#sister location changed my brain chemistry when it came out I was obsessed with her design

[weaponizedmoth]

Simple Circus Baby drawing I didn't had what it took to color.

[spatial300mks]

Reflection on Science and my family-

While working with a space that is meant to be a nurturing environment for science and learning, I kept getting called back to my roots growing up, for several obvious reasons. This heavily influenced my choices and my brainstorming for designs and ideas for teaching and learning.  My dad got his Biology degree in his 50s while I was still in high school. He taught math at the local college, and therefore was able to get a discount on his degree. Prior to this, he had his Masters in Mathematics, and a Lawyer degree all under his belt. He worked as a furniture carpenter for almost 10 years when we moved up to New Hampshire from New York (where he shedded his lawyer degree). All growing up my siblings and I were always doing experiments and flexing our science brains. Science seems to have a strange rep for being nerdy and something that’s not supposed to spark excitement- at least thats how my classmates saw it. Science for us was cooking, or gardening, or making a light reactive mouse from a science magazine. It was little things, and big things. It was collecting monarch caterpillars, watching them eat milkweed, and watching as they changed from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. We always have a releasing ceremony for them (we still do this). Science was about learning about conserving, and promoting sustainability- once my dad moved into his own place one of the first things he did was create a compost pile (I know, we’re WILD people). During his degree, my dad focused on genetics, and did a lot of work with fruit flies. He had a whole kitchen table (a cherry table that he made) dedicated to tubes and tubes of fruit flies, a microscope, and this weird substance that “put the flies to sleep.” The idea of fruit flies bunking up and sleeping always gave me a laugh.  My brother was always interested in all the insects; the nasty spiders that lived in the basement, to the ants that crowded the pavement when we had a summer bbq. My sister flourishes currently in physics, chemistry, and engineering aspects of science. Numbers and math were always daunting to me. I found my niche in science in kinda a strange round about way.  I liked doing experiments and activities with my family, but it took me an extra step in order to actually understand what was going on. It came naturally to understand to everyone, but I always had a hesitation of “am I actually getting this?” Somewhere in the mid 2000s we got cable. And unlike a lot of kids in this era, my family watched a lot of television shows from the mid 1900′s AND Discovery channel- which had, The Mythbusters. I was pathetically obsessed with them. It made science and experimenting cool, and incredibly accessible to me. I got it. I think that making a subject accessible for all different types of learning entertaining is key- for anything. Make it a show, and you have everyone hooked. Somehow Mythbusters was my segway into theatre design as well, thanks Adam Savage.  I’m monologging.  My Dad also has MS, he’s had it for over 20 years. During all this time he still remains active with teaching. While growing up, if it was a good day for him we could trek to the science museum. But sometimes we couldn’t travel- so we made do with doing activities with him at home. This could be from an experiment from a kit he ordered, or working with materials the we picked up at the hardware store, getting seeds ready to plant when spring finally came, or trying a new recipe with a unique ingredient. Or duplicating an experiment we saw on Mythbusters.  I asked him if there was anything, as a teacher and as a student, that he wished he had in a science lab. He said storage was crucial- either if students needed to keep an experiment out of the way in order to work on another day, or storing safety equipment that was for each student and secure. Safety wise, eye wash station, chemical shower, fire blanket- all that are required in a science lab for safety. The final thing he mentioned was having tables that were easy to access by people in wheelchairs- either that being the teacher or the student. He brought of Veridesks which can be adjustable for a person a sitting or standing height.  I asked my sister as well if there was anything she wished she had as a student. The middle school we attended was upgraded to a new location and facility when my sister attended it- so she had much more higher grade science labs. With her chemistry experience she spoke about separate stations for lectures and experimenting as sometimes residue left on the counters could cause irritation for some students. Storage was also crucial, but she lamented that having over head storage was really inconvenient for chemistry and other experiments as it restricted some of what they did/couldn’t do. For Physics, she mentioned that having enough open space in the classroom was really helpful in order to carry out demonstrations.  *Taking all this into consideration, I really gave a lot of thought into what activities could happen in this space.