Exposing Young Kids To Science

I'm interested in getting my first-grader exposed to the gestalt of modern scientific thinking - nonlinearity, dynamics, Emergence, Complexity Theory, Evolution, etc.

I don't have expectations of having specific skills acquired, just in getting a sense of the Wonders Of The Universe, etc.

I'd like to suggest resources to the science teacher in my kids school. I'm focused on a first-grader for the moment.

I suspect audio/visual/simulation is the way to go. Educational Technology

• Astronomy Animation

• animations of time-evolving physical systems

• Physics-based games http://www.fun-motion.com/list-of-physics-games/

Though a good story can be helpful - e.g. the Hotel Infinity

Other SciFi resources:

• David Brin list http://www.davidbrin.com/teachingsf.html

• 2007-10-24-BrinYoungAdult[[SciFi]]

• 2007-03-03-RogersKid[[SciFi]]

• http://www.readingforfuture.com/

• http://www.ku.edu/~sfcenter/

• very long list of books, with no reviews

• Comic Book

Watch episodes of The MagicSchoolBus!

Edu Web has pieces on history, art, math, Engineering, Economics, etc.

Charles Eames Powers Of Ten film

Rudy Rucker's free gnarly software (Fractal, Cellular Automata, etc.)

Rudy Rucker's and John Walker's Cel Lab Cellular Automata software

I wonder whether the DOS software for Richard Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker runs well on MsWindows? (Why isn't this Open Source by now?)

• here are some derivative Bio Morph projects

Stephen Wolfram's New Kind Of Science

• his official commercial software

• projects from Rudy Rucker's course

[Reviews](http://www.don-barrett.com/Nineworlds Review.htm) of commercial science education software

• Virgil Reality sounds pretty good.

IMACS runs After School programs in math (using formal-logic) and computer-science (using Scheme and Logo!) - but no location near me.

• they have online classes for Middle School and High School

DASH/FAST are science curricula developed at the University Of Hawaii (they run training programs for teachers). You can order teacher materials but they're not cheap! I think being "inquiry-based" puts them kinda in a Socratic style...

Chemistry Set?

interesting tool - Inspiration Mind Mapping software for Interactive White Board-s.