Author: Katherine Chemas

Going into this course I did not have many expectations. My favorite part of the course was all the random science facts that Dr. Greer taught us. I think in a traditional sense you aren’t taught much of the exciting parts of science, however I think that Dr. Greer did the opposite. My favorite parts of the course were the PMOOP presentations, as I loved learning of the different natural remedies used in medicine, and also the two labs we did which highlighted how easy it is to make things at home. This captures the true essence of science, where we all consider ourselves to be scientists. My least favorite part of the course was BioBlitz. The actual outing was a fun experience, however, I feel as though it was irrelevant in our course which focused on healthcare. We received too much data from the outing and it was unorganized and hard to understand. However, I would prefer this outing be irrelevant than to focus on it for our final projects as other classes did, seeing as how our projects were substantially more interesting. Also, I loved working with the Makerhub and it was overall a positive working experience. Sharing our work at the STEAM festival was rewarding and I found it to be very easy to summarize after having done it multiple times in the classroom.

In highschool I was never a big fan of labs because I did not find them clear. We would always rush through the experiment and then take it home to finish the rest and come up with a report. When I got to college, however, I found that the huge amount of class time dedicated to the labs is a huge help in understanding the lab. I have had many assignments that are made so much clearer after learning about it in lecture or reading about it in my textbook after conducting an experiment that demonstrates it in lab. This, in my opinion, is the purpose of these labs. By having hands on activities not only are we more confident in our abilities as scientists but we are more likely to remember what we are learning. Furthermore, you can apply this same justification for having “labs” in other classes. In a history class you are more likely to remember what happened if you were to act out a historic event. Even if we do know what our results should be, by comparing with neighboring groups you can analyze where you went wrong or what causes differences in results. Each experiment will be a bit different every time it is performed. Then, when you go home and write a lab report (instead of learning for the first time–which is what I did in high school), I am able to just sum up the results of the experiment and refresh my memory. The reason you have to use different language in a science report is that you have to make everything as clear as possible, and ideally your experiment should be reproducible by another scientist just from looking at your report. This may lead to confusion if certain terminology or cultural phrases were included in the report.

My first reaction while reading through the article was that it is difficult to follow. First of all, this is a topic that is heavily based on scientific terminology. For example, the doctors who are part of the study are quoted often, and they reference things I can’t understand. One example of this is, “may dilate the cervix but not result in expulsion of the conceptus raises the possibility of their use prior to curettage,” where there is a multitude of terms that I would need defined. Clearly this is intended for a specific audience with a background in health and chemistry. There are even pictures of molecular compounds included, which would be great for a scientist who is researching this topic. Comparing this to the purposes of the New York Times articles written today, I would say even health and science articles are intended for more general audiences in modern day.

Not only are the words in the article difficult to follow, but there is just too much information. In only eight pages the authors talk about prostaglandins in induced labor, as contraceptives, and in relation to hypertension; just to name a couple of things. Although it is all referring to prostaglandins, this is too large a topic to cover in one article. That is like writing an article about the circulatory system, but not specifying one area. I think I would actually enjoy reading more in depth about one of the topics covered rather than read superficially about all these topics.

Another thing I would critique about this article is that it is clearly written in the preliminary stages of research in this topic. A lot of the studies mentioned are empirically based or little is yet known, which makes me question the validity of the article. If I am reading a lengthy article from the New York Times, I want to make sure that it is solid information. However, if this is in fact the most up to date research, then it is worth sharing with the public.