Your Life as a Scientist

Hi all,

As you may know, I was required to start blogging for a class last semester and then decided to keep up with it, which has led to the "lifestyle" segue of this page. I have just had to start up another blog for my Science Methods course, which you can view at slayscience.blogspot.com. It's supposed to record responses to our weekly readings, but I found myself actually truly responding to the textbook questions that I thought I'd share the post here. You don't need to have read my textbook to read the entry, and I would be interested in knowing if the two reflection questions get you asking yourself about your life as a scientist.

Before you say, "Wait, I'm NOT a scientist! I don't have a lab coat or fancy potions!"

WRONG.

We all are scientists. If you've ever asked the question, "Why?" about the world around you, you're a scientist. Now I'll be quiet and here's the entry:

[Grad Program Blog] "Science Stories"

Text: Science Stories: Science Methods for Elementary and Middle School Teachers (4th Edition) by Janice Koch

Chapter One: An Invitation to Teaching Science

Question: When you were a child, did you wonder about how things in nature worked? Did you ever try to find out by exploring the world around you?

The book Active Experiences for Active Children makes the accurate observation that children of the current generation are more indoors than ever before. When I was a kid, that could not be said about me. My dad would get mad if my sister and I stayed in the house when it was a nice day outside; we had no option but to go and explore the great outdoors.

I wanted to know how everything worked, so much so that when I was seven, I was given an encyclopedia set and an awesome book called 1001 Questions and Answers which covered everything from popular culture to science to history to art. When I couldn't find an answer in books, I was out exploring. In childhood, I lived in military housing where pets were limited to fish, lizards, hamsters, and birds. For some reason, birds were the most commonly escaping pets and my friends and I would find them--dead--all over the various labyrinthine complexes. I was absolutely fascinated by animals and we opened up these dead birds to examine their insides. I clearly remember pointing out the heart in awe.

I plucked clover flowers and mashed them in water to see if I could make my own perfume; I traced constellations in the sky and my dad taught me how to look for satellites. We spent many nights counting them in the night sky. I was obsessed with rocks and whales in the fourth grade, so my parents took me to the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park, which remains one of my favorite museums to this day. I remember dragging my parents to and from various rock displays, excitedly relating information about the displays to what was in my rock collection.

My dad taught me a lot about marine life: how to tell when it was shellfish season and how to catch one (and then put it back), what a riptide was and how and why it could be dangerous, what a 'marine layer' was and why so many San Diego mornings were gloomy, and why there were gold flecks in the sand. I was always asking questions, wanting to know why. I imagine that is how most children feel. It is a large world that needs explaining!

When I was eleven, I went on what the military calls a 'Tiger Cruise': tigers (service personnel kids) join the last leg of a military cruise. On that adventure, I wanted to know why the ship rocked and creaked when it was so solidly made of metal. I wanted to know how a metal ship could stay afloat. I wanted to know why I felt like I was being smashed flat and then stretched very thin as the ship moved back and forth. My dad was then able to explain about buoyancy, volume, and compare his ship (a small destroyer) to larger cruisers (in which the rocking could not be felt, he declared). He took me on a tour of the ship and explained how everything worked and which people made those things work; he also took me to the stern of the ship and explained wind current and its effect on water. I remember this clearly because one day the water was choppy and white-capped, the next it was calm and tinted with lavender.

I've been exploring scientifically all of my life, now that I really think about it, though I'd always just thought about it in terms of being life's student: wanting to know more...and more!

Chapter Two: Locating Your Scientific Self

Question: Why do your personal feelings and attitudes about science matter when you are teaching?

It's unfortunate that this question has to be asked, because that is an indication that attitudes do matter and do impact teaching. If you have negative feelings towards a particular subject, you will find a way to shorten it, shortchange it, maybe even skip it altogether, putting it off for "another day"--a day that may never come.

If one is passionate about science, the teaching and learning experience will reflect that. My professor for my Science Methods course is passionate about it and it shows. I am passionate about teaching theatre and it shows. I have an absolutely joyous time teaching it and it seems as though my students enjoy the experience.

The day flies by when you really enjoy what you are teaching. Some days, I look at the clock and feel like the numbers are crowding against each other in their mad rush to get away. There's never enough time to teach what needs to be taught, so there isn't time for negative attitudes. The students have a need to learn and they don't deserve to be shortchanged just because you don't like science. Our nation has already seen cuts across the board for arts education because it's "dispensable" and now science is being whittled down to maybe once a week, if there's time...you've got to make time. Forget the education race to the top---we owe it to the kids, to ourselves, and to our nation to be as well-rounded and educated as we can be. An educated populace makes smart, wise choices. An educated populace can affect change in the world. If we keep chipping away at the well-rounded education, our children will lose appreciation and wonder for the world around them and lose their innocence along with it.