Megan McCollum Keeping Her Head Out of the Clouds 
by Andrew Kerr
February 2006
Megan McCollum leads a varied and creative life. She is finishing up night school studies from the Connecticut School of Broadcasting after winning a scholarship via her stage acting prowess. Her husband plays in an alternative rock band in Atlanta; the basement of their house even includes a recording studio!
By day, Megan is in her fifth year teaching earth science to 8th graders at McConnell Middle School in Grayson, Georgia. "Earth science is a little bit of everything," she explains. "There's chemistry, then geology, now we're on to plate tectonics, astronomy is huge, the environment is thrown in, and so is oceanography."
...as well as atmospheric science, which explains why in the summer of 2005 she worked as a Georgia Intern-Fellowships for Teachers (GIFT) fellow in Georgia Tech's Earth and Atmospheric Science (EAS) labs with Dr. David Tan and PhD candidate Anne Case. There they studied formaldehyde levels in the earth's atmosphere.
Nervousness while facing the GIFT application prevented Megan from trying out for the program during previous years. "The application at that point in my career looked really overwhelming to me," she says. But last year, on her first try, she landed her GIFT summer experience at EAS.
One of the most interesting aspects of Megan's summer experience was learning that when things go wrong in the lab, one must sometimes improvise in ways one might never have imagined. In this particular instance the challenge she faced was a less-than reliable laser that was to be used to detect atmospheric formaldehyde levels.
"From what I understand the laser was 'finicky', that was what they called it," Megan explains.
"They used to have a laser tech who would explain to them what the laser needed--he was like the laser doctor. When he left they [David and Anne] were the ones who had to worry about fixing it."
Megan helped the team build specialized circuitry tailor-made for the instruments they were using. So, what might have begun ideally as a flighty earth and atmospheric experience instead required Megan to get acquainted with a decidedly more down-to-earth tool: a soldering iron.
"It humbled me because I learned that when you want to be one type of scientist it's not enough to be just that. Now I can tell my kids, 'I know you don't like this, but you never know when you'll have to do this'."
Formaldehyde, the gas the lab focused on, increases the rate of smog production in the atmosphere. Atlanta's smog has become a familiar summertime problem for the city's residents and visitors, and contributes to respiratory problems such as asthma.
However, getting a class full of eighth graders interested in smog is not always easy. "There are some 8th graders who care if people on the other side of the globe die," she says, "and others who don't care if [the subject] doesn't relate directly to them. When I teach them about the atmosphere, I will demonstrate how smog might affect them personally, to make it relevant."
One creative idea Megan has already implemented in her classroom is a "Teacher Homework Board." When students ask a question that stumps everyone in the room--including Megan--that question is written on the board. Sometimes Megan looks up the answer, but sometimes the task is assigned to a student. This conveys an important lesson: It's OK not to know the answer to something, so long as you possess enough curiosity to seek the answer. After all, isn't that what science is all about?
The most important thing Megan learned was that she missed working with her students. "Anne and Dave were awesome," she says, "But I realized I was not cut out for the type of job they do. I craved being with the kids this summer. I enjoy explaining things to them so much, the interaction with them so much. I think teaching is something I was meant to do. So, in that sense the GIFT experience has reenergized me."
To download Megan's Implementation Plan, click here. (MS Word Document | 101 KB)
Georgia Performance Standards (-- Show --)
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