My first real experience with science occurred at the American Museum of Natural History. I was in kindergarten and we were on a field trip to the museum and at the time, I didn't really care for anything. I was the typical kindergartener, field trips were fun, science was pretty cool because it apparently made things explode, school was fun, and I couldn't focus to save my life. In saying that, I really had no idea what I wanted to be. Most kids probably think about something like Rock star or firefighter or whatever their parents do, but if you were to ask me, I would tell you that I had no idea.
Anyways, at the museum there was a point where I just wandered off. Well, more accurately, i got left behind. One of the exhibits attracted my attention and when I went to move on, I realized that in my absent-mindedness, I hadn't kept up with the group. The most terrifying feeling as a 5-year-old is being left alone in some giant place with no one there to really help you. You're not supposed to talk to strangers and besides, you might get in trouble for it anyway. My solution was to wander around and hopefully find one of the teachers from my school and one of the classes. Walking around the museum, I stumbled into the dinosaur exhibits... and I was absolutely amazed. These really really big bones of these really really big lizards that lived a really really really long time ago. Long story short, I temporarily gave up on my search for my class and just appreciated the remnants of these beasts, trying to pronounce the complicated names. I eventually found another classroom and made my way back to my class, but my brief journey in the museum wasn't important. The most significant thing I got out of that experience was the seed of curiosity which would later grow into a love for science.
Even though I had focused my attention on Paleontology, over the next few years I would gain a passion and appreciation for science as a whole. I would read as much as I could from the school library, taking pride in pronouncing the names for the librarians when they would ask me how to pronounce "Icthyosaurus" and "Deinonychus". When I ran out of books on dinosaurs, I began to look at astronomy and at some point I began to read about spiders and reptiles. When I was in about 3rd grade, my interests became much more physical. It started with bug catchers, catching random spiders, trying to identify them using books from the public library. When I was 7 or 8, my parents bought me a tarantula, he was named after my best friend at the time, Jamari. The same year, for my birthday, I got my first telescope. Some of my best childhood memories involve bringing the tarantula to school with me for a short time, telling the class about it or staying out with my mother, looking at the moon or mars when it came close enough.
Throughout the next few years, I would get more powerful telescopes. When I was 10 or 11, I got my first microscope and I would continue to read and learn as much as I could about science.
From the time in that museum, up until the beginning of 8th grade, I fully intended on becoming a paleontologist. For the first 3 or 4 of those years, I would tell my parents how I planned to live in a mobile home and just go on digs looking for bones, maybe discover new species. However, as I got older, particularly in 8th grade, I thought how I would like to have a family one day and how the traveling would affect my family. This was not the primary reason for me pulling away from Paleontology, but one of my rationalizations. The main reason was the addition of a new activity to science club at my middle school, the F1 in Schools team. The main goal of the competition was to design and market cars created using CAD (Computer Aided Design) software and I was the designer. I had to make the car as fast as possible and it forced me to do a significant amount of research in the field of aeronautics. We placed second in the state competition and went on to nationals in Florida, which I must admit, was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Although after that, my interests once again changed, it is something that I will never forget and it's an opportunity that I hope many others will enjoy.
I feel as though I need to come to a resting place for tonight's post. I will finish this up within the next few days, hopefully tomorrow. I hope this has been enjoyable so far, if so, I will try to have part 2 up as soon as possible. I feel as though my high school science career is just as interesting, if not more so.
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| This was the last car I designed for the F1 in Schools competition. Nationals at Denver , CO in 2009, my 9th grade year. |
To be continued...
