Science is NOT Simple

I remember being in the 7th grade and the teacher had bulletin board cut outs over the coat closet.  There were six of them, one for each step of the Scientific Method.  They had simply one word on each cut out with a picture: observe, hypothesis, experimentation, analysis, conclusion.  We had to know the steps, in that order, and what they meant, for the test.

I can remember reading the text book and studying for the tests.  This is completely different from the way students learn science today.  Today students are expected to engage in activities and learning is more hands-on.  If I had learned science that way in school, I am sure I would have found it far more interesting than I did. 

The only time I was able to experience science as something engaging and fun was when my parents took me to the Museum of Science in Boston.  School science was not at all like science at the museum.  I went to a small Catholic school and I am sure the resources were not plentiful.  We definitely did not have Smartboards back in the 80s!  However, I am sure there could have been a way to make it more interesting than just reading about science.  So, my take away from this study on the Scientific Method is that it is much more complex than I had previously thought, and that we need to find creative ways to engage students from the very beginning.  Otherwise they may be turned off from science for the long term.