I thought I knew what science was. I had gone to science camps and learned about the protons, neutrons, electrons, and the periodic table in middle school. In high school, I memorized the difference between carbonate and the other carbon ions, what makes a strong acid or base, and the cell cycle. I did a frog dissection in biology class and discovered the different wavelengths of light in chemistry lab. I had always found science interesting and easy to understand.
However, I did not truly understand what a scientist does.
In 11th grade, I took AP Physics 1. My first assignment was 15 problems kinematics for homework. This was my first experience learning how to think like a scientist. I spent 3 hours doing the 15 questions. This was the first time I struggled with a science assignment. I was forced to understand all elements of problem. The vectors of acceleration, the uses for the different formulas, labeling the angles properly, and the list goes on. I struggled to do each one of them and I didn’t know if any of them were correct. The next day in class, I discussed the homework, but none of my classmates were able to fully understand or complete the problem set. We spent the class period putting our brains together to solve all the problems so that all of us had complete knowledge and understanding.
Later that week, we had our first lab experiment. I expected a packet of steps to complete outlining the steps necessary to collect the data, but this was not the case. Instead, I was given a problem a problem to experimentally solve: What was the acceleration due to gravity? I had no clue where to start. I was surrounded by a room filled with equipment, but no clue how to even start to solve this problem. My lab group and I thought of many ideas: Video recording, rolling a ball off a table, and even using a stopwatch to time the ball. Eventually, we came up with a solution. We connected a motion sensor and measured the velocity as a function of time and took the average change over the time a basketball was falling.
When I turned in the lab and completely understood the homework, I realized the way I perceived the world had changed. In my social science classes, I used data to complete conclusions rather than simply reading as many articles on the topic and memorize as many events or vocab words as possible. I was first looking at the whole picture rather than simply the in-depth details as compared to being blind to the bigger picture. I started making decisions by widening all possible ways to fully understand the problem before trying to find a solution. In short, I started thinking like a scientist.
I believe that the science education should focus on problem solving and complete understanding rather than memorizing. In memorizing and doing “cookie cutter” problems in previous science classes, I learned very little on how to problem solve or how to critically think. If everyone was able to think like a scientist, critically think and problem solve like a scientist and applied it to their understanding of the world around them, political discourse would be respectful with facts being the primary common ground between all people. In all, if people were able to think like scientists, critical thinking would be the normal, not the exception.
1.Identify the central conflict and structure (cause and effect, transformation, categorical) of this piece. Provide ideas for enhancing the central conflict structure/arrangement.
The central conflict was the difference between what you thought science was and how you approached it in the past versus its application to “real world” science problems and problem solving, and how you were first faced with this application challenge and overcame it. I think it’s a great arc from what you had learned in school in the past, to encountering your problem, to then figuring it out with a group and coming to a conclusion about science. This is a transformation piece.
2. Could the piece be more sensory or engaging if told another way? Comment on how the style could be strengthened. Provide an example from the draft.
As I mentioned above, the arc is great! I think that to make it more engaging, you could reorganize the focus of the piece a bit, with spending a bit less time on describing the issue and the details of the resolution, and alluding more to emotions and your thoughts. How did you feel when you encountered those problem sets? What were your thoughts like? What did your friends say? Instead of just listing what happened, perhaps you could focus in more on the emotions and thoughts to make your piece a bit more colorful, but otherwise great job!
3. Name some possibilities for deeper characterization. How could the “I” be developed further? Is there more you would like to know about the relationships between “characters”? Were some details “author oriented” instead of “audience oriented”?
Similar to what I mentioned above, focusing a bit more on your own character and how you personally felt and reacted to this instead of focusing more on what happened could help you develop the “I” a bit more in the story!
4. Did the belief match up with the story? Offer some advice if you felt the piece moved toward a different conclusion.Comment on places to strengthen narrative coherence and narrative fidelity.
Definitely! It all fits together and is very well connected.
5. Make a suggestion or two for something the author could move, change, add, or delete.
Basically what I mentioned above! Otherwise, I like the idea behind this, I’m looking forward to hearing your podcast!
1.Identify the central conflict and structure (cause and effect, transformation, categorical) of this piece. Provide ideas for enhancing the central conflict structure/arrangement.
The central conflict surrounds your understanding of science and how that was challenged by a single lab. This is a transformative piece that revolves around how your views on science changed your beliefs on how it was taught. I think the central conflict could have been enhanced by telling a similar story about a time you completed a science assignment quite easily. This second story would enhance the piece by giving the audience something to compare the central story to.
2. Could the piece be more sensory or engaging if told another way? Comment on how the style could be strengthened. Provide an example from the draft.
I felt the piece could have been more engaging by possibly giving us a play by play of you conducting the experiment. As it stands now, the piece is a bit detached from the audience since you just tell us what you did instead of walking us through it along side you.
3. Name some possibilities for deeper characterization. How could the “I” be developed further? Is there more you would like to know about the relationships between “characters”? Were some details “author oriented” instead of “audience oriented”?
I feel like there is a good sense of characterization as it stands. I do think there would be room to grow as far as your personal relationship to science. Like it’s clear you have a passion for it but it’s told more through actions and less through emotion. I think that emotion would be a good way to further characterization.
4. Did the belief match up with the story? Offer some advice if you felt the piece moved toward a different conclusion.Comment on places to strengthen narrative coherence and narrative fidelity.
The belief matched up quite well with the story. The belief surrounded how the education system deals with science and it’s a good story about that.
5. Make a suggestion or two for something the author could move, change, add, or delete.
I think something that would definitely take this story to the next level would be more emotion and sensory engagement. You can tell us a story about what it felt like to finally break through when you understood the lab.