How old were youwhen you started to get interested in science?

Question: How old were youwhen you started to get interested in science?

Asked by klbmark0704 to Freya, Katy, Louise, Pamela on 16 Mar 2010 in Categories: General.
- Freya Harrison answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  My mum and dad were always interested in nature and conservation, so starting when I was quite little they’d take me to nature reserves and explain about plants and animals. I used to get taken tree-planting and pond-dipping a lot, and once I even dissected owl pellets (the stuff that isn’t quite poo but is all the hard bits of their prey that they can’t digest) with Chris Packham off the TV – that was fun. And I Ioved dinosaurs – every few weeks my dad would buy me a new plastic dinosaur from the museum. I also had the obsession with space and astronauts that a lots of kids get – going to Jodrell bank was the coolest school trip ever.
  
  The funny thing is that I never considered becoming a scientist until after I started my A-levels. I’d opted to take environmental science because I thought it would be useful to have a general science A-level and I absolutely loved it. A few weeks in to the course I decided I wanted to become a biologist.
- Louise Pendry answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  Hi there!
  
  I’ve got to be honest and say I hated science at school. It just seemed totally pointless – when was I ever going to need to know what mitochondria are???
  
  I found my old diary a few years ago and in it I have written about my chemistry teacher – Margaret – who I used to drive nuts (and really used to enjoy winding up). Eventually she shouted across the class at me in front of all the other students that I would never pass GCSE chemistry (it was 1 month until the exams) as I was a wicked wicked girl and a total waste of lab space. I was so cross that she thought I couldn’t do something that I got my head down, revised like mad and got a “B”. I only did this to prove her wrong though and still thought science was dull!!
  
  I was 24 yr when I finally became interested in science. I watched a TV documentary about scientists teaching pigs to push joysticks so that they could investigate pig intelligence. I think it was Bristol Uni’s work but I am not sure. I was totally glued to the screen. I was like totally “WOW” – scientists do this???? I could sooooooo do this 🙂 but the bummer was I didn’t have the grades to get in to do science at uni.
  
  So I trained as a vet nurse and realised how much our everyday life is affected by scientific research. I started to see science generally as valuable (rather than some pointless sadistic torture dreamed up by evil teachers wanting to punish students). All the drugs that I was using to save animals’ lives and make them feel better had all been designed by scientists. All the behaviour advice I gave owners had its roots in psychological research done by scientists… and I got more and more interested.
  
  That’s how I ended up doing my science degree. Thankfully Lincoln Uni decided my vet nurse grades were sufficient to do their animal science degree coz there’s quite alot of science in the vet nurse course and my work was relevant to what I wanted to study. I decided I wanted to find out new things that could be used to help animals. For me what makes science worthwhile is its ability to change lives for the better. So I started getting good grades as I was doing something I now enjoyed.
- Pamela Docherty answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  I was always naturally good at maths at school, but it was only when I came to university that I realised how the whole world is based on maths, which I found amazing!
- anon answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  Seven.
  
  All the best things happened when I was seven so it was probably then.
  
  Between the ages of seven and seventeen I wanted to be:
  a racing car-driver,
  a marine biologist,
  an egyptologist,
  a surgeon,
  a vet,
  the person that invents all those things in the little magazines that fall out of Sunday papers,
  a stunt-woman,
  a paramedic,
  a millionaire,
  a civil engineer,
  a marine geophysicist,
  a ski-instructor,
  a forensic pathologist,
  a microbiologist,
  a mathematician.
  a magician,
  an arctic explorer,
  an architect,
  brilliant
  
  When I got to seventeen I realised I was not Barbie and had to settle on just one thing. I decided that a physics degree would mean I could study a HUGE range of things from the very small (Nano-technology) to the very large (cosmology and astronomy).
  
  As it turned out, I did fid something I love (light!) and my hobbies are now linked to all those things I wanted to be. I can ski, scuba-dive, read technical information on a range of topics, make coins disappear, go to Egypt and argue with the “egyptologist” about the alignment of the pyramids etc.
  
  I feel that a science career has opened up the world for me. In addition to all the science I can understand, I can also read fiction, watch TV and go the cinema! It just means I can question things from a different perspective…that means you, star trek physics!
- Katy Milne answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  I don’t think I realised that science existed until I went to secondary school. Until I was eleven, I was convinced that I wanted to write books. I loved writing. Then I went to high school. I always remember my first science class. I worked out how to measure the diameter of a ball exactly with two books and a piece of string. I felt so happy that I had solved a problem.
  
  That was it. Now I spend so much time doing science that I am not so great at writing any more. My job is so interesting though and I get that feeling – a little high when I work something out – every day. Even if you haven’t experienced that yet, you will if you do a career in science or engineering.

Question: How old were youwhen you started to get interested in science?

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