Elementary Science 



Joseph B. Shine. 



The twentieth century child is bewildered and amazed at the 

 complexity and efficiency of modern machinery. He wants to 

 know : ' ' What is that ? What is it for ? What makes it go ?" So 

 the demand for Elementary Science in the grade school is easily 

 understood. Man}^ say that the child should wait for his answer 

 till he reaches high school. How many fail to get that far ? Thou- 

 sands and thousands fail to reach even the Ninth Grade and thus 

 are shut out from understanding some of the commonest and most 

 fundamental of nature's laws — laws which the future mechanic, 

 the future electrician, and the future inventor must know. 



What can be more interesting to the child mind than a vivid ex- 

 periment explaining some of the questions he asks? Nothing will 

 hold a child's attention better or excite his wonder more than a few 

 practical experiments in Elementary Science. Wonder is truly 

 the awakening of knowledge. But more than that, I believe that 

 simple scientific experiments will make children think and they will 

 make them observant. What study can promise more? 



It was with an understanding of thes'e principles that I began 

 the following experiments at the McClellan School in Chicago. I 

 realize that the twelve experiments I note here are not correlated 

 and that they are not original. I claim neither point. However, 

 I do know that they interested the children and made them think. 

 Above all I tried to make them simple. These experiments are 

 ones that any teacher can demonstrate and I know from actual 

 experience that the cost of the apparatus is very small. If the 

 children and teacher would bring some of the articles from their 

 kitchens the actual cost would be less than seventy-five cents. 

 If one wished to make the experiments simpler, at least twenty 

 experiments could be made from the twelve I note here. The Prin- 

 cipal of the Mc Clellan School, Miss Lilias M. Williamson,and our 

 District Superintendent, Miss Ella C. Sullivan, are the pioneers 

 in this work. District Seven in Chicago has. a rapidly growing 

 Science Club which is spreading the propaganda of vivid scientific 

 experiments in Science for the upper grade children of the Chicago 

 Public Schools. 



273 



