Charlotte Mason on "natural philosophy:"
In Volume 6: Towards a Philosophy of Education, her final work, Charlotte Mason classes science with geography as "Knowledge of the Universe." This seems to me to be an apt point of entry for considering how to approach the teaching of science throughout a child's education. If geography encompasses the physical world which we can see and know both through our senses and through our sense of connection with other human beings, then scientific knowledge is the same, but with a greater reach, extending to what we can't readily apprehend with the senses, or recognize as human.Of the teaching of Natural Philosophy, I will only remind the reader of what was said in an earlier chapter––that there is no part of a child's education more important than that he should lay, by his own observation, a wide basis of facts towards scientific knowledge in the future. He must live hours daily in the open air, and, as far as possible, in the country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note, consciously, every peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast, bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every plant. He must be accustomed to ask why––Why does the wind blow? Why does the river flow? Why is a leaf-bud sticky? And do not hurry to answer his questions for him; let him think his difficulties out so far as his small experience will carry him. Above all, when you come to the rescue, let it not be in the 'cut and dried' formula of some miserable little text-book; let him have all the insight available and you will find that on many scientific questions the child may be brought at once to the level of modern thought. Do not embarrass him with too much scientific nomenclature. If he discover for himself (helped, perhaps, by a leading question or two), by comparing an oyster and his cat, that some animals have backbones and some have not, it is less important that he should learn the terms vertebrate and invertebrate than that he should class the animals he meets with according to this difference. (Volume 1 264-271)
Here the Ambleside Online Advisory elaborate on Charlotte Mason's wonder-driven approach to the teaching of science. Reading this short selection, I'm prompted to think of St. Gregory of Nyssa, and his observation that only wonder leads to knowing. This principle underlies everything about a Charlotte Mason education, but it's particularly evident in her approach to this "Knowledge of the Universe."
As with the study of history, science learning begins with what is closest to the child: his own natural surroundings. He is encouraged to spend much time outside, both on his own and on family nature walks, to observe the world around him, and to be curious about it. Here again is a basic principle: the point of any lesson is not the acquisition of facts, but the inspiration to want to find out.
But surely in this STEM-oriented society you need to do more formal science from the beginning?
At this writing, my older son – who graduated from college last year with a degree in biology (double minors in English and philosophy, so he was pretty much a walking liberal-arts education) – is working toward the completion of a postgraduate degree in clinical and therapeutic neuroscience. As a high-school student, he enrolled in dual-enrollment college biology courses and did so well in them that he was admitted to the Tri-Beta collegiate biology honor society while he was still a junior in high school. His primary science preparation? Nature study.
And it was an effective preparation. The two basic things a scientist does are 1) observe things, and b) ask questions about what he observes. Nature study, with its active fostering of an interest in the minutiae of the natural world through the reading of nature lore, is the ideal foundation for meaningful study in the various scientific disciplines, via living books and hands-on activities, as the child grows and matures.
Some of our favorite science resources:
Mater Amabilis
(the syllabus for each Level contains excellent suggestions for science learning)
Sabbath Mood Homeschool's booklists and guides
Macbeth's Opinion
(lots of interesting options in her bookstore)
Macbeth also teaches online science courses for middle and high school at Homeschool Connections.
Some of our favorite living books for science and nature:
Nature Lore, from lower primary to high school:
The Lost Words (reviewed here)
The Burgess Bird Book for Children
The Burgess Animal Book for Children
The Burgess Seaside Book for Children
Among the Farmyard People
Among the Meadow People
Among the Night People
Life in a Bucket of Soil
School of the Woods
Secrets of the Woods
Wild Animals I Have Known
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady
The Flame Trees of Thika
My Family and Other Animals
Fabre's Book of Insects and other titles by Henri Fabre
The Moon by Whale-Light
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Nature Journaling:
Science:
Biology, Human Anatomy, Health and Disease:
The Way We Work
A World in a Drop of Water
Men, Microscopes, and Living Things
Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God's Image
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic
Lives of a Cell
Physical Science:
The Way Things Work Now (bonus: a lesson plan!)
Objects in Motion
Liquids and Gases
Relativity and Quantum Mechanics
Waves
Matter and Energy
Earth Science:
Rocks, Rivers, and the Changing Earth
The Practical Geologist
Chemistry:
The Joy of Chemistry
The Wonder Book of Chemistry
The Chemical History of a Candle
Physics and Cosmology:
Drawing Physics
For the Love of Physics
A Briefer History of Time
Modern Physics and Ancient Faith
General/Integrated Science:
The Story Book of Science
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy
These booklists by no means constitute any kind of syllabus, but do represent particular favorites in our family over many years, as we roughly followed the Mater Amabilis sequence, but also discovered and folded in books as they were recommended to us, or as they piqued somebody's interest.
Please also note that we have felt absolutely no obligation whatsoever to give any credence to "young earth" or "creationist" explanations for the origins of the universe. The Catholic Church does not impede scientific inquiry, nor does she require people to try to fit their thinking into a box labeled "Christian" or "Biblical," or even "Catholic." Again, with Thomas, we ask not, "What should Catholics think," but, "What is TRUE?"
Of course, the Church also does not tell people not to believe "young earth" or "creationist" theories. But a scientific thinker is impelled to look at scientific evidence, within the framework of how the physical universe actually works (to the extent that we can know how it works, which is an understanding that science is always working to extend further). From that evidence he is to draw conclusions, without straining to make either the evidence or the conclusions square with a predetermined answer. Even I, a non-scientist, know that that is not science. Science is the pursuit of truth, not the practice of confirmation bias. The virtue of study in the sciences, even if science isn't your child's life's calling, is that it does form that child as a discerner of what is true – if you let it do its job.
Yes, it's obvious what I think about this. For more on this subject, particularly as an area to explore with your middle- or high-school student, Mary Daly's Creator and Creation, from Ye Hedge School, is an excellent resource.