This post is composed around a merger of two topics that, without hyperbole, I can fairly say are two of the most fundamental factors shaping who I am today.

The two topics are

Chris and Dad

my dad

and

science.

Being Father’s Day, I think it’s an appropriate time to give my father the credit he deserves for being a kick-ass dad.

When I think about what I’ve learned from my dad, one of the most important qualities is that of a scientific mind.

What do you mean, a scientific mind?

First, a little background:

My dad, Larry Zach, is a nature lover by, well… nature. His passion for observing, learning about, and being immersed in the outdoors seems to be innate, according to stories my grandma has told me about him wandering off outside alone while still in a diaper.

He would later (far post-diaper) go on to study fish and wildlife biology and teaching at university and become a middle and high school science teacher for 18 years. He is now a full-time wildlife artist.

More important than his titles and training, though, is the way his mind works, and subsequently, the way I’m wired as well.

So now we can continue with the scientific mind stuff. I think a scientific mind is one that views the world with wonder for its intricate, beautiful, and complicated workings, and with excitement for the challenge and satisfaction of understanding how it all works behind the scenes.

From as young an age as I can remember, my dad instilled in me this appreciation for nature and passion for comprehending its function. He took the time to explain how things worked and often asked me if I could figure it out myself first. He was a science teacher by nature, even outside of the classroom.

Now, I didn’t realize he was teaching me science, or to think scientifically about things, when I was a child. But I did know that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that, if I thought hard about a question, I had a chance of discovering an answer all on my own. I enjoyed that scientific knowledge is democratic and even at a young age would expose itself for me to grasp.

To me, this scientific framework is invaluable, even in day-to-day life. Walking down the aisle of any health store or past any magazine rack is an exercise in scientific reasoning as claims for “melt away the fat!” or “erase wrinkles overnight!” shout out from the packaging. (I will write a full post soon dedicated to marketing BS, one of my greatest business frustrations.)

As soon as I read a claim, my mind is asking questions: “What evidence, and how much, does such a claim require to be proven true?” “Does the company provide any evidence?” “Does this claim fit within my understanding of how the system (the human body, in this example) works?”

Brian Greene wrote recently an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times titled “Put a Little Science in Your Life”. Here’s a short excerpt from that article:

Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive and reliable — a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional. To be able to think through and grasp explanations — for everything from why the sky is blue to how life formed on earth — not because they are declared dogma but rather because they reveal patterns confirmed by experiment and observation, is one of the most precious of human experiences.

Science is a way of life and a perspective on life for me because of my dad. I am one of those “little scientists” Greene mentions who was lucky enough to grow into a big scientist without losing my intrinsic scientific passion.

But, unfortunately, we do quite poorly as a nation in educating our children with the importance and excitement of science. We scare kids and teenagers away from science before we even take the time to show them why it’s important and how it’s fun. This educational “can’t see the forest for the trees” isn’t a problem unique to science, but it does seem to make science particularly frightening for many children.

I’ll continue working with Greene’s analogy to music education. If you were a 3rd grade teacher and your goal was to encourage as many children as possible to appreciate and participate in music, which teaching method do you think would bring you the best results? in other words, when these same kids graduate high school nine years later, will the ones from group A or group B be the most musically active?

A) Start on Day 1 teaching students the most basic music theory. After all, if they’re going to understand music, they need to start at the beginning with the most fundamental principles. What is the staff? Treble and bass clef? Notes and rests?

B) Start on Day 1 by dividing the class up into competing Rock Bands and playing the entertaining video game during class. Show kids through experiences that music need not be intimidating and that it should be fun to create. Teach kids rhythm and pitch while they don’t even realize they’re learning.

I think we can all imagine, having been kids once too, which method would get us more interested in music as something fun and entertaining instead of the scary material of flash cards. (I should mention that I’m not supporting this claim with research-based evidence, so this is only a hypothesis.)

The same principle apply to science education. The world of science is one that is fascinating in its complexity and awe-inspiring in its scale. We’d do our future generations a favor if we came at science education from the perspective of Indiana Jones, using adventures to portray scientific discovery, rather than our sleepy, classic methods memorizing lists from Astronomy to Zoology.

After all, our fundamental task as educators of the next generation of citizens (all of us — not just parents and teachers), isn’t to force kids to learn as much as they can handle, but to get them so excited about learning that they’ll want to do it by their own interests.

We can give children knowledge while they’re in school, and they’ll have about 12 years worth in their heads when they’re done.

Or we can teach children why knowledge is so exciting and empowering, and they’ll yearn for it the rest of their lives.

This is what I learned from my dad, and is a lesson I’ll pass on one day when I have my own “little scientists” running around the yard.

I love you, Dad. Thanks for everything!