Science Class, For the Insane

Making English class fun is fairly easy. Word games, fun writing assignments, and silly stories are easy enough to find.

Science class is the death of me. Right now we are doing animal classification and characteristics. Of course, if you have access to empty bird eggs, butterflies, and whale baleen, your life in golden. Science class is fun and exciting.

Oh, boy! Whale baleen!

For me, though, trying to make science fun without all that show-and-tell business is usually a flop. I am by no means a qualified science teacher. The other day I brought in a dead bug the size of my palm to science class to try and explain the thorax and abdomen of an insect. Or I attempted to.

And by that I mean that I found it lying on my bed that morning (nicely cuddled up next to me), picked that sucker up with my bare hands, put it in my teaching bag, and toted it to school. By period 4, the horribly disgusting bug no longer had a thorax and abdomen.

Bug dust. I guess haphazardly wrapping gigantor in a tissue was not a legitimate mode of transport.

I instead drew an insect on the chalkboard. It looked like a snowman that grew wings and fell over. Chalkboard is not my medium of choice.

I then orally presented the characteristics of insects to the class, which resulted in 25 minutes explaining why a turtle is not a bug. And also why a butterfly is not a bird.

It could have gone more smoothly.

After we finish animal classification, we are moving on to sex ed.

With my 15 to 21 year-olds.

I love science class.