In middle school I remember studying the great explorers who lived in what my teacher called, "The Age of Discovery."
I loved looking at maps and tracing the routes they took in their great sailing ships. I checked out books from the historical fiction section of the library just so I could travel with them through their story.
These men of history had traveled to parts of our planet and had become the men known for their feats of discovery. But that was how I understood science in middle school. The discoveries about our planet were made. There wasn't anything else to discover. It was hard for me in middle school to imagine that there was any place left on Earth where the science of discovery was still being conducted.
So I studied science by reading history. In high school and college I studied history. It is now at age 47 that I have rediscovered that the true "Age of Discovery" never ended. There are discoveries happening all over the planet. The human race is still striving to understand all the systems of our planet and to discover how they are interrelated.
Discovery is happening on a global scale.
Discovery is happening on a microscopic scale.
I encourage teachers listening or reading this journal entry to impress upon your students that science has a history but science is not history.
SCIENCE IS DISCOVERY...
Our students need to be taught the skills to conduct science.
Our students, more importantly, need to conduct science.
I believe they need to get dirty, wet, and messy. They need to struggle with environmental conditions and limitations that force them to adapt. Students should see that the very same questions they are asking in the classroom could be the same questions scientists of the world are grappling with as well.
These future leaders in our classrooms must learn see value in their questions. For their questions may lead to the discoveries of the future.
It still is the "Age of Discovery" Discover... This is Gary Wesche, PolarTREC teacher 2009-2010