• Question: What got you interested in Science in the first place?

    Asked by cheesyscience to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 12 Jun 2010:

      Hi cheesyscience,

      Answering a number of similar questions to this has got me thinking about my childhood. I remember when I was very young being allowed to stay up and watch Jacques Cousteau documentaries, which had me riveted to the TV (Jacques Cousteau was a naturalist and ocean explorer who would have been 100 yesterday, if he was still alive). As a kid, I was pretty obsessive about natural history, and could tell you the names of most of the plants and animals you could find where we lived. I also had father who worked in the nuclear power industry for a time, and read a lot of science fiction.

      This was all while I was pretty young, and not doing that much science at school. But then I got to the 3rd grade (equivalent of year 9 these days – not sure anyone calls it “3rd grade” any more) and started doing separate sciences at school – biology, chemistry and physics. And I was completely and utterly hooked on physics from that point on!

    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 13 Jun 2010:

      I don’t remember ever thinking ‘science is cool’ for the first time.

      From an early age my parents got me interested in wildlife; nature’s everywhere, even in big cities. I think it’s very important that people are aware of it, respect it and enjoy it.

      David Attenborough was and is an inspiration to many people and I watched a lot of his programmes growing up. I really recommend them.

      I was given a book about genes when I was quite young and remember writing about Darwin for a small research project at primary school – from the work his grandfather (Erasmus Darwin) did right down to the publication of his On The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection.

      Science is everywhere; we’re part of the natural world, which we study using the scientific method. I suppose I’ve always been aware of that.

    • Photo: Emma Pilgrim

      Emma Pilgrim answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hello

      My mum was also a bit of gardener and so when I was growing up there were all these great creepy crawlies lurking in the garden. I was always keen to find out what they were and hatched a number of ladybirds, parasitic wasps (they lay their eggs into caterpillars and eat they way out to emerge as adult wasps – quite gruesome!). I also very keen on animals so I always had a leaning towards biology

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Various things have kept me interested in science through the years. When i was a medical student I took part in a project where we were identifying a particular strain of a nasty micro-organism that affects people who have cystic fibrosis ( a genetic lung and other organ disease). That we could do this by genetic fingerprinting was fascinating. It was important too because it showed that the microbe was being transmitted between patients and meant we had to try really hard to keep patients apart and all equipment and consulting rooms super-clean. The combination of interesting and practical is appealing to me.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hi cheesyscience!

      My Dad was an Industrial Paint Chemist before he retired and he was always talking to me about science in an interesting way and the TV always seem to have some scientific programme on such as Horizon and Tommorrows World. Being a curious person I was also interested why things worked the way they did eg how did a bee fly and how did flowers grow.

      My Biology Teacher in secondary school also made Science fun at school and I think that was the final inspiration to going into a Science career:).

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