Monday, October 19, 2009

Home Science

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. ~Maya Angelou

In the recent past, I've become very familiar with a term called Home Science. My friend and counterpart Timothy introduced me to this term and idea. So what is home science you may ask yourself. Well what does it sound like? Let's break it down:
Science
The word science comes from the Latin "scientia," meaning knowledge.

How do we define science? According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."

Home
For simplicity's sake, lets say Home refers to the place where you live at a given time. For me, let's say this refers to the house I reside in.

So home science refers to a science of the things relating to the home. But that doesn't just mean home science is specifically and only for things in a home. home science can apply to the workplace also. In fact, while we were networking the school, we had to implement some home science techniques to get the set up just right.

Home science is the concept of doing things yourself in your own home (within reason). Say for instance, a power strip is not working and you notice there are some wires no longer attached to the end that connects to the wall socket. So you take a screwdriver and open it up to see what's going on. You fix the problem - home science.

Another example, let's say you want to hang up a mosquito net over your bed but you don't have nails yet to tie the rope to. What do you do? If you are at my house you'd tie the rope to the bars on the windows on two sides and tie the third to the door of a closet. Home science at work.

Sure home science is called something different in the U.S. and heck many people do their own home science projects frequently. But the best thing about home science is that you feel good for having accomplished something when you are done - after all the home science techniques you apply only make the dwelling you reside in feel more and more like your real home.

1 comment:

  1. I do tons of 'home science', I love watching the HGTV :-P

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