What skills do elementary and secondary school science teachers need to get students excited about science?
I’m not an expert on teacher training, but I do know that if you ask successful scientists what brought them into science, every one of them says a teacher. There is not one established scientist I know who does not credit—or blame—a teacher for his or her career choice. The question is not only what qualifications the teacher has, but also what the teacher does in the classroom. Again, I have to come back to the importance of teaching not only about scientific content, but also about science itself. What does it mean to have a scientific way of life? What does it mean to think about things in a scientific way? Most established scientists had either a research experience or a problem-solving experience early on in their education—a sort of eureka moment when we realized that science is fun. That’s a trite expression, I know, but the truth is, science is fun. But you have to show students that it’s fun; you can’t just assert that it’s fun. In my case, my decision to become a scientist h
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