Over the last 500 years humans have gone from seeing a man in the moon to seeing a man on the moon. This phenomenal advance in collective learning has taken place thanks in large part to a group of strategies which have come to be referred to as The Scientific Method. If humankind has made so much progress by using the Scientific Method, then why not teach all our children to use it at an early age rather than waiting until high school or college to teach a few who are fast-tracked into science and technology careers. If we have made this much progress with a few humans using these strategies, then what will our collective learning curve look like if we are all trained to make science discoveries and/or to appreciate the discoveries of others?

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Blinded by our Misconceptions

 

We learn from our direct experience, but we also tend to extrapolate from several experiences and draw conclusions.  Sometimes these conclusions are wrong.  They become embedded in our stream of consciousness and are difficult to dislodge.
For example:  Children see that snow and ice melt as the weather gets warmer.  They also see that snow and ice melt when we put salt on the sidewalk.  They might draw the logical, but erroneous conclusion that salt warms the snow.  This is wrong.  The reason that salt melts ice is that it lowers the freezing point of water. 

The Scientific Method helps dispel misconceptions.  My next video will test the hypothesis:  Salt melts ice becomes it raises the temperature, or warms, the ice.

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