Science Is Awesome Because It Teaches Failure

My daughter and I are obsessed with science. It is something that is always encouraged at my house. Not because “science” will make my daughter “intelligent;” but because “science” is a way of life and it will make her “rational.”

Almost every day she has a “why” to ask and I try answering that “why” by exploring and investigating with her. For me this approach is the best, because it leads to my daughter finding answer to her own question all by herself. There are so many changes happening around her all the time, and science is the best way for her to understand these changes.

There is something else that science is pretty good at. Teaching failure. I know you are saying what is this girl talking about! But seriously, when mothers ask me as to why teach science to kids, that’s what my reply is – teach science to kids because it will teach them failure, it will teach them to cope with failure and it will teach them to overcome that failure.

1 out of every 5 experiments that my daughter and I do together, end up in failure. We start our experiment with a lot of enthusiasm and try doing it as perfectly as we can. But still, as the experiment proceeds, there is always something that doesn’t go as planned. Something doesn’t react at all, something over reacts; something doesn’t change color at all and something gets charred.

And so despite doing everything as right as we could, we fail. Here’s are three of our recent science failures –

Homemade Slime Failure

We wanted to make slime and play with it. There are dozens of recipes for it over the internet; it seemed that everyone was able to make it! However when we tried making slime, we just couldn’t get it right. We tried not once, but thrice. However, it was failure every time.

Rock Candy Failure

Once we found rock candy and bought some home for our sweet tooth. My daughter wondered how the candy maker can stick sugar granules on a stick. We researched about it and tried making our own rock candy. We saturated water with sugar and then let the sugar from water crystalize on a stick. We did make candy, however, it was nowhere like the one we bought. My daughter was extremely disappointed that day.

Solar Eclipse Failure

My daughter and I had another science failure recently. We were so excited to see the partial solar eclipse on 9^th of March. We made a pinhole projector to see it safely, we saw a lot of videos of partial solar eclipse so that we know what to expect. On 9^th of March, my daughter woke up well before her morning time just out of excitement of watching the eclipse. We went out armed with our projector only to find thick fog that didn’t thin out even a little bit. The eclipse was gone and there was nothing I hated more than that fog!

Experiment. Fail. Learn & Adapt. Repeat.

Yes toggling with science has given us a fair share of failures. However, it has also given us the opportunity to learn from those failures and adapt the experiment accordingly. Now failure doesn’t discourage us, we try our best to make the best of it anyhow.

We failed at making slime so we mixed the slimy liquid with sand and successfully made slimy sand. We failed at making perfect rock candies but we sucked and enjoyed whatever we made. We failed at watching solar eclipse, but now we are using our pinhole projector to watch the bright noon sun.

(The article was originally published at MyCity4Kids.com and was written especially for Kellogg’s)