1. Put a Little Science in Your Life

Comment #192590 by nullsession on June 13, 2008 at 1:32 pm

I am fortunate enough to teach astronomy. I have some motivated students, but many take the class just to get a science credit. I try to emphasize the importance of the scientific method and how science can influence how they think of the world around them. We get to talk about pseudoscience and skepticism and evolution and of course the many amazing things we now see and know about the universe. A key distinction I hope they walk away with is how we came to know what we know over centuries of effort an application of the scientific method (and some really brilliant guys along the way!)

I like to think of teaching astronomy as a way to get them to look more critically and rationally at the world, but also to be more amazed by how truly mind-blowing this universe is. Brian Greene's work is inspiring to professors too! We even end the course with a discussion of relativity, string theory and some of his "Elegant Universe" series on DVD.