The Rabbit's Favorite Food
Douglas Dix, Department of Biology, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT
Science should be taught as a fun process that begins with questions, continues with guesses, and concludes with experiments. The following is an example of this process:Bring a rabbit to class and ask the children, "What do you want to know about this rabbit?" If no one answers: ask: "What is this rabbit's favorite food?" The children will make guesses and then ask, "How can we test which guess is correct?" With young children, an experiment is suggested, although children in second grade and higher can also benefit from an experiment.
The experiment proceeds as follows: Give the rabbit identical bowls containing identical amounts of food and measure how much food remains uneaten in each bowl after some period of time. The bowl with the least food remaining will contain the rabbit's favorite food.
Many children and most adults believe rabbits prefer carrots to all other food, and some children believe the rabbit would prefer candy if it could get it. But our rabbit never ate the candy and preferred celery to most other foods. In this way the power of the scientific method was demonstrated. After the experiment, there was unanimous agreement as to what was the rabbit's favorite food. The children asked why she didn't like candy and we suggested that her taste buds guided her toward healthy foods. We added that our own taste buds were not so reliable, perhaps because we are confronted with so much artificial food.
We also emphasized what we didn't learn from this experiment, such as other rabbits (and even this rabbit at another time) might have different preferences. And did we really learn this rabbit's favorite food at this time? We only presented the rabbit with certain foods. Perhaps the rabbit's favorite food had been ommited.
The children were reminded that the rabbit lives in a cage and is, therefore, at our mercy, so we are responsible for its safety. And, did it enjoy our experiment? We suggested that animal experiments are okay if the animal enjoys them. We liked this experiment because we all enjoyed learning what the rabbit enjoyed eating.
Science has had a bad reputation because answers had become the most important part of it, and answers are not always fun. Now we emphasize questions instead and want children to ask questions as much as they can. And since children are good at questions, and at guesses they are also good at science.
Science begins with questions and continues with guesses, and a good guess is one that can be tested. A good experiment can tell us if our guess is a good answer.If it is, the science is concluded until someone comes up with a new question.