Ed Why's
Why we do what we do
Thank you so much for the time you are taking to check us out. It’s both a great privilege and an honor to us.
This is, by intent, a little long. We knew that some folks would look us over and wonder, “Why in the world are they doing this?” We wanted to help explain a bunch of that in this section. “There’s a reason for our madness” as they say. But to really see what’s going on, you need to understand more of the whole picture we are dealing with.
Our why (click to expand)
We’re going a bit out of the box with both what we chose to teach and also how we chose to teach it. The “Education Why’s?” behind it are very important to us. Please know, though, that we’re hungry to learn.
We’re wading in new territory in many ways. Every day we’re learning new things. If you have suggestions, we’d love to hear. Change will come slow…our boat is quite large…(There is a LOT more than you see on this site), but we want to keep reaching for the highest we can to both please the Lord and bless others.
We wanted you to know, too, that we have quite a bucket list already of things we want to change on the site and add to it. Our prayer “hopper” has lots in it and is growing every day. The great ideas keep coming! And we’re so grateful.
So thanks for taking the time to look this over!
We’re so grateful for you and much desire to meet you face-to-face.
Wanting to let others know about His beauty, love, tenderness, intelligence and power,
Don and the CWS team
PS: Our goal is to help many young people and many parents here in our country and in many nations to see the glory of the Lord. The wonderfulness of God is clearly seen the more a person knows about what He has done. (Romans 1:20)
We deeply want others to know much more than they do. We tremendously desire to reach those who do not yet know Him, those whom Isaiah 43:7 speaks of: “Everyone who is created for My glory.”
We know that is a big goal. We have to try. We need help.
If you like where we’re headed, please team with us through our affiliate program. Our affiliates are people joining with us to make this happen both here and abroad, to believers and unbelievers. The more believers know, the more they can share with others.
Our affiliate group is to us is a team of beloved people with a heart to want Him be known through the things He has made. There are financial perks, yes, because we all need to provide for our families and doing what we deeply desire to do will take time.
If you want to know more, email us at affiliate@crosswiredscience.com.
Any Train
They say, “If you don’ know where you are going, any train will get you there.” We have very specific goals motivating the education decisions at CWS. Some might surprise you. Remember as you are going through our list, that we are not studying a subject in school called science. We are studying true Science, the very carefully thought-out handiwork of the Almighty God.
To understand all the things we are doing, you have to know our thoughts about education—what should be taught and how can it be taught. But it’s also lightyears more than that. It will be enormously helpful to also understand our multi-sided long-term goals in what we are doing. There are also five “Ed Keys” which list a few of the many things we have found helpful in educating kids of all ages.
We’ll share these, then in the final section of this article, we’ll integrate the Goals and the Ed Keys and look at why we have the different lessons in each “Global Topic”. and why we are doing each the way that we are.
So, again, thank you for taking the time to look this over. It means a whole lot to us!
17 CWS Goals In a Nutshell
TO PLEASE THE LORD
The chief purpose of those in CWS is to please the Lord. Everything is subservient to this. One of the ways He has given us to do this is to show the beauty, power, love and intelligence of Himself through the things He has made.
In the process of doing this, we deeply desire and pray for God’s guidance and help in bringing many beautiful things into the lives of young and old. Here are a few! They are central to the purpose of why we do what we do.
Our Goals (click to expand)
1. To Make Studying God’s Nature a Delight & Make the Wonder “Stick-for-Life”
Force-Feeding
This is one hour of school that we want to make as pleasant as possible. There are times to exert the education “force-feeding” muscles, but we want this time of the day to be wisely used to the greatest benefit of the beloved kids involved. We pursue hard the great goal of, “Every minute a delight!”
For instance, we have AP Bio and Chem students in our program. They expect to work hard. They will bite the bullet. But we don’t want to misuse our “power”. We want what they really pour effort into to be life-changing to them–a life-blessing to them. We want the benefits to be enormous for them and others they will impact, not just demand of them perfect performances on things that may not benefit them much at all in the long run. A great goal of ours is to make every moment of our journey together as delightful and beneficial as possible!
Astonishing Retention
And, so you’ll know, we try to make things easy when easy is fine. For instance, sometimes in the quizzes, we give the answer to a question a few questions down. We even tell young people where the answers are. Too easy? Nah. Someone who thinks this doesn’t understand where we are going.
