Teaching Science to 5th Graders

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of talking to 90 5th graders about science...over the phone.  My cousin is a 5th grade reading teacher in Texas and their story that week had been about a scientist who used microscopes to see living things in pond water and volcanic ash.  Of course the scientist was a man and the girls in the class were totally grossed out by the idea of tiny, creepy, crawly things so she wanted to give them a different perspective on science.

We wanted to do video chat but of course there were technical difficulties and I ended up just talking to the kids over speaker phone but it worked out really well! Because it was breast cancer awareness month and I have been involved in cancer research, we talked a lot about breast cancer.  I was really impressed by the kids' willingness to ask questions about cancer and I hope that I helped them understand it a little bit better. We also talked about the scientific method and things like specimens and microscopes to include their vocabulary words from the week.

The best part was the stories that my cousin told me about her kids' reactions.  She said that a lot of the girls did get more engaged in the science and she is hopeful that we gave them the idea that science doesn't have to be gross guy stuff.  The most exciting story was about a little boy who my cousin has been struggling to get to write in his journal.  While I was talking the kids were suppose to be taking notes and while a lot of the kids got excited about asking questions and forgot to take notes, this kid took lots of notes, and not just useless notes like my name and where I went to school, he was taking notes about the science that I was talking about and understanding the important parts of what I was saying.  We may have just found this kids' calling in life: science!

This week I got a thank you card from the kids (please disregard my hideous floor)

There notes are so sweet and also show how much some of them truly got from talking to me.  Stuff like this reminds me why I also want to teach and not just do research for the rest of my life! I am looking forward to working with a bunch of 5th and 6th grade girls at a UNC event in a few weeks.  A friend and I are going to teach them about DNA and have them extract DNA from a strawberry! Hopefully they will be well behaved and I'll be able to take some pictures!