Syllabus & Schedule
The eScience program is appropriate for students grades K-12. You’ll find lots of experiments for students in this entire grade range. Younger students can still work through most of the program with a bit of your help (for using tools and hot glue guns) as they build the robots, laser shows, hovercraft, catapults, roller coasters, chemistry experiments, and much more.
The main difference is that the goal of most families with younger students is different than that for older students – for younger students, most families just want their kids to get excited about science, so they focus more on the experiments and activities and barely touch the textbook downloads, exercises, reading and academic material. There are hundreds of activities and projects, so you shouldn’t’ have much trouble finding good experiments to work on!
If you’re asking: “What do I teach today?”, or if you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information on the eScience website, then this is the page you’ll want to refer back to. Remember, your kids will be able to the majority of this program by themselves.
Click here for a printer-friendly version of this page.
The eScience program is a combination of Physics and Chemistry, as these two fields are the fundamental cornerstones in all other areas of science, technology, and engineering. Here’s what we’re going to study together:
You don’t have to do the Units in any specific order. In fact, you don’t have to teach them at all!
Your child can have an outstanding science education, with little effort from you. We’ve taken most of the headache and hassle out of figuring out what to teach and how to present it to your child with our videos, audio teleclasses, projects, experiments, activities, textbook downloads, quizzes, and more. All you need to do is read over this document (so you understand what they’re up to), and then hand over the access codes to your kids. They’ll soon be teaching YOU science!
How NOT to Teach Science
Most traditional science lesson plans will have you read textbook material first, and then if you’ve got time, do an experiment or two… most of which are sadly boring and don’t spark curiosity at all. And they’ll forget 95% of what you try to teach them when you do it this way.
The Best Way to Learn Science
We recommend teaching science from the inside-out, meaning that you start with an experiment or two that really hooks your kids… the kind that makes them (and you) say; “WOW!” or “Cool!” Let them roll around and play with the experiment for awhile, and when they come running back to you with questions like “Why did that happen?” or “What’s going on here?”, then they’ve signaled you that they are ready for the more academic reading and lesson videos.
How to Use the Information on the eScience Website
On the website, you’ll find tons of information, including videos, teleclasses, projects, activities, quizzes, textbooks, lessons, and more. There’s a LOT of content on the website, but it’s organized. Here’s how you and your students will use it:
- Click on the Unit you want to do.
- Watch the video and click the buttons.
Although you can click any button in any order, we sorted them in the order that makes the most teaching sense, starting with the Lesson Plan, then Shopping List, and onward.
“I need more help than that!”
A little too brief? Here’s how all the pieces work together:
- Unit description: This is where you’ll find the overview of what the unit is all about. Each unit is broken down into Lessons, each of which last 1 – 3 weeks, depending on how much science you choose to do.
- Outcomes/Goals: Students will learn the Objectives & Highlights, hone their observation skills, set up experiments, take data, evaluate results, and troubleshoot when things go wrong.
- Objectives/Highlights: This is a quick overview of the Lesson for the week, and includes the key concepts we’ll tackle. Keep these highlights in mind as you’re working through the Lesson.
- Introduction: Let your students watch the introduction video for lesson. This will give students an overview about what the unit is all about. It’s already prepared for you, so you don’t have to prepare any lectures or gather any demonstration materials together – it’s all on the video.
- Development: Have your students listen to the teleclass audio recording (MP3 file). This is a live discussion of a science teacher (Aurora) delivering an introduction to the group of students, complete with questions. It’s a great way to start your new unit – you don’t have to prepare any notes!
- Practice: These are the experiments and activities that will bring the science objectives to life. Have your students decide which they want to do. Some lessons have only a few activities, while others have a staggeringly long list. Pace yourself and do the ones that best fit your goal, time and budget. Each experiment has an instructional step-by-step video that students can watch on their own as they build their project.