As more projects are launched (a “Project” is 2 Global Topics like are on this website), we will slowly be implementing our “MERGE” between Computers and Education.” This will be used to cement in 1500 very involved and complex science concepts, 5000 beautiful “concept” pictures and video segments and over 2000 terms. Our goal is that kids at 18 would have an astonishing amount of material rock-solid cemented for life-time retention for the glory of the Lord.
2. To Bring Power to Scriptures
We desire to be used of the Lord to make many Scriptures take on new power as they are seen in light of the wisdom, love, power and intelligence of the Lord, the Creator of all things. Little lessons involving hidden beauty and wonder can be very powerful. We, therefore, add these often in all our written material.
3. To Build Faith and Encouragement
Our prayer is to be used of the Lord to build the faith of believers, and add much encouragement and joy to their days. It’s also to help others who don’t yet know the Lord to come to understand His deep love of them and His great desire to be part of their lives, to commune with them and to both actively help and bless them.
4. To Build Family Learning & Make Great Teachers
How great it is when the learning process is something families can do together! This is our CONSTANT prayer and the direction of our effort. Our hope in this is also to raise up an army of excellent teachers–people young and old–who can join hands with the fine godly teachers God has raised up worldwide to influence our generation.
5. To Bring in New Resources
We deeply love the beautiful things God is raising up through others. Our desire is to give much room for bringing in other’s wonderful resources.
6. To Increase Reading
Reading can peaceful, relaxing, amazingly encouraging and a great delight. God blesses so much with reading. One of our goals is that we would give a weekly place for delightful reading. As parents, we need to work hard at de-phoning our kids. One of the ways is by shared-delights. Reading is one.
7. To Open New Experiences
God has more for all of us than we currently realize. Our prayer is that CWS would be used to pave the way for many wonderful and incredible experiences for parents and children to share in together and to launch into, both together and separately.
8. To Increase Lifetime Memory
One of our great goals is to tremendously increase lifetime memory of thousands of “incredible concepts that both show the glory of God and develop a deep understanding of true science.” If these can be, in part, taught to both parents and children, parents become perhaps the greatest builder of long-term memory possible. If parents delight in learning about God’s handiwork, literally thousands of reminders and shared moments arise all of life that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
This is quite an improvement over flash cards for life-time memory! You can almost think of parents as God’s flash cards! When you’re 80 and your kids in their 50’s, the moments will keep coming!
9. To Expand Horizons
There is so much to learn and experience that glorifies the Lord and brings His blessing to others. Our deep prayer is that the Lord would work through CWS to expand the horizons of students and their families in both subject areas and experiences.
10. To Increase Opportunities
It is such a blessing to be used by the Lord to bring beauty into the lives of others. Our desire is to be part of raising an army with new knowledge and abilities to increase gentle and powerful opportunities for sharing the Lord with others.
11. To Increase Finances for Families
Finances are a precious gift from God. One of our goals from day one has been to earnestly pray that God would, through His work through many at CWS, increase finances for many families. Financial stress is very difficult and it is very hard on families who are sacrificing to have more time with their children. “Lord, please use us as one of Your tools to help bring some of Your financial blessing to families!” is our cry.
12. To Increase Knowledge of How the Brain Learns
There is great benefit in increasing students’ and parents’ understanding of how the Lord has designed the brain to learn. One of the goals in this is to help everyone learn and remember that God can do greater things with us and/or different things within us than we have thought possible. Many new skills and “talents” can be learned well over time if this is the Lord’s will. It involves seeking wise counsel and God’s direction and keeping at it as long and as faithfully and creatively as God desires us to.
Too many beloved people give up too soon thinking they can’t do something. They think failure is an indicator that they can’t and don’t realize that great failure is the path of every great master. They give up when God wants them to go on. We really want to help change this.
13. To Increase Gleaning Precious From the Worthless
Our hope is to increase students’ and parents’ ability to glean the precious from the worthless in the vast amount of information growing daily on the web. (Jeremiah 15:19) Part of this is understanding how to research effectively. We want to help here.
14. To Help Other Ministries
We want to help other beloved brothers and sisters in Christ who have a similar burden to bless students and their families by turning others to their amazing products and services. We have been helped and blessed immeasurably by others’ ministries and we would love to be a part of blessing those who have so deeply blessed us. We are “standing on the shoulders of giants” whom we are deeply indebted to and are so thankful for.
