Hi guys! My name is Darby Showers, and I am from South Philly, though I now live in the Northeast. I am currently enrolled in the College of Communications, as I hope to pursue a degree in Advertising and Public Relations. Ever since I started grade school I hated science. I wasn’t the type of kid that hated science because I consistently did bad in the subject, or that found the subject to be boring. Personally, I think science is so interesting, it is all around us, how could it not be? What I do find boring is the the repetitive science topics that teachers present to us from the time we are in elementary school, until we graduate high school. There are things that are presented to us over, and over again retaught in equally monotone manners. This monotone way of teaching always made me wonder if the information I was receiving in class was actually factual, and if it was how could it be proved.
Science classes for me never required much thought from me as a student, it only required my memorization. I would go to class, copy notes, and formulas exactly as they came out of the teachers mouth, and when test time came I would simply recopy these “facts” that were presented to me in class. I never felt as though I was actually learning. I for sure can rattle off some facts, and recite a formula, or two, but I do not actually understand the material.
So, when I was at NSO scheduling my classes, I told my advisor that I would like to avoid a science classes at all cost. Eventually when the time came for me to chose my General Education course, my advisor suggested this class to me. She assured me it was an interesting class that explored theories not presented in the typical science class. At first, I am not going to lie, the name “Science in Our World” turned me off, but after reading the course description I was instantly intrigued, and decided to enroll. Although we have only had a few class meetings, I already do not regret my choice, as I can already tell this will be a thought provoking course, and I am so excited to see what is in store for the rest of the semester!
I choose a video that showed a science experiment I think almost every science teacher I ever had required us to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFh1wB7A9Rs
The live link in my comment below did not work, so here is a second attempt at showing you this cool video of how to make a lava lamp
Hi Darby! I really enjoyed reading your post because I can definitely relate to everything that you’ve mentioned. A big point you made that I find myself doing almost all of the time is wondering if the information is actually factual. When I am in a science class I always think a lot about how these things were discovered and how scientist come up with this stuff. I always find myself in deep thought about where certain concepts and ideas came about and how can they prove that that is exactly how it works. And then I loose focus and have no clue what I’m actually learning. I mean when learning about how our universe and Earth was created back when The Big Bang happened, its crazy to think that we pretty much know what happened even though we weren’t there to witness it. And i guess thats where science just doesn’t agree with my mind. I watched your link and I got distracted and started watching random videos and stumbled across this one on how to make your own lava lamp.
Hey Darby, my name is Lauren and I am a DUS student thinking about advertising and public relations also. I found this interesting article about the difference between advertising and PR that could help any student have a better understating of each. It helped me as I plan to enter into either marketing or advertising and PR. Here is the Link
Hi Darby! I clicked on your link expecting to see the oh-so-original “DIY Silly Putty” (couldn’t find the live link insert on this page, sorry, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFh1wB7A9Rs) but was actually surprised when I saw something actually pretty awesome. The topics definitely gave me deja vu of sitting in chemistry class sophomore year of high school drooling on my desk. Believe it or not, I think the concepts from that basic intro to chem have kinda sorta helped me in life. I love, love, love genuine real sweet tea. Since I’ve been in the north, it’s either McDonalds (ew) or having cold unsweetened and adding sugar packets. The reason the sugar packets don’t dissolve into the tea is because the molecules aren’t supersaturated and therefore cannot absorb the sugar. (If I mixed up all those terms, sorry!). In the end, I just have made my own tea at home and it’s great. Welcome to Penn State!!!!
Hello Darby, I decided to comment on your post because If you read mine they sound very similar, and our names happen to do that also. I totally relate to this blog, especially when you wrote about how you found science to be very memorization based. I think this is because science is a hard class to teach when trying to relate it to real life situations because that requires very heavy research, which a lot of our teachers may have not completed on certain topics. This differs from history because that is dealing with pure facts, and english which is dealing with stories that can be analyzed differently by many people with many correct answers. Science is either definite or unsure answers and I think that creates a grey area in many people’s brains which causes them to avoid relating the confusing science terminology to the real world. I thought you might be interested in this article about how science classes effect students opinion of the subject.
http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/baytown-news/article/In-science-class-students-are-learning-to-hate-1744302.php
Hey Darby, my name is Lauren and I am a DUS student thinking about advertising and public relations also. I found this interesting article about the difference between advertising and PR that could help any student have a better understating of each. It helped me as I plan to enter into either marketing or advertising and PR. Here is the link