Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Third-graders and science

I recently agreed to answer questions from third-graders about what it means to be a scientist, what a scientist does, and so forth, as part of a project to get students interested in science. My friend teaches third-graders in a Long Island, NY, elementary school, and it is her class that I agreed to 'talk to'. I cannot do so in person, so we agreed that her students would write letters to me with their questions. Today when I got home from work, there was an envelope waiting for me. Inside were personal letters written to me by hand from about twenty students. I had a long day in the lab, so when I got home I was pretty exhausted. But after reading these letters, I perked up again. They are just so sweet and unusual and interesting. It will be fun to answer their questions and to see what I can come up with in the way of photos and other items that will allow them to 'see' what it is I do everyday. I thought I would post some of their questions here over the next month or so, anonymously of course. But it will give you an idea of what third-graders think about when they think about science. Stay tuned.

Caring and not caring

Sometimes the smartest and healthiest thing we can do for ourselves is to care less, not more. I don't mean that we should be uncaring t...