“Have you any signs of a scientist?” This is a question I ask in the introduction in one of my textbooks for 14 year olds but it can apply to anyone.
I then ask “When did these signs start to show?” and I provide a time line to help the students decide. One of the earliest signs of a scientist occurs in babies, it is curiosity. When I was a baby I apparently annoyed my mother (not for the last time) by picking all the threads of cotton out of my towelling nappy, holding them up and watching them fall into my pram.
Me as a baby
My curiosity produced bald nappies and perhaps an early inkling of the power of the gravitational force. Many decades later my new science series about curiosity called Curiosity Box is launched this month.
The Seashore
Plants
I think the books can be used in several ways. They can be read to young children by parents, carers or teachers and as the book is read, the illustrations can be explored by the children and questions asked before turning the pages to find the answers. At the end of the book the children can test their knowledge by talking about the items in the curiosity box that has been prepared for them and then try to answer the Curious Quiz. There is also a section on making a curiosity box which provides useful web links. The books could be read by older children on their own, but you may like to join them by helping them to make their own curiosity box. You may like to take photographs of the curiosities you find and put them in your curiosity box. Here is a curiosity I photographed this week.
Pixie Cup Lichen
It is a pixie cup lichen.
