The wonder of science - Editor's Note

Not the kind of scientist you'd imagine, though. I was a backyard scientist, an adventurer elbow-deep in dirt and leaves, butterfly net at the ready, pail slopping over with water. As a child in Michigan, I captured tiny green leafhoppers (their scientific name, of course, eludes me), harmless garter snakes, toads, turtles, worms, tadpoles, and frogs. These creatures were popped into homemade cages, terraria, and aquariums, stared at intently, and eventually released. (I even tried to charge the neighbors 50 cents a visit to come and observe these miracles of nature, convinced that the sight of a beetle balancing on a twig was a hot entertainment ticket.)

The vegetable and mineral world didn't escape my interest, either. I had my own patch of soil in the garden, where I observed morning glories twining around the fence posts, and bean shoots snaking up through the dirt. I cracked granite chunks open with a hammer to inspect the crystalline shapes inside.

While I had' a natural inclination toward hands-on science, it was fostered by other amateur scientists. One who comes to mind is my sixth-grade teacher who, one day, without any sign of squeamishness, brought in an entire skeleton of a cat. We crowded around her desk to inspect the tiny, fragile bones. Where had she gotten it? And how had she gotten it out of the cat?

As we grow older, science can seem overwhelming, filled with theories and formulas and statistics. But if we remember to look at it as a child would, it really begins with simple curiosity. Teachers, lucky to be scientists all their lives, have the additional good fortune to be catalysts for that sense of curiosity. Yes, science can be messy. It is about getting our hands dirty, absorbed in the chaos and wonder of bugs, dirt, plants, rocks, and even skeletons. For a student exploring the world, that is the best and most enduring thing about it.

Jennifer Prescott, Managing Editor.

jprescott@scholastic.com