The first day of high school is usually full of ice breakers like the classic “two truths and a lie.” Here’s the “two truths and a lie” I often tell my classes:
- I am a physics teacher
- I hate science
- I love dogs
Unfortunately, it would be a lie to say that I love dogs. Dogs are nice, but I’m not the type of person who keeps pets. In this case, I’m really a physics teacher, At some pointI used to hate science. In fact, I’ve spent the better part of the last decade trying to get away from it. But I want to be clear that I don’t feel that way anymore.
It’s not that I hated science, but it just wasn’t interesting or meaningful to me, and I never saw myself in it. I never considered that this might be the root of my disinterest. I just automatically accepted that science was figured out centuries ago by old white guys who didn’t look or think like me.
Regardless of my own feelings, my parents pushed me into engineering during college, promising it would lead to a stable income and a competitive salary. Needless to say, I struggled to keep up with the classes and began to dislike engineering. Not only was I unprepared for the level of math and study skills required, but as a compassionate 17-year-old, I wanted to do something to help my community.
Soon after, I volunteered outside of class to teach English as a second language and fell in love with education. After graduating, I pivoted away from science to try to gain real-world career experience in consulting, but ultimately decided to teach full-time. Due to my engineering background, I was selected for a teaching certification program in Physics over my first choice of English.
Ironically, it was through my experience as a teacher that I finally understood how science powers our daily lives. If I had learned what motors and generators were in high school and realized that they are nothing more than wires around magnets, I might have gone into engineering and spent more time loving science instead of hating it. Needless to say, my struggle to love science gives me unique insight into similar problems I observe with students in my classroom.
Many of my students have a deep curiosity, rich creativity, and awareness of the world that they lacked when they were in school. These traits make them ideal candidates to succeed in science, but the curriculum requires a level of math and reading that makes science itself difficult to understand. So I wondered: What is so fun about science? Why should my students be interested in science? And what will it take for them to become interested in science enough to think they will become scientists someday?
The magical world of science
I should point out that I am not alone in asking these questions. Many educators, such as those at Stanford University, Professor Bryan Brownhas long advocated for a shift in the national approach to science education and has worked to develop curriculum content to further that goal.
Meanwhile, science teachers like me are tasked with revising and presenting our own standards as schools iterate on textbooks and curricula. For example, in our district, Next Generation Science StandardsThe curriculum followed is:
Students who demonstrate understanding will be able to evaluate the validity and reliability of claims made in publications about the effects that different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation have when absorbed by matter.
During my first year as a teacher, I realized that these standards relied on algebra and reading comprehension skills that were still beyond the capabilities of most of the students in my class. Seeing my students’ confusion and frustration, I began to reflect on my college years, when I lacked the math skills and background vocabulary to understand the material. So I learned to adapt my expectations of what it actually meant to teach science in high school.
One day during class, I asked my students a question about a topic we’re all familiar with: cell phones. Specifically, I asked them, “Do cell phones cause cancer?”
In the first survey, opinions varied from class to class. Most classes, but not all, Claims that cell phones can cause cancer. About half believed it, and the other half weren’t so sure, so they set up a research unit to understand how mobile phones communicate using microwave and radio frequencies.
We learned about ionizing and non-ionizing radiation and practiced assessing the reliability of internet sources, which culminated in a written Claims, evidence, reasoning The students wrote letters to their families explaining their conclusions. Although I loved the lively discussions and fun, wonderful letters that came out of this unit, I was nervous about teaching the next unit, Electricity and Magnetism.
When I studied physics, electricity was my weak spot. I couldn’t understand phenomena that occurred on a scale so small that the eye cannot see, or at such high speeds. After much research, I had atomic models, vocabulary worksheets, and circuit diagrams, but I had no way to engage my students. Rummaging through an old, cluttered science closet, I unearthed a dusty box labeled “Fun Fly Sticks.” Small Van de Graaff generator.
I started with a demonstration, then let the kids take turns using the wand, which seemed to magically transform a flat sheet of mylar into a floating, glittering, 3D patterned sphere. The kids were thrilled to send it flying into the air and watch it return to a flat sheet when they touched it.
After the demo, we worked together through a week of brainstorming, models, experiments, and notes to determine that the magic behind this trick was simply electrons. Electrons are too small to see individually, but we can still observe the effect and understand that their movement through wires and magnets powers much of our daily lives. I focused on making this clear to my students as we built speakers, turned nails into electromagnets, and powered lightbulbs with hand-cranked electromagnetic generators.
We incorporated some math and vocabulary, but I was more interested in the kids’ ability to explain big ideas. At the end of the unit, we looked at the local power grid and broke down the utility bills for a typical apartment in our area. The kids were eccentric, but ecstatic.
During this demonstration, I began to really love science. I realized that a science teacher might be, in some ways, the opposite of a magician. Through this experience, I tried to convince my students that science not only explains the natural world around us, but also continues to influence how we live, work, communicate, play, and exist.
Exit ticket
After my own experiences in high school and college that left me feeling unenthusiastic and uninspired by the prospect of a career in STEM fields for nearly a decade, I have come to believe that it is crucial for students to learn the practical meaning of science and see themselves as future scientists.
Now, I openly tell my students how I used to hate science and why I love it now. They know that I place more emphasis on learning how to think and work like a scientist than on memorizing formulas. Instead, I ask questions about topics that will undoubtedly be important for them to understand and have knowledge of long after they leave my classroom, such as climate change, microplastics, PFA, artificial intelligence, the future of the planet, and space exploration.
For me, my goal for high school science is for students to leave my class with the curiosity to ask questions about the world around them, the perseverance and resourcefulness to find answers, and the confidence that they can help shape the world they will inherit. If teachers and parents can point out the importance of science in the world around them, I am hopeful that we can make progress toward creating more inclusive and representative decision-makers and researchers.
