“In school, this explicit teaching of facts and procedures is rampant in almost every subject area. In science, it’s called “the scientific method” and often includes steps such as: Observe something and/or do research. Construct a hypothesis. Make a prediction based on your hypothesis. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment. Analyze the results of your experiment. Determine if your hypothesis was correct. The steps vary slightly between models. However, no matter the actual words on the checklist, or how many steps are included, we teach them to children as if they descended on stone tablets. Teachers devise songs or mnemonic devices to help students memorize the rigid steps. Then students memorize the vocabulary words that go along with the scientific method: hypothesis, fair test, variables, control groups, reliability, validity, etc. Finally, students fill out worksheets to match the vocabulary words with the correct definitions and put the steps in order. This is not science. Science is about wonder and risk and imagination, not checklists or vocabulary memorization. Alan Kay laments that much of what schools teach isn’t science at all, it’s science appreciation. (Kay, 2007)”