in science is cool. A great example of how PBS can help older kids is available through a Web original series from PBS Nova Science NOW entitled, "The Secret Life of Scientists." The short, inspiring, and often humorous pieces are perfect for inspiring interest in and humanizing the scientific life. Or check out the PBS Kids GO! Web original site, EekoWorld. The site is designed to help early elementary school children learn about the important role they can play in taking care of the earth. Eeko stands for Environmental Education for Kids Online and features an engaging and interactive format that invites children to explore, experiment, and collaborate as they learn about conservation and the environment.
