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It's funny, I was actually thinking about something very similar to this discussion on my way to our first bio class. I was wondering what exactly our 3-hour lab period is going to be used for, and how these labs will compare to my past "lab" experiences - the almost-always boring ones in middle and high school classes, or the amazing experiences I've had the past 3 summers working in a university research lab. It occured to me how ironic it was that I, someone who never particularly liked the labs we did in high school bio, physics, and chemistry, have fallen in love with "real" lab work. Thinking about it more as I've read these articles and all the above replies, I think the big difference is that in the lab, I'm starting with the DOING, not the understanding, while at school, labs are supposed to reinfornce some concept we're already learning. I suppose sometimes they do introduce topics too, but as someone above mentioned, there's always a "right answer" you're expected to find; you know the teacher knows how it's going to turn out; there's no real excitement or discovery; generally all the students know how it's supposed to turn out too, it's just a question of getting that to happen. In the lab, it's all "real" - no one has the "answer". Understanding what's going on, at least at this point for me, comes second to actually doing it and seeing what happens. To some extent I'm not sure that's always good thing; I'm often frustrated, wishing I had more of a framework for what I'm experiencing. I'm lucky to have worked with a very patient boss/mentor who was good at explaining things, but he also couldn't stop his work and just teach me molecular biology.

I think ideally, schools should be somewhere in between those experiences. Labs should be more about discovery, giving enough background for some understanding of what's going on but leaving that last connection up to the student, who can then enjoy the satisfaction that comes from figuring something out yourself. I'm not sure I've ever experienced more satisfaction than that resulting from days of lab work culminating in something that actually produces meaningful data, that answers a real question no one knows the answer to, however tiny and apparently insignificant. It's made me realize that whatever field I end up in (though I'm pretty sure that's going to be bio), I want to spend my life trying to answer some of those questions that no one currently knows the answers to.

One more thing I want to add - reading these comments, I'm starting to appreciate that my schools were definitely ahead of some in terms of teaching science. My teachers generally found ways to connect science to daily life, at least once in a while doing an activity or bring up a topic that would interest the more "non-science" students, etc. But I do think my appreciation for science came from sources outside of school - mostly books, and later websites too. The biggest thing though, I think, is that my teachers were able to encourage that outside exploration - from my 1st grade teacher who helped me research finches (our classroom pets), to my 12th grade teacher who was my advisor for two independent studies in science last year. This can compensate a bit for the fact that at least in the current education system, the demands placed on teachers (standardized tests, etc) make it impossible for science classes to always be as engaging as we'd like. This was very clear to me my junior year, when some of our most interesting classes took place after the AP test - we voted on what areas of bio we were most interested in exploring further, and how we would like to explore them. One class observed behavior of students in the cafeteria, while ours set up a re-enaction of a firing neuron based on a youtube video we'd been shown in our study of protein synthesis (if you haven't seen it, definitely check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9dhO0iCLww (you can skip the talking guy and just go to the action if you want)). In some ways, I think we did learn a lot less running around outside than in a "normal" class setting, and at least what my class did wouldn't have been possible without that prior class; to some extent we were just goofing off and having a good time. But on the other hand, it was amazing how much was actually reinforced and clarified through that fun - the bio teacher yelling "no no no, the sodium ions have to go back out, dont just stand there!" While obviously something like that isnt a replacement for classroom teaching, I do think everyone in our class will always remember having "K" and "Na" signs taped to their backs or tossing neurotransmitter tennis balls.