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Anne had us work with similes (science is like...) to to begin a discussion of what science means to us as teachers and then what science means to our students. At first, it seemed that the words we used did not interconnect enough with the words we used to describe what science means to the students. Anne then had us translate the similes into metaphors (science is...) to refine the thought process. The surprise was that it took the next activity of translating the similes we used into drawings to bring out the separate stories behind the terms and then reveal the connections. Let me explain.

My quick response was that science is like a switchboard. I was imagining wires going in all directions and connecting many different pairs of entities with the connections constantly breaking and new ones forming. I had more difficulty with a quick word to describe how I think my students think of science until I realized that for the last 16 years, my students identify my courses with raisins. When alums return to say hi, they ask if I still give each student a box of raisins on test days. I started the practice to associate test days with a pleasant experience. Relunctant to give candy, I chose raisins as a healthy snack that provides iron.

The switchboard and the box of raisins did not seem related to me. Luckily, Anne then had us translate the words we chose into drawings. The image that came to mind was not the switchboard but the mass of twisting lines used to represent a large folded protein. I decided to use one continuous line; starting it with a small circle and ending the line with a much larger circle. For me this represented the tremendous energy involved in the evolution of highly ordered life forms from simpler forms. It was not a simple forward process. My students always want to know why things are the way they are. Why are the proteins in the electron transport chain in that particular order? I answer, "because it worked. We do not know all the iterations that formed and were not successful. What we see in the time frame of our lifetimes is what is working now. That is the wonder of life." It took a drawing to stimulate me to put this feeling of science into words out of the context of my classroom. For my students, I drew the box of raisins and realized that is was so related to the drawing I made of my feelings about science because it took an opposite approach. The raisins in the box were ordered. As they spilled out of the box, the raisins landed in a scattere3de, seemingly random arrangement. It is my job as a teacher to help my students put the raisins back in the box, i.e. to apply order to the seeming randomness of the pile of raisins. Later in the year, the students learn why I chose raisins as the test gift. They learn that iron is a key part of the hemaglobin molecule that allows oxygen to bind and makes the red blood cell so much more efficient at distributing oxygen to cells than plasma. They learn that the brain has the highest requirement for oxygen of the body's tissues, and that sitting and thinking requires more calories than they thought. The raisins provide oxygen to their poor test traumatised brains. They not only associate raisins with tests, but tests with energy requirements in braincell that rely on oxygen for aerobic respiration.

Thank you, Anne! I can now explain why I give raisins. Hopefully, I will also now be more discerning when I employ metaphors as aids for learning in my classes. I will also be more inclined to ask my students to choose words to describe how they feel about a new topic under discussion. One caveat- the students in my Grade 7 course make 3-D models of the cell. I can assess their understanding of the micoscopic world of the cell in the relationships expressed in their choices of materials to represent the organelles and the arrangement of the materials in the soccer ball or cantaloupe in which they build the cell. Their models are worth a million words.