Never a dull moment

Four weeks in and once again something new and exciting/terrifying was tossed our way in our scientific methods course. 

Mother nature was in full force Tuesday pushing schools all over Orange County to close down for the day including Bishop Dunn Memorial school where our class was suppose to take place.  Not wanting to miss class time we were scheduled to meet in an online chat group.  I'm not the most tech savvy person as everyone knows, so this frightened me a bit.  However I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this thing was to get in and work around.  

Once you got through the awkwardness of talking on a mic in front of everyone, or the silliness of the good doctor's grandson it was actually a very informative lesson, and I happen to learn quite a bit.  I think it was also good for each group to have the lesson plan format reinforced, clearly outlining what needs to be done and how exactly it should be taken care of.  It also didn't hurt that I saved myself 30 minute car ride and we got out of class by 6.  

Well, it's done....

Three weeks of class have already come and gone.  Crazy to think that 20% of the class is already done.  This week brought on a new challenge in the sense of teaching a group of students in a scientific after school program.

I, or I should say my group, was very nervous as none of us had ever done anything like this before and to add to that, we had to go first in our class.  Despite all of this though I feel like my group did an amazing job and most importantly the kids seemed to have an awesome time doing all the different stations we had planned out for them. I give those kids a bunch of credit because they hung with us during our direct lesson, which I think ended up running longer than we thought, after they have already gone through a whole day of school.

They however left with a bunch of stuff I'm sure will drive their parents nuts, and in the end you know you've made something good for a child when the parents wants to throw it away as much as possible.

By the way congrats to Albert Einstein on his gravitational waves theory that came to fruition this past Thursday.  The man predicted this would happen over 100 years ago.  Props.

Week 2 and the Journey Continues...

After finally calming my stress levels from the overwhelming first week, I trekked back to Mount Saint Mary for the second class.  My stress levels began to rise as we were to meet in a location I had never been before and I usually end up getting out of work late to barely make it to class on time as it is.  Thankfully all of my classmates are wonderful and helped me find the location easily.

We met a character this week, and I think I am using the word character properly here in Mrs. Foster-Faith, the cooperating teacher from Bishop Dunn Memorial School.  A very passionate woman, who clearly loves her job and is also willing to help out the fieldwork groups whenever they need it.  My group has seen this first hand this past week as we have been in constant contact with her and she is pretty good about getting back to you in the same day.  Also, while she wont hold your hand on the project she will lead you down the path that your group should probably go down.

Speaking of being lead down a correct path, I want to personally thank Dr. S for teaching me how to use google docs, google drive and pretty much google in general this past class.  It was the hands on tutorial I needed and I want to thank all my class mates for being patient with me this past week.  

My Scientific Journey

Someone once said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and while that my be true in some cases, I have two for this one; trash and can.

But before I throw this picture out, allow me to elaborate for a moment.  His name is doctor ybab-nam which is man-baby spelled backwards.  It's also how I've lived my life both in and out of the science laboratory, I'll let the ladies of the class judge if that is a good or bad thing.  

Sticking strictly to the science lab however, I've always had a child's like fascination with science.  All the experiments in school that involved fire or blowing things up were always the ones I did the best with which is why chemistry class was so confusing for me in high school, some weeks we'd be melting ice cream and looking at it under a microscope, other weeks we'd be learning about noble gases and off to sleep I went.  

What has me interested in this class is that we are solely dealing with elementary science and that is where my man-baby science powers are at their top form.  Science in elementary school was always fun and teachers made it interesting by incorporating fun experiments and fun tie ins with Bill Nye the science guy or the magic school bus, to name a couple examples.

I guess this is also the kind of science teacher I want to become.  All the cool science experiments I did at that age, I can remember everything about them, including the teachers names and faces.  I'd love to be that science teacher who leaves that kind of lasting impression on my students, cause in the end, isn't that what every teacher wants? 

Science, Art, and Bags of Dog Toys

Today was the first step in a lengthy 15 week course in which Dr. Smirnova, my new science, grad school, teacher....teacher, would try to convince me that I will become a good science teacher.  The jury is still out on that one as science was never quite my strong suit, hence why I ran the opposite direction in college to become an English major.

However after today's first lesson I do believe there is hope.  Aside from signing up for three of four websites that I'm still figuring out how to properly use without getting a virus, I learned that science really hasn't changed all that much from when I was in elementary school myself.  I honestly forgot how much fun I had in science at that age with all the experiments and actual interesting topics, such as dinosaurs and space.  I guess I still reflect back to the rough times of cutting open dead rats, learning periodic tables, and shining lights on rocks to notice if a 2 x 2 mm sections of moss will grow on a igneous rock when properly treated.

While we still have a long way to go, I believe there is hope for me yet in being able to teach science to the children.  Or perhaps there isn't, either way we'll find out in 15 weeks, which hopefully by then the good doctor lets the class know what exactly was in that mystery bag.