Evolution for kids?

[Ender]

I was reading this about how you need to inject some science into your life and how kids inherently look for such explanations. And I got to thinking about how with creationism and stuff their religion is basically marketed towards kids. Growing up I remember all kinds of cartoonish looking animals and the ark story and the flood and all kinds of happy, kid friendly stuff as a way of pushing the bible and its explanation of origin. And this got me thinking - I don't know of any kind of product or website like that from the scientific point of view. A quick search confirmed it, while there is a mountain of stuff out there to aid teachers, there isn't anything where the kid can sit down, click a mouse around, and start learning evolution. No playsets like there are for the ark, no coloring books, etc. Closest I can think of was knowing what archyeopterix was when I was little, but I didn't start to put 2 and 2 together until much later.

So why isn't there? I mean even if scientists are more concerned about research then marketing a product, why has no one else stepped in? Why aren't there kid friendly education sites that teach evolution or stellar evolution or the big bang? It would be a gross oversimplification of course, but the base is important. Why the lack of preschool and lower grades teaching toys?

[Ohma]

Well there kind of are...a bit. After all which side would you want to be on as a kid? The side with a bunch of dudes with beards, or the one with dinosaurs, and astronauts, and freakin' LASERS!

[Oskuro]

It also has better choreography: Linky

[Superman]

And I got to thinking about how with creationism and stuff their religion is basically marketed towards kids.

Overall, Christianity, especially when compared it to an eastern religion like Buddhism or Hinduism, is very childlike. When your faith is centered around dogmas like "Our father who art in heaven," or the idea that you somehow need to be "saved," I think "growing up" spiritually is no easy task.

Toys that are oriented toward science and reality aren't going to be used by very many adults. If you marketed toys that could somehow teach evolution, your target audience would basically be kids and maybe a few "elite" schools. Religious toys, on the other hand, are used by churches, religious institutions, etc. of all stripes, and their purpose is to indoctrinate. The faithful of all ages by this crap, so you would have a much larger target audience.

[Coyote]

OTOH, I don't know of any boy who, like me while growing up, didn't go through the phase where dinosaurs were the coolest thing ever, and learning all the esoteric names was like trading baseball cards. Even among the non-geek set there was that brief flirtation. That opening must be exploited.

[Mayabird]

Wait, what is this about a "phase"? Are you telling me that dinosaurs AREN'T the coolest things ever?

Anybody remember the Zoobooks, those magazines about various animal species? I seem to have been the only one who also ended up getting the ten-part set (in a nifty hard plastic holding case with a T-rex on it) that was basically "the kid's guide to evolution and the history of life on Earth." I must've read those things twenty times at least when I was a kid. It was very well done, and when I look back on it, although some of the stuff is kinda simplistic to me now, it was a great primer on the scientific method, How Evolution Works, and so on. And of course there were dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are awesome. Even the little cute feathery ones of today.

[Shroom Man 777]

Dinosaurs ARE the coolest thing ever, Maya!

They ARE!

When this creationist came to my school and started peddling his shit, I was like "cool! dinosaurs could've survived the flood or some shit and could be living amongst us... like robots in disguise!" but then he said that T-rex was a scavenger and I was like "fuck no, you bitch!"

Between God and the Discovery Channel (PaleoWorld! PaleoKids!), I'd pick Discovery Channel.

So, yeah. Cool monsters beats bullshit sermonizing. The only difference is that creatonism isn't just about some big boat full of animals, or six days with god, but it also includes a Super Best Friend club and there's no way science can beat buddies going "Oh, I so love Jesus!" "I love him more!" "If we don't love him enough, we're going to Hell!" and etcetera.

[Superman]

Look, dinosaurs were the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. Then I grew up. Pfff...

As everyone knows, ninjas are now the coolest thing ever. And pirates.

[Darth Ruinus]

Look, dinosaurs were the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. Then I grew up.

You grew up wrong.

[Ohma]

As everyone knows, ninjas are now the coolest thing ever. And pirates.

Don't you mean cyborg-ninja-pirate-dinosaurs from beyond space?

Honestly, I think the best way to get kids into science in general, is to play up the whole "this shit is fucking awesome" angle. What's god have on giant monsters with teeth and shit that like, ate each other and were all huge, and got all exploderized by a fucking asteroid? Letting his kid die to absolve humans of a problem he arbitrarily decided they had? Flooding the planet because one city was having too much fun?

[Superman]

As everyone knows, ninjas are now the coolest thing ever. And pirates.

Don't you mean cyborg-ninja-pirate-dinosaurs from beyond space?

...

Touche, sir. Touche.

[hongi]

This is the most useful site I have found for evolution, for both adult or children:

Understanding Evolution.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Dinosaurs ARE the coolest thing ever, Maya!

They ARE!

When this creationist came to my school and started peddling his shit, I was like "cool! dinosaurs could've survived the flood or some shit and could be living amongst us... like robots in disguise!" but then he said that T-rex was a scavenger and I was like "fuck no, you bitch!"

Between God and the Discovery Channel (PaleoWorld! PaleoKids!), I'd pick Discovery Channel.

So, yeah. Cool monsters beats bullshit sermonizing. The only difference is that creatonism isn't just about some big boat full of animals, or six days with god, but it also includes a Super Best Friend club and there's no way science can beat buddies going "Oh, I so love Jesus!" "I love him more!" "If we don't love him enough, we're going to Hell!" and etcetera.

That is funny... because science did beat that for me. Then again I actually have quasi-religious feelings about nature and feel all warm and squishy when in the desert, and not because of the heat... But still.

Evolution has extraordinary explanatory power. It can be used to explain and synthesize and inform not only biology and the social sciences, but even history and the humanities (if there are not evolutionary themes in the works of homer for example, we were reading different epic poems, and I dont mean this in the sense that the author intended it, just that they came through in the subject matter. Mate selection, mate-competition, etc)

It SHOULD be taught that way, to very very young children. We are talking kindergarten or so. Teach them the basics. Use examples like frog tadpoles and how many survive. Small children can understand that. Hell, you CAN make cute little animated videos about Darwin, the man was a progressive saint among victorian man, he is the basis for the idea of the kind-hearted big bearded sage in our culture, and Huxley can be his hot-headed friend. The Karate kid of science....

Then we can move on. As the kids get older, we go through more advanced concepts until sex ed class in the 5th grade through middle school when we go through mate-selection, competition, strategic infidelity and sperm wars...