Author: Yina Torres

          Walking into the course I was extremely scared for this class since prior to this class I have not had the best experiences in my science classes. However, I was pleasantly surprised because the course was not science intensive. Considering many of us are not in a science or science-related field this was extremely helpful. Learning the basics such as doing scientific research and the scientific process helped for the course but is also going to be something that I can carry on in my future endeavors. Research is imperative for numerous fields and so is understanding how to ask and what makes a good question.

          A minor issue I had with the class was during any of the classes that required laptop use. The class where we created atoms on our laptops was confusing and I did not learn much from it. Had there had been a class beforehand that explained what we were doing it would have been more useful. While there was an explanation during the class I was so confused trying to figure out how to use the application during the lesson I wasn’t paying much attention to what was being said. As for the excel chart making class, it made it so that only the person who had prior excel knowledge worked on it only. I do believe had this had been an individual it would have been more useful.

         I preferred having 2 less science intensive labs rather than having one more thorough science packed lab just because I do not have a science background and doing so would have made me extremely confused in class. Learning what would be considered to be more simple and less in depth was a good introduction to science. I enjoyed that the labs were related common things that are in our everyday lives because it made a connection which made the labs much more enjoyable. I also loved the quick class experiments such as the fire lighting of hands and the snowmaking because it was a quick and memorable way of learning about chemical reactions. 

This class helped me manage my time management skills when having numerous assignments all due within a short amount of time. This is something I have constantly struggled with so I appreciate this class helping me figure out how to prioritize. I had a great time in this class and will miss it for sure happy holidays to everyone!

The lesson that prepared us for the lab was extremely interesting because I knew many of the terms but never knew that they were related. An example being finding out that salicylic acid which is something I have found in numerous acne treatments is a component to making aspirin. We also learned that aspirin and heroin had a similar chemical composition which got me thinking about drug development which we had talked about in class. As well as scientific uncertainty because at the time nobody knew how dangerous heroin was since it was so similar to aspirin. Prior to going to the lab, I was excited to do a science experiment since it had been such a long time since I had done one and because we spent so much time discussing its origin I felt like I finally understood what was going on in a science class. While in the lab I worked alongside Mark and we set of goal of having the most orange results after testing which would mean that we had pure aspirin. Unfortunately, we had a tinge of purple in our test tube which meant that there was still some salicylic acid left but it was a great learning experience and taught me about the importance of perfection and trial and error when it comes to synthesizing drugs.

      It is imperative that scientific articles in popular news media outlets thoroughly explain the research, it’s findings, and provide an explanation. I have an incredibly minimal knowledge of science, because of this an issue I encountered while reading my article and other ones was not understanding many terms of diseases or what they were. Because this was an assignment for a class I looked up numerous diseases, but I can see that this would potentially push readers away especially people who don’t have much time. Also, I would ensure that statistics and graphs are included in my articles. Not many presentations mentioned statistics, but for me, in particular and perhaps for others I am much more trustworthy if I can get statistics on a topic. Also including opinions from other experts was something that was found in a few presentations which provided a different perspective for the reader which is helpful in order to make a conclusion. These are all elements I would include if I were ever to write a scientific article for a popular news outlet as well as aspects that make for a good representation of scientific research for popular media outlets. The only piece of information that stuck out to me was when AJ mentioned that the author of his article had sexual harassment allegations towards him because it was shocking and upsetting to me.