Creating Future Scientists: The Importance of Interest in Science

While it may be in part due to my personal bias, I think that science is just one of those topics that interest is key to fully understanding. 

As mentioned in my group's Learning Key Workshop last week, interest holds the key to future learning. Without interest, there is no desire to learn. A lack of desire to learn leads to poor learning, if any at all, which is definitely not ideal!

The reason that interest is so important to science specifically is because it is so ingrained in the subject. The scientific method is started by asking questions piqued by your interest! First something is observed that creates a question. Then, you think about why this could be, create a hypothesis, test it, and assess your result. These conclusions often create even more interest in the subject, leading to more questions and so the cycle continues! Each step in the process is full of curiosity and a desire to learn more.

Without having an interest in science, no one would ask the important questions that lead us to big discoveries. All great scientists were curious about things, and really cared to look into them further. They took a situational interest, a small spark of an interest in something, and developed it into an individual interest, a key interest that is deeply rooted in their identity. 

Take Galileo Galilei for example. His interest in astronomy led us to so many huge discoveries about our solar system, like the different moons of Jupiter or his major improvements on the telescope. Without such a deep interest, he never would have spent so much of his life searching for answers to his questions, and giving the world so many astronomical advancements (both in magnitude and subject matter!).

It's so important to not only create, but also nurture the interest in young science students. There are many ways to try to create situational interest in students, such as exciting hooks to draw them in, fun experiments, and rotating stations to expose them to a multitude of situations that could be of interest to them. To maintain the interest, we can give individual inquiry-based projects or self-led experiments that give students a chance to pursue the interest that is already there, and support them along the way. I remember being in late elementary school/early high school and being given an assignment to come up with our own idea and use the scientific method to conduct a full-on science experiment. I credit this assignment with deepening my interest in science, as this was one of the first times I was given the agency to delve into something that I was curious about. Giving students the opportunity to lead their own investigations creates a deeper connection to their interest, pushing them to want to learn more.

Overall, I believe that science needs interest in order to create "scientific thinkers" and future scientists. Sparking, nurturing, and encouraging interest is what ensures that students will maintain their love for not only science, but learning as a whole. You never know which student might be the next Galileo!

MorganR@OTU