Science for the Family
How science podcasts for kids can change attitudes about science
Are you a “science person”?
The question isn’t about whether you’re a scientist or not. It’s about how you see yourself in relationship to science. Do you think you’re “good” at science? Are you interested in learning about science? Do other people see you as a person who’s into science?
Your answer to these questions — whether it’s yes, no, or somewhere in between — is your “science identity.” That’s the term that researchers use to define how people perceive their relationship to science. If you’re a parent, your science identity has a lot to do with your child’s.
Children’s interest in science begins at a very early age, as anyone who has encountered a “dinosaur kid” knows. Kids are natural scientists, curious and on the hunt for knowledge. They ask endless questions about everything they observe: “Why is the sky blue?” “What’s that bug doing?” “Why do we have toes?” How parents respond plant the seeds for their child’s budding science identity.
Researchers have found that interactions that young children have around science with their families are even more influential than the science classes they get from classroom teachers. Elementary schools rarely offer science as a regular subject, focusing instead on developing skills like reading and writing in the earliest grades. That means that kids are more likely to develop their formative attitudes about science from experiences outside school, at home with their families.
That’s a lot of pressure, especially on those of us who aren’t “science people.” So what do you do? The answer is simple: Learn about science along with your kid, and talk about what you learn.
This is where science podcasts for kids come in. Kids podcasts are built for listening as a family. As opposed to a YouTube video or TV show, where a child tends to watch on their own, podcasts often get played in the car with the whole family as a captive audience. Or, they’re listened to at home on a speaker, where everyone can hear them. When families listen to science podcasts together, the topics spark conversation. We get lots of emails from parents mentioning conversations based on the podcast, like this one:
“[Tumble] makes for great road trips as we listen to you as a family and engage in our own conversations from what we listened to.”
The secret to our success is making a science podcast for kids that doesn’t feel “kiddy.” It engages parents too. That’s how we discovered that Tumble was not just influencing kids’ attitudes about science — it’s changing adults’ science identities.
“My daughter loves Tumble. And I really love it too — I find it so very interesting and thoughtful and digestible. Science was always my worst subject — your podcast does make science seem fun and interesting!”
This is an extremely powerful combination. When kids’ interests in science are reinforced by their caregivers, they feel encouraged to keep exploring their interest and forming their identity around it. Researchers Remy Dou and Heidi Cian have found this is true even if students have negative experiences with science in school, like getting bad grades or criticism from a teacher. Positive interactions at home can cancel it out.
On the parents’ side, it shows that science identities can change, even in adulthood. Parents may be introducing their kids to STEM kids’ podcasts even if they’re not interested in science, because they believe that STEM can give their children an advantage in life. They don’t expect to change their own attitudes. But experiencing their child’s interest in science with them, and exploring their curiosity together, creates a virtuous cycle. Like the parent who wrote the email above, they reframe science from something they were “bad” at into something that can be easily understood — and surprisingly engaging.
Tumble’s original mission was to improve science literacy — the understanding of how science works. We limited our focus to younger generations, believing that it would be too difficult to get adults to change their established attitudes about science. What we discovered, through years of experience and research, is that podcasts bring parents along too. The interaction around kids’ science podcasts strengthen the entire family’s science identities. People can become more science literate at any age, simply by enjoying learning about science.
So you don’t ever need to see yourself as a “science person” to encourage your child’s interest in science. Just be open — and listen to a science podcast for kids.
