Through this course you are going to look into the cribs of newborn babies and wonder what they are thinking and who they will become. How do they make sense of the buzzing confusion around them and, in just two years, learn hundreds of words? We can watch pre-school children playing and wonder if they are just little adults or if there is something fundamentally different between childhood and adulthood. We can see high school students mastering calculus while others struggle with arithmetic. What accounts for the individual differences that develop between us? Do we become our adult selves because of something driving us from within or are we shaped by outside forces like parents, schools, and society? In this class, we will learn what science can tell us about development and how scientists figure these things out. Your efforts in this class will help you understand children in new ways and prepare you to study development scientifically.