Karen E. McReynolds

Today I went to the National Science Teachers Association annual conference on the West Coast.  I went with a student of mine who aspires to be a middle school science teacher.  She was a big reason for my going – it’s always fun to introduce someone to something that you know they will love, and that was the case today with Maddie.  So many booths of science toys to play with! So many people who are just as happy being science geeks as Maddie and I are! It’s an atmosphere of fun and learning for teachers, encouraging and supporting them in their efforts to create atmospheres of fun and learning for their students, regardless of age.  No one but a biology instructor would get excited over winning the door prizes Carolina Biological was offering today, such as a live tarantula or a bucket of fetal pigs – but there was genuine enthusiasm there when such prizes were awarded.  Love it.

“Fun and learning” seems oversimplified in describing what I hope for the students in my classes, and yet this is indeed a legitimate component of my goal.  This illustrates the dilemma I face, working exclusively with students who are not science majors and maybe don’t even like science at all.  (Maddie is a happy exception.)  Convincing them that biology or earth science are worth their time and attention can be an uphill battle, so part of the point of my courses is to demonstrate the amazement and joy of discovering the natural world.  Along with that, however, they need to understand what science is and how it works.  They need to know mitosis and Mendel, weather and Wegener, and so much more.  I walk a fine line, balancing between cheerleader and drill sergeant. 

The most effective way to walk this line seems to be on field trips.  Field trips meet both my goals at the same time.  They offer the “wow” factor of experiencing God’s bountiful creation up close and in the real world, and they provide a vast outdoor laboratory where students can make for themselves the connections with what they are seeing and what we have discussed in class.   Walking among the completely chaotic rubble of a three thousand year old landslide after looking up and seeing the slumped depression in the hillside teaches them more than reviewing landslide types in lecture.  The same is true for types of plant growth.  Terms like apical meristem and cambium layer mean a lot more when a student is counting the rings on the stump they just sat on to eat their lunch, and admiring the bright soft yellowy green of this year’s brand new growth. 

My Ms. Frizzle nature – pun intended! – delights in field trips.  The NSTA conference is a field trip workshop, a laboratory containing pieces and components and schemes for those, like me, who assemble field trips.  I get to select the appropriate pieces and assemble the puzzle of the whole, and then I pray for safety and successful reading from the Book of Nature.  The Author of that book loves to see it read, and He writes His story well.  Because of Him, the whole of the field trip is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Related: Notes from Ms. Frizzle (1); Notes from Ms. Frizzle (2)