words and music by Andrew Barkan, Polly Hall, and CJ Pizarro
© 2023 by Andrew & Polly
Andrew & Polly (Andrew Barkan and Polly Hall) are award-winning children’s music artists, podcasters, and composers for TV and film. This issue’s featured song comes from the duo’s 2023 Grammy-nominated album Ahhhhh! and is best introduced in their own words:
“The Scientific Method” is a fun, beat-driven bop to inspire a new generation of scientists! We love science, and fill our home with maker kits, books on evolution and physics, nature documentaries, and plants. There are some amazingly catchy music out there teaching kids facts about animals, dinosaurs, space, and more, but we wanted to find a way to inform and inspire kids about the process of discovery itself. Isn’t it incredible that throughout history, people have built knowledge by making guesses and testing them out?
To do what Hamilton did to freshen up the history of the American Revolution, we just had to work with the Lin-Manuel Miranda of family music, Mista Cookie Jar (CJ Pizarro). We cowrote and coproduced the song with CJ, diving deep into the elements of peer review, bias, and a diverse range of legendary scientists we wanted to amplify. Our longtime collaboration did not disappoint!
“The Scientific Method” has been included on multiple science class playlists and even made its way onto satellite radio. Through our interactive kids podcast Ear Snacks, we’re constantly reminded that our audience around the world craves exciting, challenging new ways to think about the world and that no subject is too arcane or complex if it’s framed in an engaging way. Our hypothesis keeps proving true: kids are fun and smart, so their media can be, too!
Every day of my life
There are so many things that I don’t know
Like why is that grass so super green?
How does light get into a lightbulb?
Why is the sky blue? Why does the rain fall?
How’d all the water get up there is all?
We got questions, does someone got some data?
’Cause really what’s the dilly with anti-matter?
When there’s a really good question, I can’t shake it
It’s stayin’ in my brain, and I wanna make sense of it
Every scientist in history has followed
These specific steps to discovery . . . That’s the Method.
Make a guess, kid!
Put it to the test, kid!
See what you get, kid—
That’s the Method!! (The scientific method)
When you notice something and you’re feeling curious
There’s a series of steps to help you get serious
Observe, ask questions, figure out what you know
Research. Do the work. Now you’re ready to roll!
You make a guess, an educated guess you can test.
Yes, yes! What’s that called?
That’s a hypothesis!
Let’s try it out—see how it goes.
Whether it’s right or wrong
You’re gonna learn something, bros!
How can you tell if your guess is correct and verifiable?
Do an experiment to see if it’s undeniable!
Is it describable? Quantifiable?
How do you open this? Use a pair of pliers, fool!
Run it again, do the results hold up?
If you can’t repeat the process,
Then something is up!
No shenanigans, we gotta go again.
Work it ‘til it’s perfect—that’s The Method!
Make a guess, kid!
Put it to the test, kid!
See what you get, kid—
That’s the Method!! (The scientific method)
We got the M-E-T-H-O-D, peer-reviewed by science homies.
All the world’s knowledge is at your toesies.
Let our minds progress, we are all scientists!
Einstein, Curie—Check your bias.
Goodall, Lovelace—Cause it’s stuck inside us.
Raman, Boykin—We need fresh perspectives.
Let the mind profess, let our minds progress!
Carver and Copernicus—Made notes and sketches.
Hawking and McClintock—and then made some guesses.
Everyone of you should be making messes
Let the mind profess, we are all scientists!
M-E-T-H-O-D—Put it to the test, kid!
The scientific method.
M-E-T-H-O-D—Put it to the test, kid!
In summary, what we have learned is this . . .
ONE! Ask a question
TWO! Look it up
THREE! Hypothesis
FOUR! Test it up
FIVE! Observation
SIX! Analysis
SEVEN! Share your work and that’s . . . it!
Trial and error, science includes failure
That’s the Method.
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