Student Mercury Rising...

This is the very first time I've encountered a student who has demonstrated a committed interest in pursuing science beyond high school.

There are students who are committed to going into health care and nursing or whatnot but this student wants to get into the raw, fundamental nitty-gritty sciences.

That is just rare.

Needless to say they are not the best of students, but they've demonstrated a serious commitment to learning that's mind-boggling to me (especially after dealing with hundreds of other apathetic students).

We'll see how long this new found interest in science lasts for this student...

It feels good to have a few students listen to random things we have to say. We were doing individual project work so I wandered around from student to student but a student asked a question about colors and I got semi-sidetracked.

Students find it hard to believe or comprehend that colors are not intrinsic properties of objects but that they're really just the light reflecting off of objects. I was explaining to a student that their red sweater is not red but it reflects red light, which is why we see it as red.

We also talked about perception and how perception is relative to the viewer. What is green to us could be black or gray to others.

It brings me back to summer training when one of our instructors said, "It's not always about getting them by the balls, it's about getting them by the brains."