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CM . . .
. Volume X Number 19 . . . . May 21, 2004
Diane Swanson has written a unique book. Using biographical details from the lives of well known, living and historical figures, she helps readers to become aware of traits of character that played a part in the work that made these men and women famous. In addition, she provides activities that have been designed to engage children in cultivating similar dispositions, or what she refers to as "scientific actions." Her purpose is not simply to relate episodes from history or to write about the methods of science or to encourage children to become professional scientists. Rather, Swanson strives to inspire readers to achieve great things by remaining curious and full-of-wonder and "feeling free to do the things your inborn scientist has always been eager to do" (p. 12). Turn it Loose begins with the chapter, "The Scientist in YOU." Here, Swanson attempts to distinguish the inner scientist in everyone from the professional scientist whose job it is "to use science to find out [and explain] how things work" (p. 11). She provides a list of 23 scientific actions believed to be associated with "scientific thinking" (p. 13). These include dispositions such as wondering, questioning, imagining, collecting, classifying, recording, designing, experimenting, measuring, analyzing, and communicating. Each one becomes the focus for one of the 23 succeeding chapters. Roberta Bondar's life story, for example, is the context in which a sense of wonder is developed. Michael Faraday is associated with an ever questioning mind; Wayne Gretzy with persistence; Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) with observing; Heather Mills McCartney with comparing; Louis Armstrong with a search for patterns; and Louis Braille and Alexander Fleming with mistakes that lead to great discoveries. Swanson ends with a chapter titled "Winding Up." Here she restates the 23 scientific actions, points out their interconnectedness - "Scientific thinking integrates all these actions" (p. 115), and encourages readers not to lose contact with their inner scientist and to help friends and family to rediscover theirs. A list of books and magazines, videos, and internet sites are appended for just these purposes.
The two, three, or four activities in the "BRAINPLAY" section at the end of each chapter help to make real for children the scientific actions Swanson's biographical sketches illustrate. In "Flying Free," Swanson discusses thinking independently in the context of Amelia Earhart's life (p. 26). She concludes by suggesting that readers challenge the following widely held beliefs and then check books and internet sites to determine whether or not the Great Wall of China is the only human-made structure visible from space, that most people use only ten percent of their brain, and that bats are blind. Two additional activities are to "re-read a book you love and watch for evidence of characters who think for themselves" and to make creative partnerships using a word from each of two lists and explain the connection (e.g. "salt" and "saddle" - both start with the letter "s"). For those who prefer to investigate, there are suggestions in other chapters for determining the affect of T-Shirt colour on skin temperature in bright sunlight, for analyzing the structure of a small toy by taking it apart and putting it back together again, for repeating Galileo's pendulum experiments, and for testing to determine whether or not the seeds in store-bought oranges will germinate, among others." My favourite is found on pages 84 and 85. After being introduced to experiments of inventor Thomas Alva Edison and entomologist Jean Henri Fabre, Swanson writes:
Each of the 120 pages of Turn it Loose makes one aware of the contribution good design can make to enhance a text. Warren Clark's illustrations of the famous men and women Swanson describes are wonderful. He has chosen to represent each main character as a child, and each child is represented from a different perspective. Beatrix Potter, for example sits with a pencil in her right hand about to draw the skeleton of the vertebrate that's positioned on the table between her and us, the readers. We see Galileo sitting in a pew from our position above the brass lamp that swings back-and-forth from the cathedral's ceiling, and we look over Charles Darwin's right shoulder just as he is about to put one of three beetles he has collected into his mouth. Clark's illustrations are essentially contour drawings, with exaggerated shadows, that are filled-in with a limited but elegant palette of earth-tone colours. These same colours are used for the chapter headings and subheadings. One wonders why the decision was made to illustrate the cover using a font and machine-made images that have a very different sensibility and aesthetic. Parents and teachers who believe that children are scientists will certainly want to make their sons and daughters and students aware of Turn it Loose. For those with a post-secondary background and work experience in the sciences, the notions that "there's a scientist in absolutely everybody" (p. 9) and that "scientific thinking is a part of everyone's life" (p.10) will be difficult to accept. No one wants to stifle or smother a child's curiosity, enthusiasm, and sense of wonder about phenomena in the natural world. However, it's important to realize that commonsense thinking is not the same as scientific thinking and that "scientific ideas are very often outside everyday experience" - one needs only to think of molecular genetics and Newton's laws of motion. A distinction must also be made between cognitive processes and dispositions (Swanson's scientific actions) and using cognitive skills and dispositions for scientific aims. For example, a scientist does not simply observe or classify or persist. Rather, theoretical frameworks guide a scientist's observations and only when the framework is understood is observation possible; a scientist learns and uses scientific classifications to pursue specific scientific ends; and a scientist persists in a scientific endeavour, and this persistence is a consequence of what has been called an "exploratory impulsion" or a strong sense of unease at not knowing. Perhaps Swanson's 23 scientific actions are what make us human with a capacity for logical, rational, analytic, and commonsense thought and have little to do with science except for that small percentage of humans who pursue scientific careers and are educated to think scientifically in the particular field they are expert. Regardless, they are cognitive processes and dispositions worth cultivating, and Swanson has found a very interesting way of helping young readers do just this. Highly Recommended. Barbara McMillan is a professor of early years science education in the Faculty of Education, the University of Manitoba.
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