Making Physics More Interesting for Children and Teens

When I spotted a Hub request for "how to make to Physics more interesting to children" I decided to challenge myself by pondering that question; not because I have any particular background in either Physics or teaching, but because I was not interested in Physics (or anything resembling it) when the basics of it were introduced in school. I learned what I needed to learn to do well on the next quiz, knowing that it was my memory (rather than interest) that resulted in a good test grade. The opinions that follow are based on a combination of personal experience and several years of studying/researching areas of child development, education issues, underachievement, giftedness in children, and learning problems. What is offered here are opinions and guesses, but I like to think they're reasonably educated opinions and guesses.

My Experience as a Former, Uninterested, Child and Present Adult, Who Has Actually Learned in Spite of Original Lack of Interest

I managed to learn some of the most fundamental material in school but was left with a huge, huge, gap in any solid knowledge of the subject. It was to my surprise that some interest developed after I'd grown up and my world had expanded beyond desks at school and the record collection and cute decoration that graced my bedroom in my teen years. Physics (in one form or another) began hitting me in the face, and I began my own search for names, principles, and equations that provided "labels" for the ideas I had that needed them.

As an adult, and someone for whom understanding of Physics relates to "general life" or the "general universe" (rather than someone whose career revolves around the subject), I have a strange and giant gap in my understanding of the subject, and what I understand ranges from the absolutely most basic principles taught in fairly low grades in school to advanced concepts that seem to have eluded a lot of other "non-Physics" adults. While that is, of course, better than having no understanding of the subject, I am very aware that I am handicapped as a result of having that gap in knowledge. For me, those most basic principles taught in school and memorized by an uninterested kid were, in fact, learned. That knowledge has always been a kind of "take-it-for-granted" thing for me. With more advanced principles, however, a common situation is understanding the principle without my having the "labels" for my thoughts. Sometimes I have felt as if I operate like Sir Isaac Newton - only he had to figure out things because nobody knew them at the time. I shouldn't have to be muddling my way through this stuff. Someone else figured it all out a long time ago, and a whole lot of people in the world have had those "labels" since.

What I Believe Contributes to the Challenge of Getting Kids Interested in the Principles of Physics

It appears to me that there are six problems at the root of the challenge of helping kids be interested in a subject like Physics. The four points are listed, and what follows elaborates on each point.

1. Overestimating and/or Underestimating Children's General Ability to Process Different Types of Information and Understands Concepts. This point relates to the general introduction of the subject in relation to the basic mental ability to process the different aspects of the subject. This first point can lead to the second point:

2. Failure to introduce the right TYPE of information at the right time, according to the "schedule" of intellectual maturity/sophistication (plus or minus some slight variations between individuals) by which normal children develop. "Schedule of maturity" is not just related to cognitive ability, which is why I have listed it separately. "Schedule of maturity" relates to the overall physical, emotional, social, and mental maturity of any child at any given point before reaching adulthood.

4. Lack of Sufficient Understanding the Different Types of Cognitive Abilities (mixes and varying skill levels of the individual types of intelligence) in People in General and/or Any Individual Child; and Insufficient Understanding of Differences in Learning Styles

5. Teachers (and other adults) who are not skilled at making what they're trying to teach interesting to anyone (or at least not to anyone but one or two students, who happen to do well with this particular type of teacher).

6. The failure to offer a simple but adequate overview of each aspect of the subject before moving on. Adults often don't realize that even the most capable and intelligent children are often "complete blank slates" when it comes to any aspect of any subject. There can be a tendency to assume children already know some things, and there can be the tendency to assume that because one adult finds the subject fascinating that everybody else does as well. Sometimes, too, teachers may not wish to "insult the intelligence" of students.

Underestimating and/or Overestimating Children's Ability to Process Different Types of Information

Underestimating:

Normal children (even those with parents who don't do such a great job of encouraging learning) are curious. Normal children often have far more ability to understand and remember things than adults give them credit for having. As a result, adults often wouldn't even think to try to teach some things to a very young child. Also resulting can be missing that "window of high curiosity, interest, and enthusiasm" that child usually show as early as three years old.

