DD10 was very, very sciency at ages 4-8. She ate up books, camps, and some excellent local classes. This is the kid who at 2 1/2 went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and demanded to see their carnivorous tunicate. The volunteers didn't know they had one (and just blinked at the small child pronouncing the words).
At around 9 she seemed to decide she already knew everything anyone would teach her and completely lost interest. I think she's probably right, especially given her science MAP scores for this fall: off the scale for her age, 99th %ile for 8th grade, in both general and concepts/processes. I had no idea her level was that far out.
My parenting style is to offer her interesting tidbits and see what gets a nibble. She's had more than a year with no significant science now. We do get Muse, but just reading an article and then dropping the magazine on the table doesn't count for much in my book.
Any suggestions for what to offer her next?
It needs to be intriguing, accessible with middle-school math (we're just starting EPGY algebra), and most importantly offer something she hasn't seen already. Humor and outlandishness are a definite plus. Videos win. Textbooks are likely to be uninspiring. She reads enthusiastically if slowly at a high-school level - but the pop-sci books that I have, intended for sciency adults outside their field, are probably beyond her comfort zone. Bonus points for very cool biology, since her class is doing a life-science oriented unit that she could extend nicely with their support if she cared to.
I would love to see her setting up experiments on the dining table, but she's never really gone that direction. She seems to prefer thinking the problem through to setting it up in person. She is also more of a scientist than an engineer - figure out how it works rather than how to make it work.
Thank you for any help! I hate to see her sparkle disappear.
