Science Reflection

Emily Allen
AST 101
Professor Hyland
27 March 2015
Science in My Daily Life Science is present in everything, even if we choose to see it or not. I am one that naturally sees the science in everything. I have loved learning about what is actually behind the things we see in nature. With that, in this class, I have learned to notice the small things. It is the small things that make the world go round. When people ask me about the little things, I can now come up with a logical explanation to tell them, and not just ramble on. I now have more confidence in myself knowing that I can have an up to par conversation if I have to. I am a science major, however, I don’t like learning the vague details. I have been learning them my entire life. I am tired of learning the same things over and over. I hated sitting there and listening to a teacher read directly out of a book. I am more of a hands on type of learner. That is why I liked taking anatomy and physiology and chemistry. My niche was always nursing or anything medical. I was always good with the science that went along with the medical field. The medical field was always something I was interested in. I also loved being in the lab. Putting new things together and seeing the reactions that come out of it was just awesome to me. I would rather be able to touch it or make something happen to it instead of reading it out of a book. If the teacher was conducting an experiment, you could always count on me to be the first one there. Most of the times, before the teacher! For this class, we had to write a science portfolio. And let me tell you, it was not easy for me. I had to really work myself into noticing the little things. I had never really seen the little (science related) things in my life before, so I didn’t know how I could begin to write about it. So I just took initiation and everywhere I went I looked for something I could write about. This took a little while for me to get a hang of, but when I found a few things to write about, a whole bunch of other things came into focus. I would constantly be looking down or constantly be looking up. Depended on what I was looking for. I would notice things that I had never noticed before and that feeling was pretty great to be honest. Just knowing that my mind had the capacity to notice all these small things was eye opening. (Maybe I had a glimpse of what it was like to be a vampire!) However, there were plenty of times I would have loved to just throw in the towel and quit because there were some days where nothing at all jumped out at me, even when I would zone out and look for the small things. This is when I would get frustrated and just give up. But the first time I handed my journal entries in and got them back, I actually did better than I thought I did. That gave me confidence to keep doing what I was in order to succeed. To us, this earth is such a big space and our human lives are somewhat of a big deal. Most people think that people have inhabited the earth for a very long time, but when you look at the cosmic calendar, we haven’t been on earth that long at all. The cosmic calendar puts everything into a years’ time span to represent the different things that had happened to and on earth, and how it was created. It is mind boggling because when you look at how long people have been on earth, it has only been for a couple hours. Because humans are self-oriented, we think that we have been on this earth for longer than we actually have been. When you look at the cosmic calendar, it is hard to comprehend everything all at once, but also helps people see everything in such a small time period to really put things into perspective. Once you sit back and just look at the calendar you think about things differently. When I first looked at it in class, I didn’t know what to think, or say. From the entire time people say we have been alive, I didn’t understand how we were only on earth for a couple hours according to this calendar. I had to sit back and really think about everything, for me to understand how scientists have condensed all of earth’s existence into a years’ time. It took me a while to comprehend everything that was in the cosmic calendar, but now I look at our lives a lot different. I think that, as human beings, we tend to take things for granted all the time, when we really should be living life to the fullest. Life is short and when you put your own life in perspective with the cosmic calendar, you see how short your life really is. I wish the human race would look at this calendar and put their own lives in perspective with this calendar and realize how they should be really living their lives. Realizing how the earth was created shows me just how small the earth is to the rest of our galaxy. I was one of these humans who didn’t know how to look at the universe in one big picture. I was raised in a small town with a population of 600 people. My mind was solely focused on my little, small town world. And so did all of these 600 people. In my school, teachers would pass kids just to pass them. They didn’t care about what they taught so they didn’t care that hardly any of the students were understanding them. I was one of those students who didn’t understand a word that was said in science class. In fact, I only remember my freshman year of high school physical science and if we got a question wrong, he would squirt water at us with a squirt bottle. I remember the most about science from my freshman year. All throughout high school, we were just taught the essentials. This class, of course, isn’t a biology course or anatomy course, but it caught my eye. I never really took on a big interest in the planets, galaxies, and stars. However, I always thought it was pretty cool to learn about them. I would have never thought I would get as hooked into learning about it all as much as I am now. All in all, this class has opened my eyes. It has taught me to value the little things and to look for the science in my reasoning. Before taking this class, planets, stars, and galaxies seemed to be a world away. They seemed nearly untouchable; something I would never be able to explain to my kids laying in the grass on a starry night. Now, I have the peace of mind that I have well-rounded thoughts and can explain the things that will matter. My views of science have changed because of this class, and I only can dream of what peace I will get to encounter when I have a chance to shine some light on the amazing world that we live in.