Keeping a Scientific Journal
Doing science is exciting, fun, and full of big ideas! Why bother with writing when you could be mixing up chemicals, blasting rockets, or shattering laser beams?
Because all your “great ideas” are worth nothing if you can’t tell others about what you’re doing. Scientists write in journals to let others know the latest news with their experiments, announce their new discoveries, or to simply keep track of their progress.
Keeping a science journal doesn’t have to be flashy or fancy, just accurate. Science is already hard enough without the added chaos of not knowing what you did yesterday. I’m going to show you the three easy steps to keeping a journal.
You don’t have to write a novel – just keep track of what you’re doing along with any questions that come up. It’s a lot easier to do a couple pages a day for a month rather than trying to pound out a hundred pages in a day! This is something you’re going to use throughout the program doing just a little bit at a time, At the end of the month or year, you’ll be surprised to see how much science you’ve covered!
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When I teach science camp, I have 6 year old kids that recorded in their journals – pictures, mostly, drawings, and a few key words. Of course, it’s not as detailed as the upper level students, but it starts them in the habit of writing and recording, and also hones their observational skills. If it stresses your kids out too much, skip it for now or find another way to make it fun and engaging. It’s a great place to start putting down their questions so they can work on finding answers as well.
Aurora,
I read your response about making the journaling more of a scrapbook venture than a tedious chore. But I’m curious if there is there an age/grade range you recommend starting the science journal? Do you think early elementary kids should start from the get-go, even if it’s just with pasting pictures or drawings, or a parent taking down their narration of the experiment? Or is it better to wait until upper elementary when they can create the journal more independently?
Make sure you’re logged in – the videos will pop up as soon as you are. Maybe something goofy happened when you closed the tab?
We were watching the science journal videos, the tab was closed out accidentally and now only the lesson comes up with no videos? Where did they go?
You can if you like. If not a conclusion, then a recommendation, ah-ha! moment, something you learned, or a question you had answered is a nice way to wrap things up.
Hi Aurora!
I’m wondering whether you need to record a conclusion for every science experiment recorded in the journal.
Thanks!
-Dayini, age 12
Look in Unit 7: Lesson 1
What is boson, Aurora? I can’t find an explanation anywhere.
Thanks Aurora!
Thank you very much! I have another question for you. What is your favorite thing to do an experiment about?
Hannah — Age 10
This is from Wiki:
Topology (from the Greek τόπος, “place”, and λόγος, “study”) is a major area of mathematics concerned with properties that are preserved under continuous deformations of objects, such as deformations that involve stretching, but no tearing or gluing. It emerged through the development of concepts from geometry and set theory, such as space, dimension, and transformation.
People that study topology in math study how things stretch and deform, which is used in astrophysics when describing how space-time curves. It’s really weird stuff!
Hey Aurora,
I have a question for you. What does topological mean? I’m doing an experiment on the Mobius Strip, and I came across that word, topological. I want to put it into my own words. Sorry this is SO off the subject, but do you think you could please help me? Thanks!
Hannah
There’s a number of great dinosaur experiments that you can do, actually! When I was working on the geology and earth science unit for e-Science, I found a ton of cool geology/fossil experiments. Since e-Science does not cover evolution or creation, this unit had to be cut at the end (I tried to keep the experiments that didn’t discuss either one, but then was left with only a small handful of experiments). You can try “Dig It” by Hixson for some cool and inexpensive ideas.
Hi, my son is 7 and he LOVES dinosaurs, the only trouble is that you can’t really do experiments with dinosaurs. What do you recommend for the dinosaur lovers out there? Should I try and steer him towards experiments? Or perhaps he should keep a scientific journal of dinosaurs, how would you recommend doing that? I don’t know weather to do what he likes or try and show him other things. A little of both is probably better. I would love any advice on fitting dinosaurs into science!
Thanks,
Jen
Sounds like an odd setting on your computer. Those are PDF files, and you need Adobe Acrobat Reader (available free from the internet) in order to view the files.
Hi Aurora,
I am having problems pulling up the lesson plans, the syllabus, notes, etc. Every time I click on the blue highlight the Windows Media Center will pop up. Is this correct? If so, how do I navigate through this website? It is not showing me any information to print out.
Kevin,
I use Firefox on Windows (not technically savvy enough for Linux!) and the links work fine. It must be the Linux/Firefox combo that has an issue.
I’m going to see if IE is faster for the videos. On Firefox I let the videos run through first and then watch them after they have streamed.
Mozilla support: I have noticed that I have to be in IE to get the printer frendly links on your web site. I prefer Linux to windoz and specifically use Firefox. I also notice it is a lot faster on downloading and loading the videos from your site.
Are you going to fully support Mozilla in the future?
Respectfully,
Kevin B
Hi Kathleen,
You’re right – documentation for some kids is a chore, while others love it. But it doesn’t have to be anything strict or rigid like filling in the blanks on endless scores of worksheets. You can start your kid off by just doing the experiments to get them excited about doing science at all… and then hand them a notebook to draw their experiments in and paste pictures you’ve taken of them doing the actual experiments. This way, they can explain to others what they were up to. If they ask questions you can’t answer, add those to the journal also and bring it with you to the library when you look stuff up.
By making it a ‘working book’, it’s much more interesting and engaging to them. I paste in smaller/skinnier parts of the experiment alongside, like a circuit I made, a special light bulb I used, a sensor I created, even a paper airplane that worked really well – just taped right into the book so I have it for future reference. It’s more of a scrapbook for science, I guess, but it works for me! Especially with electricity, it’s handy to have a diagrams (or photo of one) of a circuit so I can peek back at it when I do more advanced stuff. For example, the wiring up of a DPDT switch gets used in the ROV project, laser light show, and other robotic projects.
When they’re in high school, you can add the more detailed stuff outlined here. As long as your writing is concise and accurate, it doesn’t have to be a mile long – most college lab reports are under 10 pages from start to finish. Most scientists keep separate journals for their great ideas and experiments they’ve done so they can refer to them later and build on their ideas. If your kid’s not a writer, then consider a audio recorder or video camera for capturing the information to ease them into the idea of documenting their progress.
Does that help? Happy experimenting!
Hi Aurora –
I have a 13 year old who will be in 8th grade. When/how much should he be doing in a science notebook at this point? What do you think of beginning the journals after several months of doing experiments?
My first priority for my kids is that they have fun in science, so I don’t want to turn it into a chore unnecessarily. But I also want them to learn what they should. I do not need to meet any state legal requirement now, but might want something in the future for sceince documentation as we anticipate college for our kids. On the other hand, I don’t want to keep too many things for a transcript.
Reading your essays on the science notebook brought back memories of various high school and college chemistry and physics classes. I remember them being somewhat a chore at the time, but now I think of them as having been fun after all.