15. To Avoid Dead Knowledge
Studying some things can be so life-draining. They can sap your energy, starve your interest and kill your desire. Sometimes we see things taught in Science that maybe everyone, students and teachers, would much rather be without. We want to help here.
We really want to avoid “dead knowledge,” knowledge that doesn’t help or bless most people. We want instead to pursue jewels that teach science in beautiful ways and can eventually be used to powerfully glorify the Lord and greatly help those pursing careers in the sciences.
16. To Train the Eyes
Deeply seeing the beauty God has put in His Creation is important. Kids today know their cell phone screens lightyears better than they know the real world around them. We’re in a bit of a war against that.
We want to train the eyes of children and their parents to see more of the beauty in God’s creation. It might be accomplished in part by a family tree bark collection, shell collection, flower drawings, observing the flight patterns of birds or the swimming styles of fish. It might involve helping old and young to understand the truths like the fact that the grace of an eagle in flight or the beauty of a horse’s gallop is programmed on DNA strands. We want to help young and old to see the beauty in form and movement that God has put in His Creation. And, His beauty in both can be quite astonishing!
When beauty is seen in nature daily, God can use this to brighten the hours of the day with His presence, energize love, curb temptation, harness courage, super-charge confidence in Him and bring joy where there is sadness and even despair.
17. To Increase Time Outdoors
In regard to spending more time outdoors face-to-face with God’s Creation, it’s our opinion that everyone needs encouragement and help to get out more–both young people and parents. It’s a good thing for kids of all ages to dump their phones and computers for a while and have real, wild, exciting and beautiful adventures!
We’ve seen thousands of times where God has used these times to awaken desire and open perspectives and introduce opportunities in using camping and hiking and spending time in God’s beautiful places as a powerful tool for local and international ministry.
We, for instance, have a team of families who have been working with Japanese young people for almost 30 years. As families, they have had the most amazing adventures with each other and with Japanese young people where the Lord is brought in all the time.
Our prayer in this particular is that God would raise up groups of families all over the country–and the world– to reach students in many nations as this group of one hundred has.
These goals and many more are woven into what we do and why we do it in CrossWired Science.
5 Ed Keys
To help you understand why we are doing what we are doing, there additionally are 5 key education methodologies that we live by. (There are lots more, of course, but we’ll save those for another day.) These five are at the forefront!
Ed Keys (click to expand)
1. Integration is Fantastic
We desire to integrate the sciences heavily. To talk about the hummingbird for five minutes, bridge to the International Space Station for two minutes and then talk about Bone Building for ten minutes while bringing in how they all tie together can be very educationally productive.
Wise bridging makes science very interesting and also integrates scientific concepts in the way it is connected in people’s minds who deeply know science.
Scientists have minds that “mind-fly” to all sorts of topics when they hear someone speak about science. Those who know little of a subject “mind-fly” little because the they don’t yet have much info in their minds that new concepts can be crosswired to. Increasing “science mind-fly” is the way to build a truly “science mind”.
The greats of the past–Faraday, Einstein, Tesla, Franklin, Curie and the rest– all had “mind-fly” extensively in the area of science. They would talk to other scientists and their minds would bridge to dozens if not hundreds of areas.
Scientists can look at a journal that roars from topic to topic at light speed and have a ball because they see hundreds of connections that many people don’t. They also love to build their knowledge of many fields. This often carries the secrets to effective research.
This is also hugely helpful for long-term memory. It plays the key factor in the illusive effective MERGE between computers and education.
2. Wahoo Lesson Variety!
There’s a time to watch a video, talk with others, do research, have a discussion-debate, do an activity, go on a hike, perform an experiment, take a field trip, etc. We love variety in tasks and so do nearly all of the thousands of students we have taught.
3. Crosswiring a Foundation is a Huge Deal
We deeply desire to be a cross-wiring foundation for Science that all can be tied together for the glory of the Lord. If Life, Earth and Physical Science can be woven together, it will accomplish very great things. We’re working hard to this end.
Our hope in this is also that this would allow for adding great materials that God has raised up through many beloved people that otherwise might never have been used or known of. This brings us to #4.
4. “Stand Alone”? Ha! Lousy Idea.