Some of the most basis aspects of even a subject like Physics can be introduced to a young child, if the information is presented in a way that is appropriate for a very young child. I believe that getting more of the most basic aspects of a subject to a child as early as possible will give him the foundation on which to build later learning and interest.

The following non-Physics-related example of what even the youngest children are capable of thinking involves my (then) two-year-old son: My little son, often dressed only in a shirt and Huggies, would take his father's old briefcase, fill it up with a collection of items, wrap a blanket around his shoulders, and walk through the house; announcing, "I am a Prime Minister". (We live in the US, which makes his awareness of the term, "prime minister" even more remarkable.)

This two-year-old child had, on his own and without discussion from his father or me, figured out that a prime minister is (essentially) an important, business-like, figure (who apparently, in my son's mind, may wear a king's robe. We were not "big" on toddlers watching television, so I don't know where he got his image of a prime minister. I assume he heard the word when we were watching the news and may have linked it to a storybook.

After he had announced his imaginary role a few times, I decided to pick up on his play and say, "Well, I'm a president." Here's where his thinking truly amazed me. He quickly followed up my remark with, "Well, I'm a king." I then said something like, "Oh - then I'm a Duke." He followed with "I'm a governor." We laughed as we kept thinking of the next thing each of us were. He had become aware that his original "announcement" had turned into a game for both of us. His father and I were amazed that, beyond his basic picking up of the idea that a prime minister is an important figure, he actually had the vocabulary and understanding to play this "governing/important roles" game with us. Of course, I would then take my son out to the grocery store, where strangers would often procede to talk "baby talk" to him, because so many people seem so unaware of how "sharp" a two-year-old can actually be.

Now, could my son have understood if I tried to explain the differences between all those "important roles"? I don't think so. He would probably have gotten bored and tuned out. Do governors and Dukes technically belong in the same category? No. Still, that very elementary ability to make some connection between important roles was eye-opening.

Because the 6:00 news that I watched, and the children's books he had, offered little reference to something like molecules; my two-year-old did not happen to pick up that kind of information. I'll admit, too, that it would not have occurred to me to introduce it at the time. (I was concerned with the fact that he was still wearing Huggies.)

Children are most often very, very, bright. Some have the emotional/social maturity to come across as very bright to others. Some are bright but lack the other types of maturity to show how capable of learning they are. Children who test above average on tests of abilities are far more capable of learning that even their test scores would suggest. Children who fall smack in the middle of average are, most often, children whose parents have not nurtured their abilities a little more effectively. In other words, most children without a mental disability of some sort (and even some with some types of disabilities) are far more capable of learning far more types of material than adults often believe they are.

Besides the general tendency to wait too long before introducing a "scaled down, simplified, age-appropriate" version of the most basic principles of a subject like Physics, individual children with outstanding potential in that type of subject, or children who are well ahead of their age in general abilities; are all often, essentially, underestimated in the school (and sometimes home) setting.

Overestimating:

Although, of course, overestimating can occur when teachers/parents try to teach information that is beyond that child's mental capability. A child with an IQ of 90 (below average) is obviously likely to have more difficult learning; but by virtue of being below average, that child will be overestimating by anyone who approaches teaching him as if he were average or above average in abilities.

The less obvious form of overestimating, however, can come when the matter if not one of intellectual ability, but, instead, of a child's overall stage in development and/or stress levels. Before children reach adolescence life is all "about" playing and learning. As they approach their early teens, however, life becomes more complicated because kids, themselves, become more complicated; but also because that world of school and home becomes more complicated. A perfectly normal, intelligent, fourteen-year-old girl is very likely to be incapable of caring about complex school subjects because those don't seem important to her at this stage in her life.

A boy plagued by a severe case of acne may feel so self-conscious and stressed at school he can't concentrate on the subjects that require intense focus. Elevated stress hormones are known to affect ability to concentrate. Without going more into all the worries and "important things" in a kid's life, the point is that waiting until a child is in secondary school before introducing principles of Physics for the first time often just doesn't work well with Nature.

