Robinson lights students’ science interests

Emily Robinson said she realizes “not everybody will be as excited about science” as she is. But, as a new teacher of earth science at Woodbridge Senior High School, she is going to use everything in her very extensive repertoire to try to make that happen.

Robinson’s love of science began at Westridge Elementary School and Woodbridge Middle School. While a student at those schools, she participated in the “Girls + Math + Science = Success” program, which was then co-sponsored by the Prince William Office on Youth, whose director was Robinson’s mother, Susan Robinson. For Emily Robinson, the program helped ignite a passion for science that she hopes to give her students.

Her initial goal as a new teacher, she said, is “to get kids to take science again.” And, “to realize that it’s not uncool to be good at science.” Some of her students, she noted, don’t grasp the relevance of science to their lives.

“I asked them ‘What is the purpose of studying science?’ and most replied that it was relevant only in the classroom,” Robinson said.

She said she wants her students to understand that everything from the phases of the moon, to the weather, to inventions and beyond “comes back to science. Science is just a part of life.”

Read the full story on page 35 of the Oct. 28 issue of the Bull Run Observer.