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Sarah Moser's picture

As a kid, I was always

As a kid, I was always interested in science. I wanted to learn about the weather and about why things heated up in the microwave. I was always completely engaged when my fifth grade teacher would set up experiments to teach us how to create a circuit that would light a bulb or encourage us to participate in the Science Fair. I entered high school level science aiming to be a veterinarian when I "grew up." This excitement I had developed for the sciences was quickly squelched when I found out that science placement in high school relied solely on our performance on a math placement exam. Having struggled with math my entire life, I was discouraged from taking advanced science courses and instead encouraged to focus on the humanities. I think situations like this occur all too often; when a child has a passion for science, they should be encouraged by all means to pursue it, whatever the results. Science teachers must not take themselves too seriously, but instead realize that students do not need to be taught to focus on "continuing inquiry," or the process, and that that way of thinking is natural. In high school science, the goal was always to figure out how to get the "right" results out of a scientific experiment. Students always wanted to have the "right" hypothesis in order to conduct an experiment that produced the expected results. By this way of thinking, it is easy to lose sight of what the author, and I, would consider most important: the process. Science should be about the journey, not the destination.

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