Building Models: When Science Can Be Fun

I had a great time doing it with my two brothers at home too. We used papier-mâché and painted the spheres we molded with appropriate colors. Earth was blue and green; Jupiter was of different shades of brown and red; Neptune was entirely blue. We also cut open a cereal box and painted the inside surface of the cardboard black and spattered white paint here and there. The cardboard was space filled with stars. Finally, we glued the Sun and the planets onto space.

The resulting model was not a piece of art but it was phenomenal to our three pairs of eyes. It was something we had made from scratch mostly for the fun of it. Every time I look at the model now, I don't specifically remember the presentation. Instead I see my two siblings and my 15-year old self crowded next to one another, busily making something together-enthusiastically learning science without even realizing it. I don't think any of us forgot the names of the planets ever. I, for one, even remember their colors!

Today, seven years later, my brothers and I worked on building a different model (or surely enough, models). My kid brother, now nearly 13 years old, started learning about elements, molecules and compounds at school and was assigned to present a model of a molecule of his choice. He had the entire array of molecules to choose from and obviously had to settle on a ball-and-stick model of hydrogen sulphide! The gas which gives the unpleasant odor of rotten eggs and which also accounts for the pungency of farts. Very cool!

To construct the model, we used color dough to represent the atoms and toothpicks to show the covalent bonds. We were done in seconds and there was a sense of unfinished business in the air. We decided to raise the bar and opted to construct a ball-and-stick model of ethanol as well! Ethanol, that famous liquid that has the power to turn an introvert into the most eclectic of clowns. We respected the tetrahedral configuration of the hydrogen atoms bonded to the carbon atoms and came up with an awesome 3D model of ethanol.

And then we had a terrific idea for a new and even more challenging molecule: glucose! A simple molecule of energy used by more or less every living organism on the planet. The hexagon-shaped molecule is both highly relevant in biology and also impressive if we managed to construct the model appropriately. We got to work, molding the dough into spheres, breaking the toothpicks in half and sticking them all together. And we ended up with a 2D model of β-D-glucose!

We all had a lot of fun. As much fun as we had when we constructed the Solar System model seven years ago. And we all learned a little more about science. Learning science in books is a necessity of course, but making science fun by allowing children to be creative and opening up their minds to the wonders of nature will elicit their hunger for knowledge. It guarantees that the science culture is incurred at a young age. And this should be the norm in science education.

After all, science was never only books, papers and publishing. Scientific progress occurs through experiments. And most experiments are conducted in labs where hands-on skills are necessary. It is thus perhaps ironic that today, science education emphasizes this much on memorizing and reports.

My brothers are steadily following my lead and turning into geeks because they see that science gives answers to big questions. But mostly because they find science fun.

P.S. Yes, I did ace my Solar System presentation. And I'm pretty sure my kid brother will ace his tomorrow.