CWS is able to be used as a “stand-alone curriculum.” However, a core value of CWS is to be eclectic and use many excellent resources others have produced.
So to say “Use CWS as a stand-alone curriculum” is an oxymoron, for we LOVE so many of the great resources others are creating. CWS is meant to be a thread that ties everything together with a strong God-glorifying science foundation.
Our hope is to start a revolution in how science is taught. And a significant part of this is using many wonderful resources others have created.
5. Use “Global Topics” to Weave all of Science Together
The 20 Global Topics of CWS encompass every discipline of science. .These Global Topics are meant to be broadened and deepened over ten to twelve years with many other rich materials, from the beginnings of Elementary school all the way through High School.
The Global Topics are chosen because of many reasons. Many are chosen largely because they integrate the Earth, Physics and Life Sciences well. A few have been chosen, not because they cross-wire well, but because they build a powerful understanding of a specific part of the world God has made. Sometimes going very deep in one area helps to go deep in other areas.
The object is to have a minimal amount of Global Topics. Less is more–big time! We’ll explain a little why in Gold Dig Info below.
The 12 Types of CWS Lessons
Now we are ready to discuss some of the the “why’s” and “how to’s” behind the 12 types of CWS lessons. Each has its own unique flavor and blessing for your family.
Lesson Types (click to expand)
1. Core Videos
The eight Core Videos for each Global Topic are meant to be fun, interesting and informative. Through all of them, we attempt to gain significant ground in “Deep Science” in the Global Topic. This lays a powerful foundation for understanding more of the power, intelligence, beauty and love of God. More will also be added to every Core Video when it is visited again in coming years.
Nearly everything taught in Core Videos is eventually meant for close to 100% long-term retention. If a child studies Science with CWS from elementary school through High School, all Global Topics will be run through a minimum of 3 times with testing becoming increasingly detailed, yet enjoyable at the same time. We will reveal and implement our ways of doing this which will powerfully merge the computer and Science.
2. CWS Experiments
Don’t Over Glorify Experiments
We don’t want to over-glorify experiments, but instead try to use them wisely in light of all of education. There are many times when powerful, well-woven concept teaching or various types of “hands-on” experiences can take a student much further than doing a few mediocre experiments.
What About Other Experiences
Also, as far as other “hands-on experiences”, what about field trips with the family to museums, National Parks, etc? What about in-depth conversations with engineers and scientists?
These are priceless memories and experiences setting the stage for the rest of life. Experiments and demos have a place, but we don’t want to overstate it. There are plenty of exceedingly smart students in the world today who spend much of their experiment time watching experiments on youtube rather than doing many.
But at the same time we love good experiments. They can be productive and fun. They often make for a great group time, too.
Come Back!
We feel students need to come back to specific groups of experiments many times as they are growing older. For instance, there may be Sound experiments that child learns about at 7 and not do them until 13 or 17. Kids can learn about experiments and grow years older before they are ready to tackle them.
Students come back to all Global Topics and their experiments are increasingly mastered as students get older. With the addition of new knowledge, the students also have productive experiences of turning past experiment failures into successes. Coming back and finally making experiments and innovations work is very rewarding!. This is how Faraday, Einstein, Edison and all the rest succeeded!
This is why we have “Global Topic Experiment Clusters” (the “boxes” you see in each experiment lesson). Students are brought back to each Global Topic’s experiments to master the most important ones as they grow in knowledge and wisdom.
3. General Links
Unique and Fascinating
The lessons with General Links are especially fun and fascinating. These are videos covering unique and fascinating topics–ones way out of the box!
Students are intentionally led to explore a vast array of topics that take them out of the Global Topic being studied purely for the delight of learning! These are a vital part of what builds the very important mini-topics in “The Field” (the small circles in “Year 1 Program” in the Home Page menu bar). We believe it’s a tremendous thing to dive out of the theme being studied and have a great time learning about new areas of Science.
General Links are not meant to be tested at this point–rather just enjoyed. We try to never minimize the tremendous effect of what is “caught” when enjoying rich resources. Materials do not have to all be tested to achieve maximum impact!
We’ve found that a tremendous amount of extremely valuable Sci-Concepts can be acquired by quality, enjoyable discovery learning that is off-topic. We come back eventually to everything that we consider very valuable for laying a foundation that is both glorifying to God and which covers important “deep science”. But for now, General Links are meant to be pure delight.
