Thinking like a Scientist?
What does it mean to think like a scientist? Simply put, it means that you ask questions. However, it is in the seeking of answers that you truly begin to think like a scientist. Before this seminar I simply assumed that scientists like to be right (and they do). However, they also quite enjoy being wrong or more accurately proving something is wrong. Whether that something is their idea or someone else's idea it doesn't seem to matter. For the Scientist it is about discovering new unknowns to explore rather than simply finding the yes or no answers. The unknown could be more answers to their questions, it can be more questions that take them in various different directions or it could be a discovery of information they didn't think to look for in the first place.
This idea seemed strange to me until I read Royston M. Roberts book "Serendipity Accidental Discoveries in Science" 4 in which he shares various accounts of how many of the major discoveries in science were accidents, from Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas to the uses of vaccinations and Velcro. Many of these "serendipitous discoveries'" happened either while the scientist was looking for the answer to a very different question or simply by accident. Who would have thought that an apple falling from a tree would lead to the Theory of Gravity? This book helped me realize just how important it is to ask questions, but that it is even more important to pay attention to all of the small details along the way. If you have time it is an easy read, and really kind of humorous to see how many of the things that we think were great discoveries, in fact were actually just happy accidents.
I will be utilizing several of the examples from this book to show my students that to think like a scientist the purpose of asking a question is not just to find a single answer, but to explore all the unknowns you find along the way. For example I am new to town and I need to get to the grocery store from my house. I discover there are three easy ways to get there and that one may be shortest, but each time I go I take a different route so that I can learn more about where I live. Each route I take I find something new; a gas station that has better prices, a gift shop that I will want to go back and explore later, a branch of my favorite coffee shop, possibly even a whole different grocery story that I like even more. All of these possibilities for further exploration that I would never had known if I was only happy to go one way and not pay attention to what was around me.
That is what a scientist does. Then they go back and explore all the little items of interest they find along the way. One question leads to so many more questions or unknown areas to explore. I want my students to not be so focused on answering a single question that they miss all the interesting facts and discoveries around them. To my surprise, it turns out science is not so much about answering questions, but instead about discovering what we don't know yet.
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