Q: Why is it important for students to study physics?

Akubo: Having a handle on physics is a game-changer in today’s economy. Much of the fundamental research being done today in disciplines such as medicine, chemistry, biology, veterinary science and engineering benefits from physics. Physics can contribute in a powerful, influential way or hinder students along their path. 

Physics is also fundamental in the home in understanding and explaining the phenomena that surround us. 

Imagine for a moment that very young Johnny has just watched a movie in which he saw a person who had put a frying pan on the stove mistakenly touch the handle of a spoon they left in that frying pan — it would be hot. Johnny wonders how that happens and shares his curiosity with a parent. This is a chance for the parent to explain that there is heat energy transfer through conduction through some materials and to explain why the handles of pots are made from wood or rubber or plastic because they are insulators against heat.

Physics and the natural sciences are an everyday experiential subject that we breathe and live, even if we are not conscious of it. 

Q: What advice do you have for students considering secondary science education?

Akubo: The pandemic highlighted inequities in pre-K through grade 12, and many students are still reeling and trying to catch up with the loss they experienced. My courses teach my pre-service teachers to design lesson plans that reflect on these inequities. 

Prospective teachers also need to be mindful of developing their proficiency at teaching less homogeneous demographics in their classrooms. The majority of teachers are from the white demographic and mostly women, but Delaware classrooms are becoming more diverse with an increasing number of students of color. 

This means teachers have to care about who their students are, where they come from, in terms of their racial identity, their gender identity, their socioeconomic identity. They can leverage this information to design their own instructional strategies, or their pedagogies. All of these are important. 

In my classrooms, I highlight student responsive teaching and culturally relevant pedagogies that push the teacher candidates to be much more reflective about who they are themselves, because if they understand their own identities, they can put those identities in conversations with their own students’ identities and then design lesson plans that can help bridge differences and so have the greater potential to teach in an increasingly equitable way.