Written by Laura Hackett
Today we launched our first set of Discovery Bags to our pilot group as part of the ‘Investigating Big Questions’ project. The aim of the bags is to encourage discussion at home about Big Questions involving science and religion, among KS2 (upper primary school) children and their parents/carers.
Each bag contains a double-sided investigation card, with a science experiment on the front and a multi-disciplinary discussion on the back that draws in perspectives from religion and children’s own lived experiences.
This first kit explores the Big Question: ‘How do we make sense of the weather?’ To investigate this Big Question, children and their helpers first use a fun science gadget – in this pack, an anemometer (an-e-mom-e-ter) – to measure the speed of the wind from a scientific perspective. The response sheet provides lots of space for further discussion and investigation, including the prompt: ‘Could the weather be a sign from God?’
In our research we are interested in how children think about the relationships between science and religion and in exploring topics where some people see a conflict between them. Where children perceive science and religion to interact, we want to know what they think science says, religion says and what they themselves believe.
We also want to stimulate children’s curiosity about Big Questions, which are questions that ask about human personhood and the nature of reality, such as, whether the universe is created, whether we have agency, whether our personalities are determined by our biology and culture, whether science prevents us from believing claims that religion(s) make, what kinds of ethical principles should guide us when we create technologies and apply our scientific understanding of the world and so on.
We hope that these cards will act as a stimulus for exploring these questions at home. This card and piece of equipment is 1 of 4 Discovery Bags, focusing on topics such light, rainbows and water. One down, three more to create!