- Further Study: After your students have completed a few experiments, questions are naturally going to pop up. Print out and have your students read the text download to help answer any questions that come up when you did your experiments and activities. If they still have questions, that’s what the comment fields are about – enter in your questions and you’ll be surprised how quickly it gets answered!
- Evaluation: Print out the exercises and have your students complete the exercises for the lesson. You can hide the answer key until they’ve finished!
- Closure: This is where students can submit feedback (in the comments sections) about what they’ve learned, what they’ve figured out, and what still doesn’t make sense. In addition, students can also teach their new ideas.
“Help! I can’t answer my kid’s science questions!”
At Supercharged Science, we don’t believe it’s your job as a parent to have all the answers. The next time your child runs to you with questions, you can honestly say, “Gosh – I’m not sure. Let’s take a look together…” Your job as a parent is to be the biggest cheerleader for your student, meaning that you show them total confidence in their abilities to figure things out. You don’t need to have all the answers… in fact, you’re not supposed to.
Part of being a quality scientist involves taking responsibility for your own learning. This means that although you might want your project to happen a certain way (for example, your paper airplane to fly), but after working at it you find your results are not as you expected (after folding the airplane, it consistently nose-dives).
Most people stop here and give up, but this is where the greatest opportunity for learning starts. Stop to take a closer look and really start to ask quality questions about why the laws of physics gave you something different than you were expecting, that’s when you really learn how to fly. Does it matter what type of paper we use? Does the plane have to be symmetrical? Does it matter if we add a paper clip to the nose? How do real airplanes keep from nose-diving?
This eScience program includes Unlimited Support for as long as you need it because we are committed to your long-term success and not here to sell you a one-time solution. This means you’re now off the hot-seat with having to come up with all the answers. We encourage kids to contact us as a part of taking charge of their own education. What this really means is that your child is now finding their answers to their questions, freeing up your mind for more important things.
There is an easy way for kids to get their questions answered. Simply post the question on the eScience program (in the comment box of every experiment), so other kids that have the same question can see the response we provide. Just type in your question in the comment box and presto! you’ll see an answer in less than a day.
NEW! Live Science Calls Every Wednesday!
Every Wednesday at 12 noon Pacific (3pm Eastern), we’ll be on the phone answering any questions you have about any part of this program and providing mini-intro’s to the unit you’re working on. Whether you’re working on the most advanced robotic project or just starting out with for the first time, we can help point you in the right direction. We stay on the phone as long as there are questions to answer. Click here for more information.
Parent Resources
We’ve posted several articles to help you get started in the right direction. Here is a sampling of the titles in the Parent Resource section:
- How Do I Motivate My Child to Learn on their Own?
- Six Keys to Successful Education
- What Exactly IS Science?
- Common Misconceptions in Science Textbooks
- Seven Biggest Mistakes Made in Teaching Science
- How to Keep a Scientific Journal
- Secrets from Successful Teachers
- Easy Steps to Award-Winning Science Fair Projects
- What Does My Child Really Need to Learn in Science?
Some of the parent resources are articles while others are teleclass recordings. There’s a mix so you can pick and choose which ones you want to download and focus on. We do offer teleclasses just for parents, so check the website for details on upcoming calls.
What About Summer?
Summer is the time we boost the super-cool experiments and lighten up on the academics. This summer, we’ll show you how to transform your house into a hands-on science museum and run a science camp right in your own backyard, complete with summer night star gazing and lessons on how to roast marshmallows with light beams while you watch colored campfires. We’ll also have an in-depth look at how to operate a compound microscope, shake up more chemical reactions, and learn the real science behind popular magic tricks. Click for a Sneak Preview!
About the live teleclass part of the program:
At the start of each Unit, we post a teleclass recording to the website so you can access it anytime as a great start to your next unit. We do have live teleclasses each month, and you’ll find all the information you need to participate including the date, time, and phone number posted on the website.
Click here for the teleclass information.