I think
phenomenon means something like we don't know much about.
But that's something really cool and that we could learn about.
I think phenomenon means something
that's out of the normal.
It's weird, an outlier.
Weird occurrence.
phenomena are
natural occurring
events that kind of our unexplainable.
We don't really know why or how they work,
but it's our job to figure it out.
Phenomena are things occurring in nature,
that spark a student or just a person's interest in.
Why did that thing occur?
And you know, I asked my students
what that word kind of sounded like, this word phenomenon.
Somebody said, phenomenal.
And that's really what it is.
It's this
this thing going on that just makes everybody curious about
why it happened in the natural world.
My question is why might
You see the same thing happen, the Mississippi River,
where the zebra mussels start to increase
dramatically in population, but the native mussels decrease?
when you present a phenomena to a class.
You get all sorts of different ideas
about why that phenomenon occurred.
Because none of the predators want to waste their time
getting tiny zebra mussels when they can get a bigger
native mussel that's easier to catch.
Some of those ideas are actually going to be correct.
Others maybe misconceptions that students have learned
in the past.
It allows students to bring their voice to the table.
You know,
we have students from all sorts of different
backgrounds here in the state of Iowa
and throughout the country.
And you know, there may be some sort of idea
that students are really interested in that
you don't even know that they were curious about.
I researched garlic mustard and it's an invasive species.
And I
wondered where around Iowa it was, and I found out
that it's mostly in Cedar Rapids and Waterloo.
And there's some in Bettendorf.
Students get very excited about investigating phenomena
because it's their idea and they own it.