Guess what? Tomorrow is Aurora’s birthday! We’re going to surprise her with a wild new experiment we hope she hasn’t seen before… we’ll keep you posted and let you know how it goes! Here’s what her face looked like the last time we tried something out on her:

~The Supercharged Science Team

P.S. By now you’ve figured out that not only Aurora gets to write in the blog!

Aurora is about to jump onto a plane and head to the FPEA convention in Florida… and she has put together a new set of shows in her booth that you don’t want to miss! Our favorite here at the lab was the Chemistry Magic Show… we still don’t know how she make the slime slither up the stairs, and she won’t tell! Oh, well… make sure to visit her booth and give her a hug and a smile.

-The Supercharged Science Team

Hi everyone! Just a quick note – if we’ve been delayed in returning emails, phone calls, or shipping out orders, it’s simply because we have THREE new products that have just been released! We’re so happy to report that Science Mastery now has FOUR levels, and I have to tell you, the Diamond program really has me drooling (which is funny, because I’m the one who put it together). I just wish I was my own student with this one! We’ve already had several orders for this program and we’re back-ordered for another few weeks… So please forgive us if we haven’t been as on-top of things as usual – we had hundreds of video clips to plan, shoot, edit, redo, and finalize… and that’s not including sourcing the 2,000 parts in the box! So we’re just finishing up this week, so happy experimenting from Supercharged Science!

I’ve been looking over high-school level textbooks for homeschool science recently… evaluating them not only for accurate content but also for how engaging they are, what and how they convey the material, and what they focus on overall for homeschool science. And I have to tell you, I was most impressed (thus far) with the homeschool science Physics textbook (2nd Edition) by Bob Jones. The soft cover textbook really covers a wide spectrum of the different fields, sort of like a survey text on engineering and physics. I did find holes here and there as I read through the chapters, as it is a textbook and not a lab, so let’s figure out how to really bring some of these concepts alive and make it real for you and your homeschool science student.

If you have the Physics textbook (2nd Edition) by Bob Jones, flip over to page 439 in Chapter 20. Do you see the scary-looking diagram of resistors? This section discusses how to analyze circuit diagrams using Ohm’s and Kirchhoff’s Laws. Now, most students in college have trouble figuring out these principles with the aid of both a lab and a professor, so you can image how frustrating this could be for a homeschooled science student on their own!

One of the first things you always want to do is ask: What do I really want to get from this experience? What do I want my kid to learn? Well, if you’re child is crazy about circuits, electricity, robotics, and electronics… then this is the chapter that will give them the skills to “speak the language” of electrical engineering. Once they understand a few basic concepts and can read schematics (electrical wiring diagrams), they’ll soon be off and running designing their own creations. (Most texts don’t cover electronics at this level in their homeschool science curriculum.)

But how do you do that? How do you teach your student something you don’t understand yourself? Easy. Call for help from the experts. The fastest way to master a new skill is to find someone who is already doing what you want to do and is successful at it. If you don’t know how to swim but you want your child to learn, who’s a better choice for a teacher – you or the lifeguard?

So – who is an expert in this field that your child can really learn and grow from. You can easily upgrade your homeschool science curriculum by visiting your local Radio Shack and picking up the book entitled Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest Mims III. This is the most essential book you can get on bringing schematic and wiring diagrams to life – and this author is an expert and has been in the field for decades.

Additional items you can also pick up to add to your homeschool science library: Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things – and I think there are three of these in the series. Also pick up a subscription to MAKE magazine and Nuts & Volts. Articles here are written by expert hobbyists.

But you can’t just read about it (after all, that was the trouble with the textbook!), you have to actually do something with your new-found knowledge and test-drive these concepts out. That’s what homeschool science is all about! So that’s where science and electronic kits come in. If you’ve already found the OWI and Graymark kits and given them to your child, you know that the directions are less than appealing and the final project works for awhile… but is soon set aside on a shelf. They simply aren’t made for the average homeschool science student. They are often designed by engineers (not teachers) and advertised by marketing experts. You need a more interactive way of engaging your child and challenging them to learn and grow, which is why colleges have labs with instructors (so you can ask questions) and fellow students to work with. We offer a full set of interactive electronics programs specifically designed for homschool science that include unlimited support and go above and beyond just ‘building the kit’. Check out our Science Mastery Diamond program and the Electronics I, II, III, and IV series.

Further ideas: you can also visit your local community college and enroll them in one of the lab classes in basic electronic circuits. Just let the instructor know you’re trying to offer your homeschool science student a wider field of education and you’re bound to find someone with a class you can join. You can also find a friend who either works in the electronics field or is a hobbyist and ask for a Saturday afternoon to work with your child building something together.

Note that every homeschool science student has a different method of learning (we’ll go more into that at a later post), but note that what works for one student may not work for the other, so keep trying something else! Try reading material, then a science kit, then find a friend, then start a robotics club, then join a robot competition, then build one of our science kits together… Your child may design you something that makes you breakfast in bed… you never know.

Happy Experimenting!