Kids with a natural inclination toward this subject and things related to it may have shown that inclination earlier in their childhoods, so parents may have known to nurture it. Kids in this situation come into secondary school with an advantage, and with what looks like "natural ability" or interest. Building on the foundation such kids have is generally the way they learn more and more about Physics; but it is unlikely that kids without that advantage are going to muster up genuine interest in the principles of Physics when their development makes other matters seem "more important".

So, expecting some fourteen-year-olds to muster up interest in principles of Physics is essentially overestimating their ability to do so, regardless of whether or not they have average, high, or even superior IQ's.

Another form of overestimating can be described quite simply in a phrase: "Math/Science-inclined adult trying to teach an "English/Humanities/Arts" kid. Here, the overestimating involves how much enthusiasm that child will ever have, compared to the adult's. The problem with this scenario can be that the secondary-school student has adequately learned the most basic principles (or a good number of them) but hasn't reach the emotional/intellectual maturity to be able to "skip ahead" to the more sophisticated principles/concepts - and just plain old can't be enthusiastic about the "in-between" material (which is more challenging to learn than the most basic material, and which does require a certain level of focus and concentration).

Failure to Introduce the Right TYPE of Information at the Right Time

While overestimating and underestimating all children's, or individual children's, abilities to process information occurs and is often the reason for failing to introduce the right type of information at the right time, it is the actual failure to introduce the right type of information at the right time that can contribute to lack of interest and/or lack of ability to excel.

At the root of failure to introduce the right type of information at the right time, however, is not just overestimating and/or underestimating children's capabilities. Also at the root of this problem, I suspect, is the simple inability to really understand how to offer that perfect type of information in a way that will be appropriate for a child at any given stage in development.

Here's another unrelated-to-Physics example of how even a "smart enough" child can have extremely undeveloped thinking: I was three years old and a "smart enough" kid, when I was playing with a doll and making it "walk" across the back of the couch. My small hands could not hold the somewhat heavy and floppy little doll, so as I tried to make "her" walk across the couch, the doll fell out of my hand and behind the couch. With the couch being against a wall, I actually believed the doll was gone forever. The simple concept that the couch was a piece of furniture that could be moved by an adult hadn't even entered my head. To me, "behind the couch" was a "black hole" (and, yes, those are actually the words I thought of when I tried to see in back of the couch; even though I would not hear anyone using those words in the way I now know them to be used for decades. The point is, even a child who is generally "smart enough" (or even advanced for his age) can be amazingly incapable of understanding even the simplest of concepts.

As an adult, I realize that I had a dollhouse when I was three, and I recall moving the toy couch in the dollhouse from one place to another. One would think I would have realized that the same type of thing applied to real furniture. It didn't. The real couch had been in the same place in our living room for as long as I could remember. If it were ever moved for cleaning I was not present. Nobody ever thought to simply pull out the couch and simply show a small child how furniture can be moved around. Even when I cried about the fall doll to my father, and he came in to reach down and get the doll, I didn't realize that he wasn't "magically" reaching into the "black hole" and "finding" the doll! I saw his simple act of getting something from behind the couch as "amazing" (although I did not know that word at the time).

It seems to me that introducing aspects of Physics to children requires separating the way information is presented into things that can be seen in illustrations or photographs (molecules, for example), "commonly used labels" for principles which can be evidenced but not necessarily seen; and concepts (many of which may need to wait until a child is old enough to process them, but some of which could be presented in a simplified form).

Simple examples might be that a four-year-old child could be interested in seeing an image of a molecule and being offered a simple explanation about how "all these little, tiny, invisible-looking, things are in everything". The four-year-old may not be able to imagine the actual presence or picture of molecules, but the simple explanation gives him a rough idea that we don't see molecules with the naked eye. What may capture his attention, though, is could be the image or drawing of molecules, with a little talk about what they look like or may do. After he has seen a picture, if an adult were to invite him to "play molecules" with clay he just may be interested (and just may learn yet a little more). At the very least, this child would enter school with some rudimentary idea about what molecules are (the way my two-year-old had come by his awareness of people in "important" roles in society).

While a four-year-old may be too young to have "forces" introduced to him, a child or six or eight is not. While some kids aren't exposed to the "invisible" things in life until much later, a young, grade-school, child (usually still interested in learning about just about anything, and especially from a parent) can usually easily learn about things that can't be seen.

