Over the weekend, when both Jim and I were under the weather, we walked into the kitchen to find this:

Yes, those are paper clips—in water—in a spice jar that up until rather recently held dried marjoram. Gareth was behind me, proudly saying, “Look at my experiment! When I get bigger I am going to be a scientist!” I was most curious to understand the workings of his experiment, so grabbing a pen and paper, here’s the explanation direct from a 4-year-old:

“I putted sink water in, and then cold water in from there [pointing at water cooler which had a small puddle beneath it—sigh], and the pins [paper clips]…DIDN’T DISAPPEAR! I just putted this lid on. I’ll show Daegan how to do experiments with jars. You can do ANY experiment you want with jars!” [raises hands triumphantly]

“I learned being a scientist on Beakman.”

“I’m going to do another experiment. When I sleep, the pins will change colour maybe. I’m going to call it the Sleep Overnight experiment, because I’ll put it in my room then sleep and wake up in the morning and the pins will change colour maybe. I’ll check in the morning to see if they’re the same colour or not.”

To me, this is already very different from science experiments I did in school, where the materials, methods and expected results were laid out for me in advance. Fine, his scientific understanding has a ways to go (he’s 4!) but I am so excited to see him forming hypotheses, and taking the initiative to test them. Even if it means having to buy new spices and wiping up some spills.