Throughout school, science has always been my least favorite subject. This isn’t because I didn’t find it interesting or enjoy learning about it, but because I was mostly afraid of it. The other subjects in school came more naturally to me. I think this is because I found that the other subjects were based on previous things we have learned and that I had mastered, and then building off that. But when it came to topics in science such as chemistry or physics I found myself more of memorizing information or equations rather than really understanding them. Now that I look back at it, I always made science seem harder than the information really was. This kind of thinking put a blockade around mastering the information in my mind and from allowing me to enough science.
The only part I recall liking about science in my
earlier years was the interactive elements and activities we did in science.
This is how all the information I was being taught that I wasn’t fully
understanding would could to life, and how I would finally grasp the material.
I always really enjoyed the lab part of my science classes and the experiments
that went along with them. I am a Kinesthetic Learning when it comes to
science, which is learning that takes place by carrying out physical
activities, rather than listening to a lecture. I always enjoyed doing projects
in science and it would only be after the lab or projects that the information
all made sense to me. For example I remember learning about the cell and all of
its parts in the 3rd grade.
When originally presented with the material, I remember memorizing all of the
structures within the cell and their functions. But when I would make a diagram
of a cell with all of its structures, that’s when it really would connect for
me. This is when I found myself no longer being as frustrated with science
because I knew now if I made models or diagrams of what I was learning that is
how I would finally fully understand the material.
In high school I really started understanding and enjoying
science. I think because in high school science started being taught in a
different way to me. My
sophomore biology teacher had a really great way of explaining things and she
wouldn’t just write information on the board. She would have us get up and act
out or represent different ideas. I felt like when I had to act out something I
had to pay more attention so I could know what I had to do next. These
activities and way of teaching really helped me. It both brought down that
barrier I had put for myself about thinking I’ll never be good at science and really
engaged me and made me want to learn more. This is when I really started to
fall in love with science. To me science is understanding and interacting with
your environment. This includes everything your environment is made of and how
this came to be. I think
science needs to come to life and isn’t something that should just be read out
of a textbook.
When I teach Science I am going to have a lot of activities
and projects because I feel the best way to learn science is the hands on
approach. I will also present information many different ways because there are
many different way being learn, not everyone learns by just writing information
on the board.
