CrossWired Science Review

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Do your children love hands-on learning and science? Check out this review of CrossWired Science – a new program for the scientist in all of us.

The favourite subject in our household is science. My boys love learning about the world around them and exploring through tactile, hands-on experiments. When we had the opportunity to review the Fluid Dynamics and Sound portion of the CrossWired Science site, we were excited to get started.

What Is CrossWired Science?

CrossWired Science is a whole new way to do science.

This program is still in its infancy but has already proven itself to be a valuable part of our homeschool toolbox. Scientists of all ages will learn through videos, experiments, field trips, interesting facts and more!

Currently, there are two main topics: fluid dynamics and sound. These are considered their global topics. As CrossWired Science grows, the number of global topics will grow as well. Right now there are a projected 24-30 more global topics coming to the program. At the moment, it is projected that it would take 3 months to work through all of the material provided. The estimated amount of content for the site, once complete, could provide science curriculum for 6 years!

The Global Topics are chosen because of many reasons. Many are chosen largely because they integrate the Earth, Physics and Life Sciences well. A few have been chosen, not because they cross-wire well, but because they build a powerful understanding of a specific part of the world God has made. Sometimes going very deep in one area helps to go deep in other areas.
CrossWired Science

I want to mention that, at the time this review was written (April 2019), CrossWired Science is still in the beginning stages.

The Homeschool Review Crew has worked alongside CrossWired Science to beta test the two global topics: fluid dynamics and sound. As we have worked through the review period, the website has developed and improved. If we noticed any errors in the programs or had suggestions about it, the CrossWired Science team was very receptive to our suggestions and recommendations. They have been a pleasure to work with and I cannot wait to see how this program improves over time. It has already improved during our review period and I think this will be a tool we continue to use for years to come.

Our Experience Using CrossWired Science

After exploring the website by myself, I decided that I wanted to test out two different approaches to using this website.

independent learning
group learning

Learning in our home tends to lean heavily towards interest based and play-based learning. We do not use any curricula as guides to how we structure our learning. I really liked CrossWired Science’s website layout. The way the website is structured allows you can jump around to different areas depending on what you were interested in.

Both of these approaches worked well for our family and we will continue to implement both strategies.

Fluid Dynamics – Independent Learning

I asked my eldest son, Lucas, to be the first to use CrossWired science. I gave him the username and password and let him explore the website and do whatever he wanted.

Lucas finds space fascinating. He loves creating rockets on Kerbal Space Program, a video game, and researching anything to do with NASA and outer space. He also really likes learning about planes that stay within our atmosphere and designing aircraft. With the summer coming up, he has also been talking about going kayaking a lot. I assumed he would gravitate towards the fluid dynamic section of the website – I was correct.

Lucas has spent hours exploring the site and doing activities.

The videos captured his attention and also entertained his 3-year-old brother who often watched alongside him.

There are many experiments that go along with this section. Some of the ones we tried include:

The World’s Best Paper Airplane
Homemade Helicopter
Rubber Band Powered Planes

There are also many dissection experiments. We hope to be able to do these but we need to find a source for these within Canada. CrossWired Science does provide links to purchase dissection kits but they can only ship within the United States.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter if you want to see these experiments. We will definitely be sharing them once we find the kits!

Grading Independent Work

As a parent, I am able to look through the different areas of the site and see what he was working on.

The parent/teacher section is well organized. I found it easy to use and to find what you are looking for. Since I am not one to grade based on test results, I loved the hands-on experiments from this site as well. I love seeing the physical creations from the experiments and listening to him talk about what he had learned. You can also print off worksheets which your children can fill out as they work through the different lessons.

Sound – Group Learning

I wanted to focus on using CrossWired Science for group learning as well.

For this approach, I sat down with the boys and we worked through the sound unit together. We watched the videos together and then my older children would take turns reading the quiz questions. Each child was allowed to have their input on which answer they thought was correct. If there was a disagreement, we would go back and rewatch that section of the video. Most of the disagreements occurred over small details – like the length of the vocal cords in an elephant.

Taking this approach to the topic also allowed me to evaluate their reading. For our school board, the way I assess my children’s literacy is by listening to them read and discussing what they have read. Asking them to do these quiz as oral discussions, allowed me to document the progress that they are making for their learning facilitator.

Jack’s favourite video talked about bats and how they use echolocation. He has since gone on to research even more about bats and learn about their habitat.

Honorable Mentions

There are so many aspects of CrossWired Science that we were unable to get to during the review period. We would have loved to complete them before the review but there are just not enough hours in the day. Like I said before, these topics are designed to take weeks to go through. I do not want to leave these out of the review because I feel there are valuable aspects of this program.

Gold Digs and Digging Deeper

The Gold Dig (Fluid Dynamics) and Digging Deeper (Sound) sections are full of wonderful tidbits of information. These sections have wonderful images and small snippets of information that go along with the quiz at the bottom of the page. There is a tremendous amount of material in just these sections alone.

We were not able to go through all of these sections but we took at quick peek at them. I can already tell that they will be a great jumping off point for more research and in-depth inquiry about different topics.

Field Trips and Experiements

I talked briefly about the experiments available but the are a lot more than we were able to complete during the review period. The experiements provided for both Fluid Dynamics and Sounds all sound so wonderful and engaging. Each experiment is its own PDF which you can use digitally or print off. There is also a quiz to encourage the student to talk about the experiments they did.

Another section of CrossWired Science that we want to explore further is the field trip suggestions. They have over 40 suggestions in their field trip section. Camping, digging for dinosaur bones and a planetarium trip were just some of the ones that caught our attention.

I am so happy that I had the opportunity to review this website.

I cannot wait until the creators have added more global topics for us to explore. If you have children who love science, I would highly recommend checking out this website.

Want to see what other members of the Homeschool Review Crew had to say about CrossWired Science? Check them out here: