Science Autobiography

 Science is all around us. It can be simple and seen in everyday life by exploring our environment around us. Or in my case exploring food boxes that were at my level.  I guess I've always learned best when I can use my hands?

Many young children love animals. Zoos and animal sanctuaries provide a great learning experience for students to see a wide variety of animals and the environments they live in.

Growing up I remember always being in the kitchen with my mom or grandmothers. I'm not a very good cook or baker, but that doesn't stop me from trying. Many students would be able to draw on times that they helped a family member or friend bake cookies or another family favorite recipe. Cooking is one giant science experiment. Too little of something and your recipe might not turn out. Cook it too long and it will burn. It's a science to find the right balance needed to make the perfect batch of cookies.

When I think back on the science lessons I did when I was little a few stick out in my memory. The earliest lesson I remember is in second grade. We were talking about different types of rock forms. I  vividly remember my teacher putting peanut butter in the microwave and letting it melt on wax paper. Being the second grader I was, all I could focus on was eating the peanut butter. Needless to say I didn’t really understand the full purpose of the experiment. Also in elementary school we had a local science museum come in and set up stations for us in the cafeteria once a year. One year the theme was space and I remember getting to make food that astronauts would eat. To me they looked very similar to the instant potatoes that my mom made for dinner every once and a while. As I got older I remember doing more formal experiments like the opening and closing an electric circuit, water drops on a penny  and dissecting an owl pellet in elementary school. When we first discussed science in our first class meeting together, this experiment in particular came to my mind from third grade. We had to write a hypothesis as a group and then carry out the experiment. I was a slightly competitive third grader so I of course wanted my group to get the most drops. Today I couldn’t tell you how many we got, that wasn’t the important part. I’m sure my teacher wanted us to work on learning the scientific process and collaborate as a team, not focus on how many droplets of water we could pile onto the tiny penny surface. I found a great resource to use if I get the chance to do a similar experiment with my students. You can find it for free on Teachers Pay Teachers. Once middle school rolled around we transitioned from owl ‘throw up’ to more complex objects like a worm (which was probably my favorite) fish, frog and crayfish. Aside from cutting preserved animals and such open, I remember very few experiments. We did lots of reading from a textbook, but I never felt that it applied to my life and my interests.

High school brought different challenges for me. Freshman year biology was tough for me. I don’t think its right to blame the teacher for my grade because someday I don’t want students to blame me to their grades, but biology was just not my thing. I did my best to study in advance the best I could, but every time a test or quiz rolled around I would mix everything up and completely bomb the assignment. Even though I only needed two years of science, I decided that it would be best to take all the classes I could get my hands on before I started paying by the credit hour. Other science course I took were chemistry, physics and anatomy.  Chemistry and physics were heavily math based. If there was an equation and all I needed to do was plug in the number and solve, I was pretty good at those. I followed the same path with my math courses, taking what I could while they were still easy. My dad is a mechanical engineer and encouraged me to take as many classes as I could in high school. Luckily he was a great help if I needed help balancing equations or converting units. Both of my parents always made sure I had everything I needed to be the best student I could be. Sadly they couldn’t come in and take the tests for me, but they never did a project for me if I got too tired or I was gonna end up with a bad grade. 

Something that always interested me was the way things worked and finding a creative solution for solving a problem or task. While I can’t connect this with one standard in particular, I do feel that my curiosity of the way things work will be reflected in the future lessons I will teach. I love presenting questions to students and seeing what ways they would answer it or what sorts of solutions they would brain storm.  Depending on the topic I would like to integrate science into other subjects. I see in my placement now that there is just too much to do and too little time to do it. Why not double up two subjects and save some time for other areas? For example, we are talking about flowers, stems, leaves, etc. The students are creating a poster to show their understanding of each word. Before they are sent to their desks to draw, I would find a book that would give them a general idea or ideas of what they might want to draw. Not everything they learn about science needs to be out of their science textbook. I want to make it relatable to them. As teachers we know that when students can relate to a topic they are more inclined to be interested in learning more. I plan to use a variety of grouping strategies to get students thinking differently and working with their peers. Depending on the curriculum at the school I am teaching in, science might vary slightly from what I am used to. Another aspect that really applies to all subject, but can impact a way student comprehends a lesson and that is their learning style. 

Science looks different for each person, I don’t feel like there is one definition that every could agree with. It is simply too broad a term. Science could refer to why something floats or sinks and can also refer to the different environments. Will I be able to cover every science topic in one school year? No. Can I show my students who important science is to our everyday lives? Absolutely. My second graders now love to look at the weather on the iPad. Growing up we weren’t able to view the radar and temperature in real time. The shows that our world is constantly changing and I look forward to bringing this to my future students. 

Revision: I was very lucky because growing up I wasn't being told I could not do Science or take certain classes in the Science field because I was a girl. My brother was always much better at those types of classes, but that is purely because we have different strengths. I love teaching and he is into Engineering. Like I mentioned before my dad is an engineer as well. He has worked very hard to provide a good foundation and sense of support for my brother and I. He always encouraged us to find our own solution to something. One example was I had to invent a product and write about it for my Language Arts class in 6th grade. The problem I wanted to fix was getting a coat on my dog, Max. I was a big dog lover and still am. It was a passion of mine that I used to fuel my creativity for the assignment. I was tired of seeing the coats that went over the dog's head. Max was a biter and putting anything on or over his head was rather challenging. My idea was to create a coat that the dog would step on and then pull up and fasten on their backs. I called it the 'Slippy Dog Poncho'. Then I needed to figure out what kind of material would be best for the final prototype. After many trial and errors with a variety of materials I finally decided that a vinyl tablecloth would be my best option. It was easy to cut holes for the legs and fairly cheap. I even put a tiny bit of Velcro on it to hold the poncho closed. I'm sure the rest of the class thought my invention was crazy, but the important part here was that I did all the work and brainstorming myself. My parents both were extremely helpful in making sure I had all the supplies I needed to be able to complete the project in the best way possible. Not all of my classmates had the same support financially. 

I don't feel like I was 'better' at Science because I was White and from a middle class family. I feel I was better because I worked hard to get the results I wanted. I put a level of pressure on myself. I could see that some students feel like no one believes in them because their parents didn't go to college or don't have the resources to spend on supplies for a school project. Those differences only got more noticeable as the classes got more difficult. Not that I think about it most of the students in my Science classes after the two required classes were middle class and usually White or Asian descent. Sadly I teachers in general peg students who are Asian as being smart automatically. I have said many times that I don't think that's fair to either sides: the students who are assumed to be smarter and those students who are working their hardest and will never get noticed for their efforts. I feel that the way I grew up is probably going to be very different from the students that I have in my classroom. That's not to be critical, it's just being practical about situations I will encounter.