Keeping a science notebook can be a lot of fun. It’s not very difficult to do, and if it’s done well, it’s something you will be proud of for years to come. (The first science notebook I saw when I was a kid was one that my father wrote when he was a kid!) Because this is new to a lot of kids in the club this year, I thought I’d work up an example of how I might do it if I were on the build team. I’ll post some pages from that here, and hopefully also (eventually) some creative pages from member books.
I like to keep my notes fun, and I like to fill empty space with doodles or squiggles—not unlike Vi Hart describes—but I also like to keep the information neat, consistent, and organized. For this book, I sat down with my son and started to draw the Table of Contents. (I think he was a little surprised by how I styled the words.) We worked together to identify parts of the machine, and he was eager to take over after only a few lines. By the time we got to listing some hardware, I started a new page with some drawings and details. When I went back to list the drawings in the Table of Contents, we suggested that I continue numbering them, counting down from zero. I think he enjoyed the idea that the notebook could have some personality.
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