Words and music by John H. Doolittle
AI performance based on original cassette recordings by John H. and Tracy A. Doolittle.
1. EVERY SCIENCE STORY STARTS WITH CURIOSITY:
In this song you’ll meet Isaac Newton wondering why apples fall, Ignaz Semmelweis trying to save mothers in a midwives’ ward, Maria Mitchell scanning the night sky in 1847, and Alexander Graham Bell studying the human ear as he searched for a way to carry sound over long distances.
📦 FREE TO USE
All songs, videos, and lesson plans on this page are free for teachers, parents, and classrooms. Use them, sing them, discuss them, and adapt them however you like. Questions or comments? DrDquestions@outlook.com
2. MOTHER NATURE IS IN TROUBLE — AND NEEDS EVERYONE’S HELP:
In this song, the earth is thought of as a person, who, like the earth, has suffered from a lack of care and the effects of pollution and neglect.
3. WONDERS OF THE NIGHT SKY
Looking at the stars through her father’s rooftop telescope on October 1, 1847, Maria Mitchell saw something unexpected—an undiscovered comet. Because she was the first person in the world to report it, the comet came to be known as Miss Mitchell’s Comet. She was also the first American to discover a comet.
4. THE EARTH BELONGS TO EVERYONE:
Long before modern science, Native Americans understood how to live with the Earth and pass it on unchanged.
5. SAVE THE WHALE
Some animals may disappear forever unless we protect them.
6. CITY DUMP BLUES
The garbage we throw away does not really go away. This song asks what happens when the dump fills up—and what we can do about it.
7. THE WRIGHT BROTHERS AND JANE GOODALL
Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright crashed many gliders before they learned how to fly. Jane Goodall spent years quietly watching chimpanzees before making her important discoveries. Both remind us of an important lesson in science: when things are difficult, frustrating, or slow, don’t give up.
8. ASK YOUR MOTHER
Nature solved many problems long before humans did. Scientists and inventors are still learning by watching bats, ears, burrs, mosquitoes, sunflowers, and even schools of fish.
9. GET BACK TO WORK:
When thinking gets hard, it sometimes helps to step back, think about something good, and then return to the problem.
10. KIDS LIKE SCIENCE:
11. AESOP’S FABLED RACE REVISITED:
A classic tale of the benefits of not giving up on yourself, even if no one else believes in you. Yet.
12. SERENDIPITY
Sometimes discoveries happen by accident—but only if someone notices.
Featuring: Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Fleming, Charles Goodyear, Louis and Mary Leakey
13. THE REUSE SONG
What’s even better than recycling?
14. DON’T TAKE YOUR PLANET FOR GRANTED
15. THE WRAPPERS’ RAP
16. THE RANGERS SONG
17/ THINK
Necessity is the mother of invention.
18. TROPICAL FOREST
In the ENDANGERED SPECIES SHOW, the students rescue a near-death rare parrot from an unscrupulous Vendor and return it to South America. Turns out, one of the students knew a shortcut;)
19. ANIMALS WITH PETS
Written for a Bring Your Pets to School Day which was, pardon the expression, a zoo. Apparently, the tradition lives in Show and Tell-style electronic presentations of pets. This song asks the musical question: Which of you is the pet?
Teach Science the Way Scientists Actually Did It
Most science is taught as finished facts to memorize.
But real science begins much earlier—with curiosity, mistakes, persistence, surprise, and imagination.
These songs and lesson plans teach science through the moments of discovery: the human stories behind important ideas and inventions.
Inspired by the case-history approach of James Bryant Conant, these lessons focus not just on what scientists discovered, but on how they thought.
In today’s world, where AI can provide facts instantly, students need something more:
- curiosity
- judgment
- creativity
- cognitive flexibility
These lessons aim to build those skills.