Again, one of the biggest issues that contributed to my own lack of interest in Physics and a lot of other science, as well, was being expected to "suddenly" be interested in "invisible" things to which I had never been introduced (back when I was more interested in things that didn't involve my personal, little, insecure, boy-conscious, self).

As a junior-high student (and one who did well on standardized tests administered regularly), I still had no real ability to truly understand the concept of a "force" and/or the idea that there could be a "system" "underneath" things I could not see. Neither did I connect the use of mathematical equations with any use at all. When even the concept of an "invisible system" is difficult for a student to see (at least in the many ways that student would have to see it), applying mathematical equations to the "whole thing" will just seem like the "willy nilly" and "random" "throwing in of math".

As that junior-high student, I wasn't interested in the "invisible" goings on of the universe. I had my own little self and own little world to worry about (and besides, I was a "humanities" kid, which meant that I preferred ponder way to end the easy-to-see problems of the world, like children starving in third-world countries).

There are, of course, demonstrations that teachers can use to teach Physics, but, again, such demonstrations, I think, would often be more useful to (to put it bluntly) younger kids who cared.

Demonstrations aimed at older students may have to be altered in presentation or wording, but introducing them to younger students would at least offer some foundation for more advanced learning, once that advanced learning was presented when the student was at a high risk of not much interest.

Physics aside, even with just "plain, old, science", this is an example of how a teen can think when presented with something as simple as gravity: I recall hearing the story about Newton and the apple and having gravity mentioned. "Ok,", I thought, "The name for what happens when things fall is 'gravity'. Remember that for the quiz. That's all I need to know about that."

I do recall the teacher's talking about what causes things to fall to Earth; but since I couldn't see "this thing called 'gravity'", I "wrote it off" as something I didn't need to think about. As an adult, I can look back and realize that the well intentioned teacher did not present enough information to make the matter of "seeing" the actual gravity more "real" to me. It wasn't all that interesting to just be given the name for "whatever makes apples fall". I needed to know more in order to be interested.

Even older students aren't always fascinated by demonstrations aimed at showing Physics in action. This is often, I think, a matter of the same kind of thinking that I had when learning about gravity: "OK, so I can drop a book of a roof of a house and it will end up on the ground because of gravity. Great. Now I know what to call that." Demonstrations in Physics can be "more interesting" in general; but such demonstrations range from boring to "kind of neat"; but truly seeing and valuing the relevance can be very difficult for the student who has had no foundation in the more basic types of knowledge that would offer some foundation for learning (and therefore being interested in) Physics.

I think all grade-school children and students who have difficulty being interested in Physics could benefit from being given a little help in visualizing what they can't see, but in ways other than showing them the "results". Perhaps the easiest and most familiar "invisible" thing for a child is wind. Beginning with this one, easy-to-understand, "invisible" subject, drawing a picture and "imagining the wind is the color gray" could be an easy way to begin helping a child visualize the invisible. With a few simple illustrations of the "important" things on a drawing of Earth, a child could be shown how those gray winds form and move, "darken" and "lighten".

In this "introduction to visualizing the invisible", once the child understands the basic concept of what wind would "look like", more details could be drawn into the "gray" to further illustrate some of what goes on as wind moves. An adult who is the first to draw the picture first shows the child how and introduces the idea. Having the child draw his own picture can help that child think out/ask the adult what he should be drawing, but also make help him "own" the picture (and therefore the subject) in his mind.

Having at least had some practice drawing/seeing something invisible, a child could move on to drawing something like heat (in reds, pinks, oranges, of course). The picture could be of heat coming from a burner on the stove, heat coming in a sunny window, or the heat that occurs in a clear pot of boiling water. With a series of pictures that show different stages of heating, more details could be added to begin to show simple illustrations of what is actually occurring within that "color" that represents heat. Drawing allows for as much or as little detail as the child seems ready to handle.

After any such drawing a child can simply be reminded, "Even though heat doesn't really have a color, all those other things that you can't see are going on when something is heated."

Such drawings, of course, can be aimed at the age of any student. With older students, the introduction of how mathematical equations relate to the picture (even if only the simplest of equations) could possibly help an older student tie together visualization of any process and mathematical equations.

