Growing up, our families always ask us what our favorite subject in school is. I always said science, and when I got to high school it was naturally more specific – zoology or biology. But I was always met with a response akin to “Ew, why? I hate science, I could never remember everything.”
At the time, this didn’t bother me much, my memory was good – it’s how I skated through grade school. But as I’ve gone through college taking primarily science courses in geology, biology, and chemistry, and even gotten a Bachelor’s degree in a scientific field, I’ve come to realize that our interaction with and conception of science is almost never genuinely scientific.
The notion of science as a body of facts meant to be memorized is something most people and, unfortunately, students share. It’s necessary to emphasize the importance of “I don’t know” in science as somebody teaching it.
“In science, knowing a lot of stuff isn’t the point”
-Stuart Firestein
Students need to be made comfortable with not knowing. To change this fundamental misunderstanding of science, the way it is taught has to become exemplary.
What is exemplary science teaching? That’s honestly a hard question to answer.
My example when thinking of this question is always my high school Physics and AP Biology teacher, who’ll be known as Ms. M. Ms. M was one of the first teachers whose classes I genuinely looked forward to.
All of my favorite science activities were done in her classes, and they all had these things in common:
- Engaging, and hands-on
- Worked toward solving a problem
- Encouraged questions
- Self-guided
- Encouraged dialogue and discussion
- And most importantly, were fun
These sorts of lessons are easy, and actually put a smaller load of work onto the teacher. Some examples of great activities that I did, that I think were exemplary are:
- Doing a human re-enactment of the citric acid cycle;
- Building bridges (literally) to learn about distribution of force and strain;
- Slingshotting water balloons at the principal to learn about projectile motion;
- Creating a board game to simulate the life cycle of viral diseases;
- Interacting with live animal specimens to learn about animal anatomy.
Encouraging students in a science classroom to actually do what scientists do is what makes an exemplary science teacher, it’s all about asking questions and performing experiments.
Science is a process, not only a body of knowledge. By encouraging inquiry, discussion, critical thinking and problem solving, science becomes every student’s favorite subject.
If pundits tells you something is true, and you don’t have the critical thinking skills to evaluate their statements, then you are putty in their hands, as they shape your world view to their will.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 17, 2018
When your students are grown and have children of their own, because of you, they won’t say “Ew, why? I hate science.”
https://twitter.com/cwistipher/status/1040026176159449088
This ties in very well with the email activity we did in class, so I love your train of thought. No, there are not always definite answers in science, and I think it is a problem that so much of science classes, and school in general, are all about hearing and reading information that is “correct” and being able to memorize it.
Stuart Firestein’s example of finding the cat in a dark room makes a lot of sense when trying to understand how science actually works. I like your examples of how science can be more interactive, and plan on keeping my eyes and ears open for more to use as a teacher.
I really liked how you started by talking about how in grade school you memorized things and just skated by with that until science became more of a process of investigation. I think this is probably a common theme among a lot of people interested in science. What exactly do you mean by “our interaction with and conception of science is almost never genuinely scientific”? Do you mean that science is more prevalent in our everyday lives than we realize and is less strictly factual memorization? I also loved the examples you gave of what made your teacher exemplary. It’s cool to see that she had a wide variety of ways to teach things between using people, playing games, etc. Do you think you would replicate those same lessons in your classroom?
Hey Margaux!
Regarding that quote, I could have worded it better, but I meant how we perceive science going through school and the opinions we have of it aren’t truly our opinions of science, but more our opinions of science classes. Kids think they don’t like science because they aren’t good at school science, when that isn’t really what science is (and it breaks my heart).
To answer your last question simply, yes. At least for biology and earth science I’ve got some ideas and Google Earth is a great inquiry/interactive tool to use for students and I’d love to utilize that if possible. It’s something I actually think about often!
I love that quote by Stuart Firestein, “In science, knowing a lot of stuff isn’t the point”. It really serves to point out that the answer to a question isn’t always the goal. The process of experimentation and problem solving is often more valuable than actually coming to the “right answer”. Putting students in charge of figuring out their own way to their own answers is going to be much more impactful to their learning. By giving them ownership of the experimentation and learning process they are much more likely to really absorb the information. What are some ways you plan to teach students the idea that knowing isn’t everything?
Hey Peter,
This is a question I’ve been thinking about, and something I like to do in the EDT 181 labs is when students ask a question about something, I just won’t give them the answer a lot of the time. This could be 1) because I don’t know, or 2) like I’ve said, it’s not important. I’ll always encourage them to think about it by asking them what they think the reasoning might be behind “x” happening, and guiding them through that process of forming an explanation. It’s frustrating at first, we’re so used to knowing the answer and everything, but eventually they’ll come around. In a high school setting, I’ll try to do the same thing – I really want to! But I think it’ll be a bit different with them having to know the answers to some questions as their future depends on it!