Last Friday, I went to Clarke Central High School during the morning to participate in an Antibiotic Resistance lab with students from the AP Environmental Science class. I served as the research facilitator/instructor for a group of three awesome students (pictured above), showing them how we had gathered data in class so that they could replicate the experiment. We counted bacterial colonies, calculated data for the spreadsheet, smelled unpleasant fumes, discussed the findings, and got to know each other a little bit. My emotional reaction shifted from uncertainty at first that I was qualified/knowledgeable enough to lead them in this experiment to pride that I had successfully completed just that. I left feeling happy and satisfied with our results and the connection I had established with my students in such a short amount of time.
The most notable part of the experience for me was how much better I felt I understood the content of our experiment after conducting it a second time. Getting the opportunity to “teach” it to others helped me to realize which parts I was still confused about, therefore getting the clarifications I needed and being able to put it all into a concise, clear explanation for my students. I loved using my presentation, teaching, and interpersonal skills to try to make this a pleasant and unique experience for them.
Now that I’ve learned how useful it is for me to teach the material I’m studying, I will be able to incorporate this learning technique for my future studies in this class. I can work with classmates to reteach concepts in our own words. In addition, I appreciated this experience of working in the high school as I am interested in education as a career; I left on Friday feeling good about my path. Thank you to everyone involved who made this great outreach project possible!