Jan 9, 2006

science lab

I don't understand science. I'm just not good at it. Science labs were a recurring nightmare for me in school. When professors handed out the lab assignments I would stare at the directions and have no earthly idea what they meant or what in the world they expected me to do. My coping strategy was to pick the smartest lab partner possible and let them do all the work. I was always more than happy to sit and write down the answers while they did all the science stuff. I had a lab instructor take extreme pity on me one semester and begged me just to give him a one sentence summary of what the lab was supposed to prove. He was not asking me to do the lab, solve any equations, or even write anything down. He just wanted me to tell him in words what we had just spent the last three hours doing. I stared at him blankly. I quite honestly had no concept of what had gone on. I just cannot wrap my brain around the whole science lab process.

I have this thing with my kids where we discuss the best and worst parts of our day. I'd like to think it encourages an open dialogue where we are all comfortable to share our feelings and the ups and downs of daily life. This week DD was proud to tell me the highlight of her entire week - Science Lab. She was so excited to create a hypothesis, run an experiment, and draw a conclusion. She even wrote up a lab report.

Freaking science lab. My heart was bursting with pride. But I certainly hope she isn't going to need any help with her homework.

3 comments:

Veronica said...

LOL - I loved science labs :)

But then I did get a degree in Science.....I was the partner who had to do everything - and I was thankful for the partner who would write everything down ;)

agent713 said...

I didn't mind science labs. In grade eight my two partners were girly girls who refused to touch the cow's eye that we were supposed to disect. I had to do it all myself and then they did the write ups. It went pretty good...except that accidently made the vitreous humor spurt out of the eye and I got it all over my shirt. Never did get rid of the stain...although I think the shirt is gone now...
~Heidi...always better at participation then at homework...

Pamela Lynn ~ flutterby7 said...

I hated them too but only cause my daddy wanted me to do better than I thought I could...

Ian loves their science lab at school too, he just started going to it this year since he's in K... so far he's brought home a pumpkin plant which is doing well and a rock candy thing.