A special guest post from OFL science teacher Charlene Morales.
The greatest thing that science teaches our students is that they never have to grow up. They never have to stop asking why; they never lose their sense of wonder and curiosity. Curiosity is what drives us to ask questions, and science enables us to find those answers through the messy process of trial and error. It is my job to help my students’ curiosity grow. And to do that, I need to show them that the content they are learning is relevant to their lives through good storytelling and experimentation.
Good storytelling creates an emotional connection between the narrator (that’s me) and the audience (my students). I want to show my students that what they are learning matters. To really understand the material instead of just memorizing facts. Why? Because in someone’s class is the next engineer, biochemist, doctor, and astronomer. If our students are struggling in trying to understand the material, then they are going to learn to hate it, which would mean that we would be losing a portion of our nation’s science talent before they even make it to college. So we need to make science a fun, learning experience for them.
I am very fortunate and privileged to work with talented and unique young adults every day. They come into class with an infectious sense of wonder and curiosity, and science encourages them to draw freely on their imagination so that they can create new ideas on how to solve a particular problem. By combining their thoughts, sensations, and knowledge from other fields of study, not only are they able to create new ideas but their confidence also grows. This is what makes science so special.
