My Science Autobiography

My name is Kristeen Ann Peo, but I go by Kristie. I was born in Chicago Heights IL, and I lived there until I was in 6^th grade. After 6^th grade, I moved to Beecher, which is about 25 minutes south of Chicago Heights. It was a huge change in my life because Beecher is very small compared to Chicago Heights. I absolutely hated it at first because there are not any stores close to Beecher other than a grocery store and a couple gas stations, and I missed all of my friends. However, I really like the small town feel of Beecher now. During elementary school in Chicago Heights, I do not remember much of what we did in science. All I can remember is that we had a really big textbook for it, and we took field multiple trips to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Once I got to Beecher in 7^th grade, I had a very negative experience with science. Everyone in 7^th grade had to participate in the science fair. This was always an option at my elementary school, but I never chose to participate because science was not a subject I liked very much. When I was assigned this project in 7^th grade, I had no idea what type of experiment to do. I eventually chose to see if bread molded faster in a plastic bag or in the open air. I figured this would be something simple that I could observe and gather information on, but I was wrong. My experiment did not go well at all. The bread that was left out in the air just got hard with no mold on it, and no mold appeared on the bread in the bag either. After doing this experiment for almost a month, it was almost time to present our experiments. My bread still had no mold on it, so I had to draw on the bread with a green marker. I was so afraid of getting a bad grade on this assignment. I think I ended up getting a C on my experiment from my teacher, but I did get a 1^st place in the fair. All of my results were made up, so looking back, I should have been happy with the grade I received. I was very thankful when that project was over.

Although I did not enjoy science in middle school, I started to appreciate it more once I got to high school. Many of my high school science classes were activity and lab based, which made it more interesting to learn. I took biology, chemistry, physics, and physiology in high school. I ended up enjoying physiology much more than I thought I would. I liked learning about the human body because everything we learned in that class related to me. The only part I did not enjoy about my science classes in high school was dissecting different animals and animal parts. I almost did not take physiology because I knew I was going to have to dissect a cat. I also enjoyed my chemistry class because there was a lot of math involved in it, which was always one of my strengths.  Once I got to college, I took chemistry and biology because two science classes were required for general education courses. I have not been in a science course since my sophomore year of college so I am looking forward to taking this course and learning how to apply science to early childhood education.

I decided to major in education because obviously, I love children, but I also believe that my role in society is to help others, and what better way to do that than to help children learn, grow, and succeed? I chose early childhood because, to me, these are the kids that love learning the most. They come to school every day ready to learn new things. I believe that teachers of early childhood students are the most important teachers in a child’s life because they are the ones who set up the beginning foundations of their students’ education. My early childhood teachers are also the teachers I remember the most from elementary school. I want to be a teacher who my students can look up to and learn from. As I stated earlier, science was not a subject that I remember from my early childhood years. Therefore, in my future classroom, I want to make science hands on and fun for my students. There are so many opportunities to make science fun and engaging, so I want my students to look back and remember those activities. I also plan on having my students work in small groups during most science activities. I think that students will learn better if they can work and communicate with each other on experiments. I know that when I was put in a group for a science experiment in the lab, I would often try to sit back and let others figure out what we were supposed to do, so I plan on assigning each person in the group a job so that I know each person is participating in the experiment. Along with doing hands on experiments, I also want to bring my students on field trips related to the topic we are studying. Showing students real life examples of what we are learning in class will help them learn even more about the concepts we are learning.

Based on my cultural upbringing, I have realized that anyone can be a scientist. During many of the labs, girls were afraid to touch certain things, but I always wanted to prove I was not scared like the rest of the girls. As a teacher, I want to show my students that everyone can be successful at science. There is always science all around us no matter where you live, what your physical capabilities are, if you are a boy or a girl, etc. I plan on doing the “draw a scientist” activity with my students to explain to them that anyone can be a scientist, and there are many different kinds of scientists than just one who works in a lab. Although Beecher was not a very diverse town, I have been fortunate to experience diversity here at Illinois State. I am involved in a program called College Mentors for Kids on campus. This program serves low income students, and it allows these kids to come to ISU to see what college is all about. We take them to different places on campus to teach them about all the different majors that are available here. The kids absolutely love going to the science lab because they know that they will be doing something fun there. One of my favorite memories from College Mentors was watching the kids’ faces light up when they created slime out of a few different chemicals. I love mentoring these students and encouraging them to do well in school because majority of them will be the first in their family to graduate from high school.  

         This is my friend and I dissecting a pig heart during our physiology class in high school .

This is a picture of some of the kids from College Mentors doing a science lab experiment.