I was helping Hannah pack boxes in her living room when I came across a plastic box containing what looked like someone’s forgotten snack. "Ew, what’s this?"
She came over and peeked in the box. "Oh, it’s the mummification project!" I looked at her quizzically and she took it from me and showed me how one piece of apple, which had not been mummified, had shriveled and dried up and turned brown, while the other, mummified apple slice, although dried, was not nearly as shriveled and retained a youthful, pinkish glow, at least as much as a slice of mummified apple can. She explained the steps of the process, which included burying the apple in salt among other things.
"Sounds like a good experiment," I said as we went on with our work.
"It was a good experiment," she agreed, heading back to the kitchen with the packing tape.
"Although," I called out to her in the kitchen, "that’s not really the right word."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," she said, sounding as if she’d heard it before.
Doubtless she has. We both know better — I’m an engineer by training, and we’re both married to one, I mean we’re each married to one, that is. But it’s hard to break bad habits, even if you detest them.
Most (ahem) "science experiments" aimed at children — such as the ones here ("28 page booklet includes 12 experiments!"), here (The Everything Kids’ Science Experiment Book), here ("Potato Clock — Kids Science Experiment"), here ("180 Experiment Kids Science Fair Kit") — are NOT experiments. Neither are most "science lab" activities performed in schools, whether grade schools or high schools.
Wikipedia has a good definition of "experiment:"
In the scientific method, an experiment (Latin: ex-+-periri, "of (or from) trying"), is a set of actions and observations, performed in the context of solving a particular problem or question, to support or falsify a hypothesis or research concerning phenomena. The experiment is a cornerstone in the empirical approach to acquiring deeper knowledge about the physical world.
But most of the "experiments" that parents buy in kits or that teachers set up for classrooms of children are carefully contrived, not to acquire deeper knowledge about the physical world, but to demonstrate some principle or law that is already well known. Thus, the correct word for these is not experiments, but demonstrations.
There is nothing wrong with this, of course. A demonstration is an excellent way to teach those principles, along with laboratory skills such as proper technique and appropriate safety precautions. Some of the best demonstrations are re-enactments of important experiments from the past, and so they are good history lessons as well as lessons about the natural world. And many demos are lots of fun to set up and discharge. (Of course, many others are tedious and repetitive, which — if you ask me — is also a useful introduction to the realities of a career in scientific research.) I’d rather call it what it is, though, and teach accurate concepts of what is and isn’t "science."
Mind you, it’s perfectly possible to perform true experiments in the home or school setting. Here’s the key: If whoever planned the activity knows in advance what the outcome is "supposed to be," it’s a demonstration; if not, it may be an experiment. If my kids and I decide to plant seeds in different parts of my yard to find out which will grow fastest, that is an experiment. If, however, I encourage them to lean out the window with a stopwatch, dropping marbles and bowling balls and feathers onto the sidewalk, hoping that they will discover the wonders of gravity, that’s a demonstration.
I know a few people who even refuse to apply the term "science" to children’s study of the natural world. I usually don’t go that far, but I don’t blame them. People can get some weird ideas with that slip of usage: Somehow my kids have picked up the word "scientist" as a verb, as in "Give me that sharp stick, I’m going to scientist that dead bird."
Science is, appropriately, reserved for original work that adds to the body of human knowledge. A child who’s "doing science" is, generally, one who’s doing real experimentation.
("Studying science" is a little more broad; that would include learning about the history of science, reading the biographies or writings of scientists, and practicing laboratory techniques, among other things.)
So what words can we use instead? Well, all of the -ologies and associated words are available, and (bonus!) are much more precise: biology, zoology, chemistry, anatomy, physics, geology, paleontology, and the like all appropriately mean "the study of" or "the practice of the arts of" a particular sector of human knowledge. If you’re looking for a generic term to replace "science," as in "What are you doing for science for your third-grader this year?" you could try "natural phenomena" or "nature study" (for some reason we typically use this to encompass only botany and zoology, maybe rocks, but it’s properly applicable to any of the so-called "natural sciences.")
Bringing back the term natural philosophy might not be a bad idea either.
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