What is Real Science-4-Kids?
Real Science-4-Kids is a unique science program developed by Dr. Rebecca Keller. Dr. Keller spent 20 years in academia pursuing a career in science and working in various scientific fields such as molecular biology and neuroscience. Along the way Dr. Keller married and had children and when her children got old enough Dr. Keller decided to homeschool instead of sending them to public or private schools. As Dr. Keller began looking for science curriculum for her children, she noticed that most children's science books did not provide what she calls "real science" for kids. Instead, most science curricula introduces science topics in a topical or "random fact" approach. Not being satisfied with this type of learning, Dr. Keller decided to create her own science books for her own kids and her friend's kids. This idea eventually turned into the Real Science-4-Kids science program published by Gravitas Publications, Inc.
How is RS4K different from other science curricula?
Traditional elementary science education introduces students to science mainly through the subjects of biology and earth/space. However, both biology and earth/space require chemistry and physics to be understood. How can a child to understand plant growth and photosynthesis without some basic introduction to atoms, molecules and light energy? How can a child to understand the earth, sun, and solar system without some basic introduction to gravity, mass, and nuclear energy? Without the foundational subjects of chemistry and physics, elementary science education leaves a "gap" in a students ability to learn, understand, and retain the science they arebeing taught.
RS4K introduces students to chemistry and physics beginning in first grade and continues to build this foundational knowledge as the student progresses through the curriculum. RS4K integrates chemistry and physics in the biology and earth/space books showing kids how these disciplines differ and how they overlap. In this way, students receive a solid science educational foundation.
What are Kogs?
Kogs stands for "cognitive connections." Kogs are workbooks that help students make connections between the science they are learning and six other disciplines; history, philosophy, the arts, technology, critical thinking and language. If students can make connections to other disciplines as they learn science, not only will they learn science better than without making these connections, they will also better retain the information they learn and will more easily transfer this material to other learning situations.
The Kogs workbooks are currently available for Level I Chemistry. This workbook set includes the six connecting disciplines-history, philosophy, the arts, technology, critical thinking and language . The Kogs are taught alongside the RS4K curriculum each week. The student reads one chapter a day from each Kog for six days (see an example lesson plan). Each workbook chapter takes about an hour to complete and the total time to cover an RS4K chapter is ten days (1 day for the student text, 1 day for the experiment, 1 day for each of the six Kogs, 1 day for review, and 1 day for testing). With the Kogs there are 20-22 weeks required to complete one RS4K book.
Can the RS4K-KOGS program make my child smarter?
The RS4K program sorts the vast amount of scientific information by having a student focus on the four core disciplines chemistry, biology, physics, and earth/space. The RS4K program then subdivides these four core disciplines into four essential categories. This process is similar to sorting a junk drawer. It is much easier to find a rubber band or paper clip in a sorted office desk drawer than it is to find it in a junk drawer. Because science is "sorted" in the RS4K program, students have an easier time remembering what they have learned and transferring that information to new learning experiences.
The Kogs-4-Kids program takes the essential science a student has learned and helps them make connections to other subjects. With the KOGS program the core subjects are connected to history, technology, philosophy, critical thinking, the arts, and language. By connecting the core subjects to these other disciplines, the student actually builds physical connections in the brain, called neural pathways. Once these neural pathways are created a student not only better retains the information they have learned, they are also able to learn new material more quickly. This is what Dr. Keller has called Exponential Education. Does the RS4K-KOGS program make your child smarter? If a child can remember what they learned and used what they learned more efficiently, then they might just be smarter than the child who can't.