It may be extremely oversimplified to mention that there is a reason the abacus once served so many purposes, but there is something to be said for, "This is what this mathematical problem looks like in real life." Drawings could be single drawings with more and more additions, or they could be a series of drawings, showing changes.

Something else that always helps children learn is making any subject part of the conversation at home. While, in the case of Physics, that may involve just making the occasional and fairly general comments about the principles of Physics, it always helps a child to hear words and small pieces of information that will later help him have the "verbal labels" in future learning. Age-appropriate books and activities that may be aimed at learning can be part of "conversation at home" too, since many parents may not be confident in their own knowledge of the principles of Physics.

Just this very elementary type of preparation for future learning could, I believe, make a difference for at least some students for whom demonstrations can seem meaningless, simply because the student can't connect what he is being shown to anything he already knows. Even when some things can be seen in a demonstration, a student who has no idea what he's looking for may not see what other students do.

When children are still young enough to be interested, it would seem that introducing them to at least the "labels" (names or other simple facts) associated with Physics-related material, helping them visualize what can not be viewed (at least with the naked eye) and showing demonstrations might offer the young student the foundation needed to be very comfortable with Physics later on.

When parents decide to put a three-year-old child in dancing school, that little child and her little classmates are taught easy steps, one or two at a time. Over the course of the season they begin to combine those simple steps. Eventually, the little dancing (usually) girls perform a whole dance at recital time. With each year the steps become more advanced, as does the dance. By the time dance students reach their teens they are usually quite skilled and dance beautifully.

It's very often different with teaching children thinking and learning, and that could be the reason so many students are so intimidated by Physics (if they take it and pass it at all). It's often natural for parents to encourage their children to learn to read and write. Teaching "numbers" is something most parents do, at least until the child begins to learn "real" math at school.

Conscientious parents may aim to teach their children about history, social studies, and basic science. With so much to for the conscientious parent to try to teach, and with that parent's often not wanting to teach a child to the point of pushing; it's easy to see how Physics can be last on the list when kids are young. It's really easy for a child of even active, caring, parents to get to secondary school without preparation for the kind of thinking required to understand and enjoy Physics. Children with parents who leave the teaching to the schools once the child has entered school are at a similar or greater disadvantage. In other words, an awful lot of kids get to their teen years without taking that "dance training"; but are, nonetheless, expected to dance well and enjoy it too.

Giving kids background in the "labels" (words, vocabulary, simple statements) associated with Physics, assistance with visualizing the invisible, and demonstrations when they're young enough to be interested are, I think, all ways to encourage future interest in, and understanding of, Physics.

While I believe the above approach would help kids develop the foundation they need earlier, I do think that using some of the approaches with an older student could possibly help them get a better foothold on the subject.

Lack of Understanding the Different Types of Cognitive Abilities

While educators and other professionals are usually well familiar with the different types of intelligence, ,many parents still remain unfamiliar with the different ways children can have high, average, or low abilities in any on type of of cognitive skill. The parents with a child who scores at the top of the charts in intelligence tests or on standardized tests may not understand why he can't do well in Physics. Even a student, himself, may not know why he can't make himself interested or force himself to do what it takes to do well in that class.

Everyone has his own set of cognitive skills, and people may or may not score at similar levels on tests of different types of abilities. Some people generally test in the same range, of course.

Differences in abilities, however, can make some students lean more towards being either "Math/Science" people" or (in the US) "English/Humanities/Arts" people (to oversimply it). While the student who leans toward subjects associated with "the verbal part of the brain" may well be "plenty intelligent", because his natural leanings are not in the math/science area he has often neither developed much interest, knowledge, or experience in that area. While such a student may well have managed to do well enough with basic math and sciences, he may find himself at a disadvantage once he is faced with Physics.

"Verbal people" (as opposed to "Math/Science people") can be "resistant" to learning through either demonstrations or mathematical representations. While they are often more than capable of understanding something like Physics, it is less likely they will feel "in their element" if their introduction to Physics is limited to demonstrations and equations.