Take a Delight Tour
In the first five minutes of a lesson, you may be watching an incredible-around-the-world video on radiation pockets and visit the Curies’ lab, Chernobyl’s hospital basement and the deserts of Nevada where the first nuclear tests took place. Next, you may be behind a barn in Georgia leaning the amazing physics of cat flipping. Clicking again, you may be in Costa Rica on an expedition into the Rainforest watching the sophisticated mechanics of parrot flight. This can be followed by a NASA astronaut’s on-site explanation of the docking of visiting spacecraft.
Sooo fascinating. A sci-geeks heaven! And so great for building a broad background in powerful Science.
Tapping the Uniqueness for the Glory of God!
We live at a unique time. There is a weaving of video production and serious and incredibly fun science such as has never been seen in the history of the world. There is a vast arsenal of beautifully presented science available to all.
We at CWS are completely into harnessing this for the glory of the Lord.
Avoid the Ineffective!
Each Global Topic has enough General Links to take four or more days to run through…and this is just viewing the selections one time.
It is true that time in ineffective viewing of poor material is a waste of time. But if the Links are well chosen and well presented and Links are eventually come back to, time with Links can be very enjoyable and a very painless happy academic powerhouse. Doing potpourri Links for the Sci-lesson at least once every ten days adds the beauty of new topics and unexpected wonders–and helps beyond-belief in creating a very effective science mind.
Web Protection
Protection from the devastating evil on the web is important to us, too. For this reason, we encourage all parents to get secure web protection. If you use the Parental Controls on your device or on external web protection software like Covenant Eyes to white list CrossWired Science but not whitelist Youtube on your child’s user, all will be fine. (You have to do this on any website if you want to be secure.)
Then if you have another user on your device such as your own user or another which is password protected that has access to Youtube, then your child can go into Crossword Science on that user and view the Links when you allow it.
We put all our directly accessible Links behind the protection of the “Parent Resources.” If you desire a “Click and be there experience”, you’ll find it protected by the parental-teacher password. Otherwise, students can copy and paste the URL for each video. (The student Link lessons have the web address with a cover shot of the Link.)
But again, this does not protect your child from directly accessing Youtube. Because Youtube has “broken” all private platforming of Youtube videos, the only way to have protection on any device is the “white list system.”
Future Quizzing of Links
Our future lessons always involve review and computer-aided quizzing for some of the previously assigned great Links.
4. Unit Links
Like General Links, “Unit Links” are divided into three levels L-1, L-2 and L-3.
These “Unit Links” broaden and deepen all CWS concepts introduced in the Core Videos, the Digging Deepers and Gold Digs assigned for each Global Topic.
CWS is very selective in the Links choosen. We want to remain a secure foundation for making all of Science glorifying to God.
Web Protection
Protection from the devastating evil on the web is important to us, too. For this reason, we encourage all parents to get secure web protection. If you use the Parental Controls on your device or on external web protection software like Covenant Eyes to white list CrossWired Science but not whitelist Youtube on your child’s user, all will be fine. (You have to do this on any website if you want to be secure.)
Then if you have another user on your device such as your own user or another which is password protected that has access to Youtube, then your child can go into Crossword Science on that user and view the Links when you allow it.
We put all our directly accessible Links behind the protection of the “Parent Resources.” If you desire a “Click and be there experience”, you’ll find it protected by the parental-teacher password. Otherwise, students can copy and paste the URL for each video. (The student Link lessons have the web address with a cover shot of the Link.)
But again, this does not protect your child from directly accessing Youtube. Because Youtube has “broken” all private platforming of Youtube videos, the only way to have protection on any device is the “white list system.”
Future Quizzing of Links
Our future lessons always involve review and computer-aided quizzing for some of the previously assigned great Links.
5. U-Choose
A Revolution Using Many People’s Materials!
We love to do many types of activities and use many wonderful materials which are available. U-Choose is another part of each Global Topic which works toward this.
The U-choose lesson has many suggestions of great materials others have made as well as a great variety of activities.
Remember, U-Choose does not need to be connected to the Global Topic.
Specific suggestions are listed In other lessons such as “Reading” or “Reinforcement”.
6. Field Trips
Field Trips can be so outrageously FUN and meaningful…some of the greatest treasures of your life from the Lord to you.
Check out the suggestions in the Field Trips lesson.
