• Question: Why is science fun because when you get homework it's rubbish ?

    Asked by anna10ll to James, Marcus, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: James Boone

      James Boone answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Homework is there to check your understanding. If you can do it and you understand it, you’ll feel the urge to try the next thing and see how far you can get before you get stuck. Then when you get stuck you can start a science career trying to solve the problem and develop your own theory 🙂

    • Photo: Marcus Gallagher-Jones

      Marcus Gallagher-Jones answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Homework can be a bit rubbish but it is there to check how well you’ve understood what you’e been taught. There may be better ways of learning but homework is fairly tried and tested. I think once you find a bit of science that you are really interested then you’ll want to learn about it yourself. Thats when it becomes fun. The best projects are the ones you discover on your own not that you are taught :).

    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Science research is all about making things up for yourself and seeing whether your ideas work. But if someone’s done it before, they might already know the answer. If you want to do it again to check their answer, you need to do it *exactly the same way* or you can’t compare properly. That’s where the homework comes in.

      Research scientists have homework too, it’s called “reading research papers” – which are scientists’ explanations of how they did their experiments.

    • Photo: Suzanne McEndoo

      Suzanne McEndoo answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Homework can be a bit rubbish some times because it’s about testing understanding and practicing what you’ve been taught, but it’s part of your job as a student. Every job has it’s rubbish parts, even science. I don’t like writing grant applications, but part of my job as a scientist is to apply to various groups for money to fund my research. It’s completely rubbish work to do, but it’s a very important part of my job. Other scientists might not mind grant writing, but might hate giving presentations about their work. But the rest of the job is cool enough that we put up with the less fun parts.

      And like homework, it’s best to just get stuck in and get it done. 😉

    • Photo: Robert Thompson

      Robert Thompson answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      I hated homework. “Why should I have to do what the teacher is telling me to,” is what I would think or “This is boring!” The beauty of being a scientist is that I now only do what I want to, and I do what I find interesting and I do it because I want to. Life doesn’t feel like chore so much anymore. I still have to do a bit of homework, but I normally take it home because I’m excited to see what it leads to. (sad hey)

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