Science #1: My Science Autobiography

My name is Kacie Michelle Scott.  I was born in Normal, IL and have lived here my entire life.  I do not remember a whole lot from my childhood science classes.  Some of the things that I do remember is a lot with cycles.  We did units on the life cycle of a plant, butterflies, the water cycle, and many others.  These units always involved creating our own diagrams that we were able to design and color, which made it more fun for us as young children.  I also distinctly remember doing an endangered animal project in third grade.  We were all able to research an endangered animal of our choice and then create an informational booklet for others to use as a resource.  I loved animals so I was very engaged throughout this project.  I don't remember much from my junior high science courses, but I remember most of my high school science courses were in lab format.  We were assigned to lab groups or partners and most of the learning was discovery based.  It was great to learn in this way because it required all of us to actively participate and we were able to draw our own conclusions based on our findings.

My favorite subjects in school were reading and math.  Therefore, my view of science as I grew up was not one of extreme excitement.  It's not that I didn't like science, I just found more enjoyment through other subjects.  I think that part of the reason science wasn't my favorite is because I was so unfamiliar with it.  My mom ran an in-home daycare as I was growing up and she had so many activities for me, my brother, and the other kids to do that involved reading, writing, arts and crafts, math skills, and fine and gross motor skills.  However, I cannot recall any science related activities that she had us do.  Whenever we did a science activity in school I would always participate and do my work as best as I could, but then I would immediately pull a book off of the shelf and start reading instead of exploring more.

**My cultural upbringing has had more of an effect on my views of science then I ever thought it could.  One way that it has is through my religious views.  I grew up a very strong Christian and attended church multiple times a week.  My religious views didn't seem to have much of an effect on my science education until I got to junior high and high school.  During these years, we started learning about the process of evolution in my science classes.  These topics were always difficult for me because I believed that God created the world, man, and animals.  However, in school, I was expected to drop my religious views and focus on the scientific theory of creatures evolving.  This was a confusing time for me as I was working to find out what I truly believed in.  My gender also had an effect on how I interacted in the science classroom.  I do NOT like bugs, getting dirty, or other things that are "typical" for a female.  Therefore, whenever we did experiments with insects, dirt, or dissection, I often took the backseat and let my group members or partner take over.  This sometimes impacted my learning and reflected in my grades.  It did not previously occur to my how my religious views and gender could have an impact on my views of science, but after careful analysis, I now see that it does.  However, I currently do not think that my ethnicity, race, or socioeconomic status have any effect on my views. **

I am currently a senior at Illinois State University pursuing my Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education.  I have always had a passion for working with children ever since I was young.  I am part of a huge family and I am the youngest cousin, so as I was growing up, all of my cousins were getting married and having children.  I was closer with my cousins children than I was with my cousins.  At family gatherings I would entertain the young ones and always have a new game for them to try.  As I got a little older I began babysitting for them as well as a few family friends and neighbors.  I fell in love with working with children and knew that I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.

Babysitting has not been the only experience that I have had working with children.  My two most recent jobs both involved working with children.  One was in the Children's Department at the Normal Public Library where I worked for two and a half years.  There, I because very familiar with children's literature as well as helped at several activities including story hours and the summer reading program.  My other most recent job was at Katie's Kids Learning Center where I was a support staff in the combined infant room for a year and a half.  In this room, I worked with children ranging from six weeks to eighteen months.  I also worked with the toddlers, preschoolers, and school agers, just not on a regular basis.  I loved both of these jobs and the time that I was able to spend with the kids but I decided that PDS would give me more experience in the classroom setting which will be more beneficial to me when I am job searching next year.  Therefore, I quit both of these jobs about a week before the 2014-15 school year began.  In my ISU clinicals I have been in a toddler room, a Heartland HeadStart preschool, a third grade class, and now a kindergarten class for my PDS placement.

As a preservice teacher who has spent a lot of time in the classroom, I have seen a lot of teachers push science (and social studies) to the bottom of their priority list.  Although science is not addressed in the Common Core State Standards, it is still a very important subject for all students to learn about.  I believe that teachers need to require science education for their students every single day.  This can be as simple as reading a nonfiction book or a beautifully planned experiment.  After reflecting back on my past, it is clear to me that the information that has stuck with me over the years is the large units, experiments, or projects that I had worked on.  Therefore, I would like to ideally make science a project or discovery based subject in my future classroom whenever possible.  Based on my background in science,  I want to make an effort to incorporate these more engaging and memorable activities in order to help my students enjoy science more than I did as a child and retain the information that they learn.  Using my experience and knowledge as a children's librarian, I would also like to strive to incorporate many options of texts in my science lessons that I could read aloud to the students or for them to explore on their own.

Finally, I wanted to share a wonderful activity that I had the pleasure of observing in my aunt's first grade classroom in Chattahoochee Elementary School in Cumming, GA this past summer.  The students were divided into small groups of 3-5 and given 20 pieces of uncooked spaghetti, 1 meter of masking tape, and 1 meter of yarn.  The students were challenged to work together and create the tallest and sturdiest structure that they could within the given amount of time (I think it was 15 minutes).  At the end of the allotted time, my aunt and I came around and placeed a giant marshmallow on top to see if the structures could remain standing while supporting the weight.  This activity was given to the first graders as a team building activity but I also viewed it as a science activity due to the engineering required to build a strong structure.  The picture I attached below is a photo I took of the group who built the sturdiest and tallest structure in my aunts class.  It was a very exciting and engaging activity for these students, much like one I would like to use in my future classroom.

EXCEEDS: 

1. Shared an activity from my Georgia visit this summer that I'd like to use in my future classroom

2. Posted a comment to more than 2 peer's blogs