Lima Bean Experiment Reflection

My earliest memories of science I would have to say is the typical first grade lima bean experiment. The main objective of the experiment was to grow two lima beans. One in a plastic bag by itself and the other in a plastic bag with a damp piece of paper towel to see which would grow faster. At that age level, it was pretty easy to get excited about a bean growing in a bag. I remember doing similar simple experiments, and science remained just another subject in my life until about fifth grade. In fifth grade, I had a teacher that was very passionate about the concepts and ideas she was teaching. I knew she was very passionate about our understanding of science because the activities she just to do with us were much more extensive than anything I had ever

We spent the entire first semester on the anatomy of a pig. After all of our hard labor learning, and studying the anatomy of a pig, we were rewarded with dissecting a grown pig’s lung. I can honestly say it is still one of the most memorable things I did in elementary school. The next semester we spent entirely on ecosystems and how they thrive on one another. The last two weeks of the semester we spent building our own ecosystems with crickets and works and minnows. It gave us a sense of pride each morning coming into class to check and make sure our ecosystems were still thriving. Through high school my interest was lacking as my science education had simply turned into a memorization game until my senior year of high school. My senior year, I decided to challenge myself and take an AP chemistry course. We spent 2 hours in class each day. The first thirty minutes we would lecture, and the next hour and a half would be spent on hands on lab activities. I learned more in that class than I’ve ever learned in any class to this day. This teacher pushed us to seek out the answers by ourselves to physically do the work to find the answer. At CMU, I took a geology class that was intended to be an easy A