In today's news (San Jose Mercury Newspaper, Wed. July 27, 2011) there's an article titled, "U.S. must reverse lagging performance in science classes." The article, written by Muhammed Chaudhry, CEO of Silicon Valley Education Foundation, and Don Macleod, President , Chairman and CEO of National Semiconductor, report that California ranks "49th in the United States in science according to some international measures."  This is really unacceptable! How can this be? One of the problems is less time spent in school. Each year, the public school year gets cut. But, that's a topic for another day!

From my many years of observation while working with young children, I noticed that children are very intrigued by science, ask lots of science questions, and want to participate in science projects. We start science in our preschool classes and give them science questions and projects every week. This is done in Mandarin, of course. We teach a minimum of 3 hours of science in grades 1-3. This summer, the science camps have been well attended and enjoyed by the kids. This week the Chang Lao Shi is teaching them physics in Mandarin. I heard one of the kids say they have a test this Friday!  In English, our students read science texts for vocabulary development, expository reading and writing. 

Tell us what you think!  What kind of science topics are appealing to your child and why? How can we help you engage your child in science thinking? Would you attend a workshop on Science and Your Child? We are planning on parent workshop on this topic. Let us know what your needs are!