Scientific Me!

Scientific Me!

What has science been to me? Well, it has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. The earliest memory I have in science was way back in first grade when we were raising ducks. We had about four or five eggs that we watched every day and took notes on any changes we noticed. After a couple weeks, only one of our eggs hatched. It was sad to not see the other eggs hatch, but back then I remember just being excited to watch our little duckling grow. We did a similar project in second grade when we raised caterpillars into butterflies. I named my butterfly fuzzball because, at the top of its chrysalis, there was a tiny little puff of fuzz. I remember the day we let our butterflies go, one of the kids in my class held his magnifying glass over the butterfly and it burned the color off of its wing. That was a little traumatic for me. I remember most of my elementary science projects were a lot of fun. One of my favorites was my fourth-grade electricity project. We pretty much had free range to make whatever we wanted, as long as it involved wires, a battery, and a switch. My dad is an electrician, so I got him to help me build a merry-go-round. When we had it fully built and turned it on, it spun way too fast and almost broke. At that point, we had to come up with a solution on how to make it spin slower. My dad said that the hat boxes we used to must have been to light and we should try to weigh it down. I can honestly say that I do not remember how we eventually came to our solution, but it worked. What did we do? We actually got somewhere between fifty and one hundred pennies and glued them around the bottom of the carousel. I was very excited and proud when we finish that project and I think that feeling should be the goal of every project a teacher assigns.

As I went on into middle school, science was still an exciting topic for me. Sixth and seventh-grade were focused on biology, my favorite science subject. This was the first time that we got to do labs and work at benches instead of desks. I liked science so much back then, that I actually joined the science club where we got to do fun experiments like making oobleck and testing which sodas worked better with Mentos. When I entered eighth-grade, science became less enjoyable for me. I had a teacher who had very little patience and if we did not understand something, he told us to look it up on our own. Even though I still did very well in that class, I think that was my least favorite science class in my entire academic career.

That all changed for me again when I entered high school. Earth science was very enjoyable for me. I had great lab partners and the topic seemed to come easily to me because it was fun to learn. Biology was the same way. I was very intrigued by the different functions of the body. Then again, a high came crashing down when I took physics. This was the first science that was actually hard for me. I did not understand many of the topics right away and had to get help from my teacher. The difference between that class and my eighth-grade class was the fact that, my physics teacher was happy to help and inviting. She made that class, despite being hard, a pleasure to go to. My last high school science class was chemistry. I really enjoyed that class again because of the teacher. My chem teacher was one of those people that you would see on Jeopardy. He knew just about everything or at least faked it well. We did a lab every other class period and I had a blast.

Entering college, I was actually a Biology/Adolescent Ed major. I knew off the bat that I would change from adolescent to childhood because my heart has always been with the younger students. The science part was a toss up at the beginning as to whether I would stay or change. The classes were difficult, but I really enjoyed my professors. However, I was constantly overwhelmed and generally unhappy. Then I realized, if I am going to be doing something for the rest of my life, it should be what I love, not something I taught was the better option. I have been a History major since then and I have no regrets on the path I have taken.

So, now that you know my journey through science, I want to let you in on my definition of science. I would define science as a way of discovering new things, improving what we already have, and creating ways to make life better. That being said, I believe we need to break away from the typical stereotype of a scientist who is an old, white, male, mad scientist. Everyone can be a scientist. Everyone is a scientist. When people question how something works, how they could make something better, or if they could invent something to improve a situation, they are thinking like scientists. If they then try to answer those questions through experimenting, studying, or exploring, then they are really being scientists. As a science teacher, I hope to instill these ideas in my students. I also hope to become one of those science teachers that helped me enjoy science, even when the topic was hard.