It seems to me that one of the barriers to communication between scientists and the community of ‘normal’ people is all of the terminology involved in science. The terminology of natural science is just as ‘bad’ as in any other branch of science. I feel as if you’d either have to swallow a dictionary, or an encyclopedia, to be able to engage in a productive natural science conversation.
Now, not having gone to school in America, and having opted out of the system by becoming a homeschooler, I’ve no idea what kind of science education is/was given out. Maybe you all go around spouting out words like ecosystem and biome without a thought and it’s just me, a 4yr degree Biology graduate, who feels incompetent in this respect. Until told otherwise though I’m going to assume that I’m not alone in my lack of mastery of natural science terminology.
As with most things the way to tackle natural science terminology is one bite at a time. In the coming weeks and months we’ll go an a journey through natural science and have fun playing around with one bite of terminology at a time. I’m pretty sure I’ll learn something. I hope you and your kids will too.
By the way, do feel free to enlighten me about your experiences in natural science terminology and education 
Woodland walk photo reproduced under a creative commons license from FlickR.
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We had the science courses. Unfortunately my high school classes were routinely taught by fresh-out-of-college science majors rather than teachers. I didn’t learn much. Chemistry (senior year) was the worst. The biology teacher (8th grade) spent more time trying to pray over us and make sure everyone was saved to spend much on the subject. And God save me from dissections.
My college biology class was designed for the non-pre-med folks, and as such was fondly called “baby” biology. This royally ticked off the professor, so he made that class harder than the one the pre-med folks got. The only thing I really remember are the parts of a flower.
The thing of it is, I love science. I find it all fascinating, and I wish I’d had teachers who knew what they were doing.
Janet, I hope you will enjoy learning natural science here on my blog. Thanks for sharing about your experiences, but I’m sorry to hear that they were not positive ones!