Verbal people often need words, and Physics teachers are often not verbal people - which means their natural leanings are not toward presenting the material is the most optimum verbal way. Their attempts (and sometimes generally adequate attempts) to discuss something like Physics can be foiled by the fact that their "verbal people" students don't even know enough about the subject to know grasp what is being said. It's essentially a seemingly hopeless cycle, with ineffective discussions and demonstrations that are meaningless to "verbal people". The rare teacher who may be a "verbal dynamo" may be able to discuss Physics in a way that will get through to all students, but - let's face it - dynamos are hard to come by. "Verbal dynamos" don't tend to teach Physics, and "Physics dynamos" don't tend to be on the same "wavelength" as "verbal people".

Although both males and females can be "verbal people" or "Math/Science" people; it has been said that the differences between boys and girls/men and women can be that both can perform the same mental tasks but may use a different approach in doing so. Regardless of their sex,

"Math/Science" often find themselves "in their element" when they progress to learning Physics.

"Verbal" students are often locked out of that "cycle" formed by teaching approaches.

With some students doing well and others not doing as well, it is easy for students to "get the message" that Physics is not for them, and teachers sometimes contribute to that message by seeing the student who doesn't do well as "less capable".

"Verbal" students need "verbal teachers". I almost wonder if a "verbal teacher" with only a basic knowledge of Physics would make the ideal teacher to introduce Physics to "verbal" students. That might get these students past the hurdle of "breaking into" that "cycle"/circle enough to allow them to move on in learning from there.

Adults can try to demonstrate the principles of Physics by drawing parallels to things/situations a student may relate to more. Most people find Newton's Third Law of Motion a particularly easy principle to learn (and demonstrate). Using that as an example of my point here, adults could first introduce this type of principle by drawing a parallel to social interactions; before "returning the principle to its intended context." We hear people refer to Laws of Physics "applying to" social interaction or situations in society all the time. Often, there are people who already know the principles and see that, at times, they seem to apply to any number of circumstances/situations. There is no reason, however, that using this type of parallel cannot be helpful in helping a student understand the principle in a way that is more "real" to him; and then "transfer" it to Physics.

Learning styles are another issue that can come into particular focus when learning challenging subjects. Most students are visual learners. Their natural tendency is to learn visually. Other students are auditory learners. They learn best when they hear the material. Still others are kinesthetic learners. They learn through "hands on"/doing experience. Students with each learning style will be at their own disadvantages with any teaching method, but there is at least the chance that auditory learners could be a larger disadvantage in a subject like Physics, where learning may be based on demonstrations, the board, and discussions by a teacher who may not be "verbally talented" enough to make discussions what they need to be for students who rely heavily on auditory learning.

This, again, goes back to offering students that basic foundation before expecting them to be interested in, and understand, Physics. Essentially, I believe that teachers (and parents) need to be aware of the hurdles and "lock-outs" that can occur for a very large number of students; and find ways to remove those hurdles and/or "pull the student in" when he can't break into that "cycle"/circle on his own.

Teachers (and Other Adults) Who Are Not Skilled at Making What They're Trying to Teach Interesting to Anyone

Regardless of any student's learning style, abilities, or tendencies; there are some teachers who are, quite simply, droning bores. The only way to deal with this situation is to remove the student from the class and/or remove the teacher from the subject. Droning bores can sometimes effectively teach less complicated subjects (often subjects students are able to more naturally pick up on their own). There is no place for droning bores in teaching Physics. Someone who truly enjoys his subject will enthusiastically find a way to at least try to "pull kids in". Droning bores don't bother, and that should tell parents and administrators something about that teacher.

(At this point I can imagine a reader thinking that I am a droning bore, myself; but my reply to that would be that I am not a teacher; because I know I can drone on. :) )

The Failure to Offer a Simple But Adequate Overview of Each Aspect of the Subject Before Moving On

The best example of this problem is not related to a Physics class, but a seventh-grade science class - mine. The generally capable and skilled teacher walked into the room one day and immediately began drawing a picture of a single-celled "animal" (his word). He said, "This is an amoeba." He went on to talk about the characteristics of the amoeba, how it reproduced, and any number of other things. Having never heard of an amoeba before, I waited to for him to explain where this thing was found. Was it in the air? Was it in people? Was it in the soil? He never said exactly what the place of the amoeba is in this world. Before long he moved on to the paramecium. At this point, I was too embarrassed to ask anyone what I wanted to know about the amoeba. Besides, now I was trying to figure out the same thing about "these parameciums".

