Opening
to the unknown
Written by: Kendra Hammons & Lillibeth Vasquez
Overcoming large class sizes teachers work hard to ensure a positive learning experience for their students to uncover the mystery of science. Science classes range from Botany, the scientific study of plants; to Physics, the science of matter and energy and their interactions. In every science class, you have many different kinds of experiments; some have been known to get a little stinky, stinking up the whole west side of the school. Despite the stinky experiments, what do students think about science? When polled, students had many opinions about science classes. “For me personally it can be fun when we do labs, but doing all the math that comes with science... can be difficult,” explained Dominik Riskin (10). “It can be fun at times if the labs and experiments are fun” said Irene Medina (10) When you hear the word science, you might think it could be boring, but students had other experiences. “Making delicious peanut brittle has probably been the best experiment this year in my chemistry class,” stated Aliyah Valdez (10). By making the learning fun students are more likely to understand the concepts. “The [fun] experiments are much easier and more entertaining to do,” said Catrina Kwong.” Teachers’ feelings about their students and their experience in teaching science is very important. “I like seeing kids solve problems and use data to defend their ideas,” said science department chair Kathy Childress with excitement. When asked about what he liked about teaching science, chemistry teacher Cyrus Harshfield stated “I like] everything, the subject matter, the labs, the variety of topics, the kids, the grade level, the smells, the sounds, the mystery.” Just like with science experiments things can change unpredictably. When asked if here is a difference between this year’s science classes and last year’s, Kathy Childress said, “Class size! I am averaging 39, and it used to be 29.” Harshfield adds, “This makes lectures and labs difficult. There is limited space to move students, so talking is an issue which affects students learning. Students have to make more of an effort on their own, if they choose to not listen it is difficult for me to help them.” Teachers agree that they will work hard despite the problems and continue to do the stinky and fun experiments. Meanwhile when approaching the west side of the school always be prepared because you never know what you’ll hear, smell or see.
The Calorimeter lab. Alina Zavalina (9) Measures energy in calories by using fire to heat water in a can then measuring the amount of energy used. (03.04.12)
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3/9/2012 9:52:48 PM