We are working on developing an intensive suggestions list with amazing secrets for all fifty states. We’re connecting with a ministry to do this internationally as well.
We’d encourage you to make a 2-year plan. You can change, sure, but looking ahead two years will help you to capture many extraordinary opportunities that you might otherwise miss.
Field Trips Can Be Defining for Life
We can’t encourage you enough to be bold here.
You have no idea what the Lord may be doing in the long run with your field trips.
We’ve seen the Lord minister to thousands from things that have developed from our field trips.
As parents, you have one chance while your children are pre-adults!
Really go for it here. Don’t miss the exciting options.
Schools?
It is easier, of course, for families to go on field trips than it is for teachers to get an entire class out for one. But, our hope is that CWS will encourage two things in schools:
1. To provide more field trips for students and for students with their families. And,
2. That schools would encourage their families to do more family field trips and even boldly do what they never thought they could.
It is our conviction that one of the greatest resources that schools have for their students is their own families. We at CWS want to be as much of a part as the Lord would graciously give us in helping schools to empower their families to be all they can be.
Catapulting Away!
Our hope is that our suggestions for Field Trips will catapult you into some of the greatest adventures you’ll ever have as a family–or grab some friends and make it a group adventure! May you be powerfully used by the Lord in helping your beloved family build a rich, God-filled “Common Heritage” shared by all!
7. Reinforcement
Why a Reinforcement Activity?
The main purpose of this project lesson is to put a spark of fun in creating something that the student enjoys and provides some reinforcement of the Global Topic. Students will learn many things from this lesson, but the main “push” is to change gears and have fun and also, for some, develop new or better presentation skills. Many of the projects can be done in teams.
Ideas
For one child, the Reinforcement project might be a coloring sheet done well. For another it might be drawing something challenging while listening to a great science CD like Johnathan Parks or a fascinating Christian scientist. (ICR has old radio broadcasts on line. AIG and Creation.com have many free recordings and the both have on-going great video reporting on Creation topics. )
For another it might be making a “science art project” that’s pretty hefty in science.
For someone who likes delight-based learning, it might be doing some research– lightweight or scaling the heights–depending on your student. It can be making a poster or a multimedia presentation about the research. We’d love it to be in an area that is fascinating to the student.
Students can be divided into teams and perform Sci-dramas” or make “Sci-games” for their class or friends to try. There is great variety in the types of projects that can be undertaken! Check the lesson for more ideas.
The Future!
As you proceed through the CWS program in the years to come, your students will come back to each Global topic for greater mastery and more material. There will be opportunities to try many different reinforcement projects for each Global Topic.
8. Research
The main purpose of this project is to build comfort in tackling one’s own research as a budding scientist. We hope to build discernment with what is interesting, important and what’s correct and what’s not. It’s important also to build the ability to discern the trustworthiness of various sources.
With an unprecedented amount of information being added to the “the world’s database” every year, the ability to glean the precious from the worthless is a greatly needed skill. It can help in a family’s future, future employment, and the future training and teaching of their own children.
The vital life skill here revolves around the verse, “…If you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become My spokesman.” –Jeremiah 15:19
9. Reading
Books or Magazines
We strongly encourage reading a book for one day of sci-instruction each week. It does not have to do with the Global Topic. It can be any book you desire.
A CWS mantra about this wonderful area is: “Every kid needs a “read-a-book-every-week-in-a-hammock-in-the-sunshine-or-curled-up-by-a-fire-in-the-fireplace-sipping-hot-chocolate time.” YES!
Most families have a number of great science books around the house that they have been meaning to read, but never had the time. Some biographies we suggest can be especially fun. You can even read them together as a family. Here’s a great opportunity to do all this!
We also give you an extensive list of Reading Options and Plans. You may very inexpensively purchase one or more of the books or magazines that we recommend or other fine ones you learn about.
We suggest for the first year for all grades the 4 Benge Science biographies and we offer these at $10 under Amazon prices to make it very affordable for you. These are incredible for family Read alouds. And there are over 60 including incredible missionary stories.
We highly recommend the Benge Biographies and offer them to you about $10 cheaper than Amazon.
10. Gold Digs
Whew. Bone GD!
If you go to the “Gold Digs” in Fluid Dynamics, you’ll see that the five Gold Digs go very deep into “Bones”. We believe young people are ready for this!
