Concept Mapping

Science used to be, for myself, a collection of facts. Facts about planets and plants and everything in between, but without connections between them. 

As I complete my first class of graduate school, Teaching Science, I'm realizing what a journey it is to be a scientist. You ask questions, seek answers, learn information, and then you're right back asking more questions. 

The physical sciences overlap with biological sciences: how do chemicals affect the human body? Astronomy overlaps with biology: global warming. These are not discrete lists of facts; they are interconnected webs that raise as many questions as they do answers. 

Science is no longer something to fear or look askance at. It is something to explore...something deep and big and unknowable; and yet, we want to know and so we keep asking questions. 

I was asked to create concept maps, bookending this course. Here they are, in all their shiny-faced, future-science-teacher glory. 

A list of unrelated topics vs. an interconnected cycle of Q&A...together representing the journey of one man learning science, as he learns how to teach it.