I went on to do well enough on tests and quizzes, and eventually I figured out what I wanted to know about the amoeba and paramecium (but it wasn't that school year). It would have been a lot easier, and made a lot more sense, if the teacher had simple given a brief overview of what things like these were, before getting into how they reproduce.

Should I have asked my parents? Sure. I didn't, though. I was twelve. I guess I either forgot about the amoeba by the time I got home, or else assumed my parents wouldn't know anything about this "strange creature".

This wasn't the only teacher I ever had who did this kind of thing, and I'm not the only one who has some version of this experience.

I needed "the big picture" when it came to the amoeba (and paramecium), and the teacher offered only the microscopic picture. In this case, it wasn't the "end of the world". In fact, the irony is that I grew up and found myself working on a long-term project involving the detection of amebiasis in humans. (Who knew?) On the other hand, I remember having similar difficulty knowing "exactly what a molecule is". Again, it would seem that somewhere along the way some teacher did not effectively explain "exactly". That one I figured out for myself, long after it would have benefited me in more than one class. (This is one reason I believe it's important to introduce things like this to children when they're still young enough to say things like, "The amoeba is a teeny, tiny, little creature that can live in water that isn't purified enough that explaining what things are in almost "baby talk" can actually offer a base for future learning.)

Physics is not a subject that can afford this kind of oversight by teachers/parents.

Robert Krulwich, who is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk; and who has been a correspondent for ABC's Nightline, World News Tonight, and Good Morning America; has an impressive ability to make science (including String Theory) easily understandable to just about anyone. Those familiar with his approach know that he is not above using cartoon illustrations, silly characters, or making references to things like atoms along the lines of (this is not a quote, it's my own example of his style) "These are having a kind of party over here, and this one decides to join them." In other words, he is folksy. He uses "friendly" language - and yet he presents a complete picture from which any viewer can gain a foundation for more learning, as well as interest in a subject he may not otherwise been very interested in.

This style is often ideal for the person who otherwise has not had his interest captured by a subject like Physics; and if teachers/parents can help "pull kids into that closed circle" that can exist when first starting to learn about Physics, this friendly, creative, approach to present something even as complex as String Theory just may offer students what they need to understand what they're being taught once they've been overcome the hurdle of having been "locked out".

So often, adults realize that teaching Physics requires finding a way to "make what can't be seen 'real'". What may often not be understood is that demonstrations, alone, don't necessarily make those things "real" enough.

Educators and parents may find that a good way to help students become more interested is to find programs/DVD's that feature particularly engaging narrators/instructors who may be able to accomplish what the student's teacher or parents have not been able to accomplish. Such programs should not, of course, be used as a substitute for teaching; but there are times when the right program just may help a student gain enough understanding and/or interest to overcome that initial hurdle himself.

Finally, it may be helpful to think again about the importance of providing a "nutshell" overview of anything before moving on; and consider that before approaching the broad subject of Physics at all, it may help to give the same kind of brief overview. Adults often do that, but sometimes they try to convince young people that Physics is going to be "the most fascinating thing in the world". It may be better if adults didn't use that approach. When they do, the non-Physics-inclined student often thinks, "Oh brother, either he finds this fascinating even though I don't; or else he just lied to try to get me interested."

Maybe a more appropriate (and sometimes honest) approach would be to say something like:

"The principles of Physics are at work in everything that happens in the Universe. People who have good understanding of the subject know how amazing it all is; but the trouble is, in order to learn enough to get to where you find it amazing, you need to get through some of the less interesting things. Learning about Physics will help you understand everything in life better, and it will make some things that don't seem to make sense, make sense.

Just starting to learn about the principles of Physics is like just starting to take lessons to learn to dance or play a musical instrument. In the beginning it's kind of boring, and you can be impatient that you aren't at 'the interesting stuff' yet. If you can hang in long enough to get past the more boring parts, you will most likely find it as amazing and fascinating as so many other people do."