The reason we go so deep is because what it shows about many facets of Science and about the Lord is very significant. And, as we said before, going deep in a subject helps going deeper in other subjects.
Why Not Smaller Pieces?
Some ask why we didn’t break each Gold Dig into smaller bite-sized pieces. Our answer is, “We did. Each one has 25 or more pieces.” A better question would be, “Why did we opt to put so many pieces together?”
One reason is that we love to build bridges to beautiful and fascinating things. We love the ISS and we love Clydesdale horses, so we leap at the opportunity to take a visit when we have the opportunity. We also have found that fascinating topics can keep the “interest-top” spinning in the minds of kids which is critical for deep learning.
A Practical Help with GD’s.
All questions in one lesson that are meant to be graded by the website must be filled out in one session. For a Gold Dig – that’s about 50 questions.
This is a pretty taxing effort when the Gold Digs are as long as they are. To help, CWS provides a printable set of questions that exactly correspond with the web-questions to help with this and to increase learning significantly.
To work the GD’s at a comfy pace, print the 50-question worksheet. Each can be completed at a relaxed pace as desired over as many days as wanted. Then, when ready, your students can launch the test and knock out all 50 questions quite easily in one sitting because they have the worksheet as a guide and are already very familiar with the material.
This “double task” in the Gold Digs and the Digging Deepers is a tremendous way to both increase understanding and retention.
Why So LONG????
There is an important educational reason the GD’s and Digging Deepers are so long.
After 40 years of teaching students, we’ve come to realize that it’s better to teach things as a group. If subjects are diced into small pieces, it’s both hard to remember them and keep track of them It’s also hard to see how they all fit together.
On the flip side, if you can quickly scroll down 25 pages to any place as you can in both the Gold Digs and the Digging Deepers, a student’s brain will all the time be connecting concepts in deeper ways if they are connected together. This solidifies wild-out-of-the-box cross-wiring from, for example, hummingbirds to the ISS, and it greatly increases retention of both after just a couple reviews. Why? Because it is interesting! We remember unique things far better than drab things.
ALL CWS Core Videos, Digging Deepers and Gold Digs are meant to be mastered over the years to a point of very high retention. The “Integrated Concept Chunks” such as in GD and DD tremendously help with long-term retention. This aspect of teaching can nearly double lifetime retention of a “science-mind” by 18 years-old if part of the program involves reviewing past material and going deeper with it!
Pictorial Written Materials
Again, each Global-Topic has extensive “pictorial written materials”. Sound has five Digging Deepers in the subject area of Sound. Fluid Dynamics has what we call a “guest subject”. It has a very extensive 5-part “Gold Dig” where students will learn the most about Bones possibly ever attempted to teach students who are not yet in college. This section powerfully shows the incredible gift God has given us creating our bones and the bones of His marvelous animals.
11. Digging Deepers
All that is true of Gold Digs is true of Digging Deepers. The fundamental difference is that Digging Deepers are Global Topic Specific. If it’s the Global Topic of Sound, the Digging Deepers will be directly Sound-related.
Gold Digs are different. They are a “Guest Topic”. They can be distinct from the Global Topic. We like Gold Digs because they keep the learning fresh and exciting. They are like a breath of fresh air!
Pictures Galore!
The Digging Deepers and the Gold Digs are heavily illustrated with fun, beauty and quite stunning “concept pictures”. The pictures are the same for the two curriculums. But the text and the questions are on two different levels. In other words, if you go into the first “essay” on Bones, in both the “First Timers” and “Second Timers” curriculums, you will see a difference. The pictures are exactly the same but the text and the questions are different levels of difficulty.
The beauty of teaching “deep science” this way is that it allows for extremely effective and rich repetition of concepts which is critical for children as their minds develop. This is an aspect of an absolutely essential element for creating a revolution in “Integrated Cross-concept Science Education” that the Lord can powerfully use for His glory.
12. Devotions
There are devotionals of all sizes all through CWS. Many are found throughout the written portions like Gold Digs and Digging Deepers and in the printables.
We love the Word and love to tie it to lessons we learn from how God built our universe.
The “Official Devotion Lessons” have gradable questions and some fill-in questions that help interaction with the material.
At the end of each Digging Deeper and Gold Dig, there is a fill-in box where teachers and parents can ask for personal applications of the devotional material found in the written material.