Classical, Modern, and Discovery-Based Science

A classical education has much to contribute to science teaching, particularly with showing students how science discoveries are made - science should not be taught as a disembodied list of facts to be memorized. Understanding science in its historical context, provides a more realistic view of how science can be fallible, how can be advanced by the efforts of individual men and women with their own personal motivations, and how different problems can be discovered and solved with the processes of close observation, testing, analysis, and communication with colleagues.

A great historical example of a classical approach to science is Faraday's Observation of a Candle series of lectures. These can be read here. This series of lectures combined so many elements of good science teaching: closer inspection of every day phenomena, a deeper exploration of facts, a thorough examination of scientific assumptions, and a testing of hypotheses. Currently there is great interest in discovery-based learning, but as it is equally important not to stamp out student-led inquiry and curiosity, it is important not to withold facts and technical information that will allow greater complexity in students' scientific thinking.

Last month, I did some science experiments at home with the kids because both were beginning to study the periodic table (pH for hydrogen). The text they were using didn't provide any historical content for why the red cabbaged could be used as an acid-base indicator, so with a little digging, we all were able to discover how the interest in acids and bases came about, how the color changes were important the textile industry, and how research into some of these color-changing substances is important for today and possibly even more for the future.

At The Origins of Acids and Alkalis, we learned that ancient Egyptians and Greeks identified different substances on the basis of taste. Vinegar was sour (acid). Alkalis came from the Arabic word al-qaliy which stood for a slippery substance left over after burning.

But the interest in acids really took off when French fabric dyers in the 16th century discovered that acids created colors that were much more vibrant (we thought of our Easter egg dyeing with vinegar).

There are many take off points for this study. Some of you may like to explore natural dyes at a site like Pioneer Thinking and Natural Dyes. We also talked about current ideas about possible health benefits of the anthocyanins and examined the structure of anthocyanins. We also tested various substances around the house, and found that most of their predictions about acids and bases were correct. But there was one exception that seemed to stump us. The kids dissolved a praline in some water, and had expected it to be a bit acidic (doesn't candy dissolve your teeth?). With a little bit of research into this unexpected result, they learned that the acid that makes dental cavities is caused by sugar because the sugar makes bacteria sticky to teeth, and it's the acid produced by the bacteria that makes holes. So what kind of science is all this? Classical-Modern-Discovery-Based Science, I think.

Yarn Picture

Rough Science

My son has a 2 week break from his Great Books & Latin courses so we've been catching up on science labs. I'm beginning to think that like the need to teach practical theology within the context of our post-modern world, there is also a need to teach science recognizing that we live in a post-modern world.

One common mistake of today's post-modern man or woman is realizing we often know less than we really think we know. For the post-modern science student, the ignorance may be even greater because they lack enough world experience to see how much occurs without a carefully designed lesson plan. When we memorize a list or table of facts, do we really know it? So what is it that we do know, and what is it that we don't?

One nice discovery on my search for links to complement our Fizz, Bubble, and Flash experiments, was the Rough Science science reality show. If you are a Netflix subscriber, you can stream these episodes any time for free. A team of scientists (chemist, physicist, biologist) is dropped in a deserted area with few materials and a challenge to design, make, or find something in the surrounding terrain. How many of us can do this? Maybe we need to think more about our science and get out of the printed page. The first episode we watched challenged scientists to find gold in a gold mining area, purify it and quantitate it using only materials they could find in deserted saw mill.

The experiments we tinkered with this week included Electrolysis of Water using a 9 volt battery, water, and copper wires. The Rough Science team washing using electroysis to make silver iodide so that they could make a camera.



To top off our electrolysis learning we also watched this homemade Exploding Hydrogen video. It was pretty good! Even the outtakes!
Some Rough Science Challenges
Make Your Own Compass, Sea Water Batteries, Silver Iodide via Electrolysis for Camera

The History of Chemistry

The earliest history of chemistry is murky because many of the activities of early chemists or alchemists was shrouded in mysticism (fire, black magic) or greed (making gold). Many of the earliest dabblers in chemistry or alchemy acted in secret or were quietly funded by wealthy individuals hoping to grow wealthier.

In the 1500's, Theophrastus Paracelsus was a colorful personality who became interested in rescuing chemistry from the alchemists who were motivated by "pagan natural philosophy", instead finding a Christian alternative use for the chemical sciences. Paracelsus was interested in how chemistry could be used to help free people from disease.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia: "He sought the cause of pathological changes, not in the cardinal humours, blood, phlegm, yellow and black gall (humoral pathology), but in the entities, which he divided into ens astrorum (cosmic influences differing with climate and country), ens veneni (toxic matter originating in the food), the cause of contagious diseases, ens naturale et spirituale (defective physical or mental constitution), and ens deale (an affliction sent by Providence)..."

Modern chemistry took another great leap when Robert Boyle decided to use his scientific expertise "to seek for God's purposes in nature. His Skeptical Chemist was an important work, moving chemistry from the world of alchemy into the realm of science. Boyle believed the orderliness of the universe reflected God's purposeful design. God established the universe according to certain natural laws, so that it worked like a mechanical clock, once the Designer had set it in motion. The scientist's duty was to discover what laws God had established. Boyle himself formulated what became known as "Boyle's Law:" the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to the
volume it occupies."

For a pretty interactive Periodic Table clickhere.





We're working our way through the experiments in Fizz, Bubble, and Flash. It has plenty of cartoons, silly jokes and poems, and easy-to-perform home experiments.



Wikipedia: History of Chemistry
Chemistry Lab Demo Movies at Purdue (QT)
More Home Chemistry Ideas:
Popular Science
Makezine