The English teacher learns science. Sorta.
I never excelled at Science when in school. Art, English (writing and literature; NOT speech), History, French, Algebra, Geometry, Trig…those were my strengths. Science and Gym were my weaknesses, and then some.
While Gym would absolutely still trip me up (possibly literally…graceful, I am NOT), I’ve long regretted my lack of scientific knowledge and understanding.
To remedy this, I’ve subscribed to science publications for the non-scientific, especially science that shares a bailiwick with history (paleontology, pyramid-building, etc.). I’ve attempted to glean as much as I can by osmosis (see what I did there with science terminology?).
When I began teaching in my current position, an alternative program where we all help with everything (mostly), I had to learn a few scientific basics while helping kids (my trusty key in hand, usually). The other teacher here is a science teacher, and I’m a licensed English teacher (who also has a variance, like all ALC teachers, to teach other things so I teach art), but if one or the other of us isn’t available, we try to cover as best we can. I’ve enjoyed telling my colleague that I ran across a scientific nugget while playing trivia, or in a movie or TV show, something I learned over the course of being here.
Biology and geology make sense to me, overall. Physical science, not so much. And definitely not physics or–the worst–chemistry. (In high school chemistry, I dropped out after one term. During that time, I memorized the periodic table’s symbols and typed up all our lab notes to submit–I’m a language person, remember–while Jeannette, my partner, did all the actual science.)
That brings me to Nova. Fifty-odd seasons of excellent programming for the average person. Me.
For years I’ve watched everything I can find anywhere, any network on Egyptology, origins of species of homo-genus primates, archeology of various sorts (Great Britain, Europe, Africa, North American, Asia…). I read Robin Cook's Sphinx when I was in junior high or high school and wanted to be an Egyptologist ever since. But lately I’ve been trying to expand my comfort zone, and have been watching episodes and series on geology, quantum physics and space (!!!), weather patterns in the solar system, and the like (see below).
Not just Egyptology. Like I said, way out of my comfort zone. And while these shows are geared toward exactly me–your average science idiot, in other words–they succeed because of the various experts explaining in different ways, their awesome graphics (photography plus digital, etc.), and their friendliness.
If I’d had these shows when I was in high school, I’d have taken more science!
Maybe. 🙂
Also, YAY FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING SYSTEM!
Episodes I’ve been watching:
S42E20 (from 2015): Making North America: Origins
S42E21 (from 2015):Making North America: Life
S51E9 (2024): Solar System: Storm Worlds
S51E10 (2024): Solar System: Strange Worlds
S51E14 (2024): Decoding the Universe: Quantum
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