Biology Nuggets

After spending many years in the educational system, I have come to realize a few sad realities. To make complex material digestible in a short period of time, colleges and high schools have sacrificed the conceptual aspect of science and instead emphasized memorization of fundamental processes and steps.

In my eyes, this is a very counter-intuitive strategy; if conceptual science was taught and the flow of the topic was understood, then it would be a simple task to assign names to each exciting idea.

Instead, what happens in classrooms is that professors teach the names of each process and leave it to the student to understand the “big picture”​ mechanism. Imagine you want to teach someone how to build a car. There are two ways to do this; first, you can tell them to build a car after teaching them the function of each part individually (traditional education).

Alternatively, you can ask them to take apart a car, discover the function of each part as they break down the car, and then use this knowledge to build a newer (and better) model. The latter case is much more productive and exciting. While the former is an efficient way to teach complex material, it robs students of the opportunity to admire these subjects.

Consequently, us students emerge from schools as masters of memorization with a complete apathy or disgust for the material taught to us, not to mention a lack of understanding in general. Through BioNuggets, it is my goal to turn this system around and make biology appear as wondrous as it really is. After all, what is more exciting than learning about the most complex machinery on the planet?

Ever since 4^th grade, the world of biology has fascinated me. I had just begun to learn about the scientific method and was amazed at how easily it answered complicated questions. As I progressed through the elementary and middle school years, I learned more and more about how life functions at a microscopic and macroscopic level. Everything from the complexity of replicating genetic material to the random probability involved in evolution amazed me.

In high school, I learned about more intricate processes and phenomena that were present in various organisms. It was during these four years that my classmates began to lose interest in biology. When I asked my friends why this was the case, they complained that there were simply too many words to memorize and the information was boring and useless.

As I began my career in college, this lack of enthusiasm for biology was much more prevalent. People often said they preferred chemistry or physics because it, “made more sense”. At this point, I began to see that information was not the issue driving people away from the study of life but rather the delivery and application of this information.

I like to think of biology as the creative science. Just like the rigid laws of physics determine the nature of atoms and drive the flexible interactions studied in chemistry, the numerous laws of chemistry come together to from an imperceptibly complicated series of principles that create the field of biology. This is the perspective one should hold when teaching or  learning about the school of life.

Attempting to categorize these principles into objective definitions that are taught individually results in an overwhelming slew of information that is discouraging to even the most riveted students. Through Bio Nuggets, I will take you on my journey to understand life on Earth through my own unique perspective.

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