I took a geography class a few years ago. It counted as one of my required ‘life science’ courses for my degree. I admit, I was a bit afraid of ‘science’ in general. I had never been good at science class in the past. I picked geography because I thought it would be easy and also because I thought it might help me with my directional challenges. Tell me again….what direction does my house face? I won’t remember. I grew up in this area, kind of, and I knew my directions back then. All I had to do was look towards the mountains and remember that they were east….or was it west…..bother.

Regardless of what I thought the class was going to be about, it ended up being about clouds and rain and why one side of a mountain is colder than the other. It was really interesting and I still remember how young my professor looked and the fact that she always wore six inch heels to class. I also remember her telling us that “geography majors” had one of the highest average incomes. Of course, that’s because Micheal Jordan has a degree in Geography. It has nothing to do with “using” that degree….

As I teach school, I realize science really is cool. In fact, it is one of my favorite subjects. I think the problem I always had before was boring teachers. If I could remember any names of science teachers….I would apologize now, but I don’t remember you because you sucked. Harsh? Maybe, but science should have been super cool and fun and engaging! Easier said than done you say? True.

My class has been learning about living things and life cycles and ….. yep, reproduction. Did you know there are male and female pine cones? Apparently, that is gross. Kids are funny. They will spend every free moment of the day talking about poop and snot and drawing pictures of bloody zombies, but when they are told there are boy and girl plant parts they get all weirded out. Did we teach them this? Maybe it’s just because they can’t figure where all the ‘parts’ are on a plant? Maybe it’s because they’ve been innocently playing with trees and plants for years and are suddenly wondering if they accidentally touched something in a wrong way? Or maybe, it’s because nobody really wants to think about what goes on in the forest when nobody is around to watch. hmmm

Whatever the reason, as long as I let the kids do something fun like color a picture or play a game….science rocks! They may not remember everything we go over but, they will not have a bad taste in their mouth about science. They will all dance into their higher level science classes with eyes shining and minds open to the awesomeness of science. Then, they will learn all the good stuff. Then they’ll be scarred…..Cause I said so.

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