Don's Web

Back in High School, I had wonderful teachers. I wanted to preface this before I went any further. I took all of the classes that were required for freshmen. During my freshaman year, my last class of the day was biology. My teacher, who will remain anonymous because she may be reading this, was instrumental in me not having any interest in science at all. She would lecture, lecture, lecture, and lecture some more. There was so much lecturing going on that my high school biology textbook didn't get much use at all. I can still picture the view of the neighborhood as I gazed out the window during class. As the school year went on, the more I disliked biology and the more my teacher sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher. The problem was that I was an active learner. I needed to be involved. I needed to get my hands dirty.

I went away to college and based off of my high school science experience, I decided to put off my college science requirements until my senior year. One of the courses that was offered was Introduction to Inquiry Biology. Let me tell you, this was nothing like my high school biology course. It was engaging and we had discussions in each class. I found myself taking the lead on many of the group assignments. I was amazed as to how biology could be taught in two different ways. I then began to ask what would have happened if I would have had a course like this in high school. Would I have majored in the science field of study. How many students are missing out on science because they are students like me and had a high school biology class like mine. I strongly believe that if you have a chance to implement an inquiry based science program in your school, do it. Why, you ask? Because Don said so.