Museum of Me: March 2023

Hello and welcome to the Museum of Me. It's the second Friday in March and time for a new installment. This month we ask the important question: What is the most memorable concept you learned in science class?

I think I selfishly suggested this topic to Kym, mainly because I can answer this question easily and remember that day in class like it was yesterday. Picture me as a bright-eyed, eager young fourth-grader in Mrs. Csongeto's class at Springfield Elementary School. I looked something like this:

except imagine me in a classroom with about 15 other kids. I'm the one paying attention, with my hand on the desk, ready to raise it to answer questions. 

Except that day Mrs. Csongeto didn't ask questions. She said, "I'm going to tell you about one of the most important concepts in science. Almost all of scientific knowledge and many other things have come from using this and it's both easy enough for fourth graders and powerful enough for really smart scientists in lab coats." I was hooked and couldn't wait to learn this easy, yet powerful science secret. 

It was the scientific method. This might sound complex, but it's really a simple five-step framework that is used to acquire knowledge that has been used since the 17th century. It involves 1). making careful observations, 2). formulating a hypothesis based on those observations, 3). designing an experiment meant to test the hypothesis, 4). collecting and analyzing results to determine if the hypothesis is supported or refuted, and 5). communicating results. If the evidence has refuted the hypothesis, the hypothesis is revised and tested again. If the evidence has supported the hypothesis, it needs to be repeated and/or reproduced by others. 

I'm sure that we had worksheets and we probably even did an experiment or two, but I don't remember those details. What struck me then and has stayed with me is that this was the scientific method but I could apply it to any problems I might have or questions I was trying to answer. If I wondered why our cat Bitsy did not like to be held (see photo above), I might make observations to see if this was true most of the time, only with certain people, or when she was hungry. My hypothesis might be that she would like to be held after I fed her, and I would conduct an experiment where I tried to hold her every day after feeding her for a week. My data showed that she did not like being held after being fed, and subsequent experiments showed that Bitsy was a cranky cat who was only willing to be held when she wanted to and for about 20 seconds. 

This is a very simplistic example but I do remember conducting the experiments because I desperately wanted to be able to hold Bitsy and have her sit on my lap and purr. That's another important part of the scientific method; sometimes you don't get the results you hypothesized but you have hopefully gained a small part of the answer and can move forward. 

I can't say that I conduct actual experiments now, but the scientific method does help me in cooking, baking, fixing my sewing machine, deciding if my car needs a new battery, trying to resolve my hip and back pain, and lots of other situations where I want to apply critical thinking in daily life. So thank you, Mrs. Csongeto, for teaching me the scientific method. I've used it for 55 years and hope to continue. 

So how about you? I'd love to hear about what you remember from science class. Was it something interesting and slightly icky like dissecting frogs or did you have incredibly dull science teachers like Mr. Stuempfle, my seventh-grade teacher? If so, you have my sympathies because science should never be boring. We'll be back on the second Friday of April with a brand-new installation. Thank you for visiting The Museum of Me!