I started teaching in 1981 at Robert Ogilvie Elementary School in Fort St. John. My first classroom was an old green and white “portable” and I shared it with a group of almost thirty Grade 5 and 6 students. My education degree said I was a Social Studies / Physical Education teacher, but in my first classroom, I was on the hook for the whole show. Math, Spelling, French, Language Arts, a bunch of other things, and… Science.

Teaching science was going to be a stretch. It had never been an interest for me, I’d taken no science courses in university (other than some Kinesiology), and I’d spent most of my time talking during any high school science classes I’d taken.

So… there I was one September Sunday night planning for my first ever Grade 5/6 science lesson. I was to teach my kids about the “Scientific Method”.

The Scientific Method basically consists of these steps:

• Question… You ask a question.
• Hypothesis… You propose a “hypothesis” (this is a sort of educated guess about what you expect)
• Experiment… You design and perform an experiment to test your hypothesis
• Observations… You record your observations and analyze the data
• Conclusion… Based on data, you conclude whether to accept or reject your hypothesis

Since there was no internet back in the day, and ministry approved curriculum guides were cumbersome and boring (they are much better now), I was wracking my brain for inspiration. It came in the form of a story I’d been told by a Montney old timer many years earlier. I decided to weave the Scientific Method into his story. I started with step #1 and went from there…

I told my students that the old Montney “scientist’s” question had been, “Is the distance a frog can jump affected if it loses one or more legs?”

He hypothesized that the distance a frog can jump will decrease in proportion to the number of legs it loses.

His experiment and observations (*all hypothetical, of course… remember, it’s a story!) went as follows…
He gathered the materials he needed. A measuring tape, pencil, chart paper, log book scalpel, and, of course, a frog. He drew a starting line at one end of the chart paper and placed the frog just behind it. On the count of three, he said, in a loud and commanding voice, “Jump, frog. Jump!” 
After the frog jumped, he quickly marked its landing spot with his pencil. He then measured the distance and recorded it in his log book. Next, using the scalpel, he carefully removed one of the frog’s legs. He then placed it back on the starting line and, once again in a loud and commanding voice, said “Jump, frog. Jump!”. When the frog landed he again used his pencil to mark the spot. The mark was some distance back from the first one.

The scientist repeated the same step twice more and observed that the distance the frog jumped decreased each time.  Finally, the frog sat legless on the start line. In a loud and commanding voice, the scientist said, “Jump, frog. Jump!”. The frog did not move. Again, in an even louder and more commanding voice, he said, “Jump, frog. Jump!” Again, no movement from the frog.

The scientist then walked over to his log book with his pencil to record his final observation and conclusion. He wrote, “If a frog loses all four of its legs… it becomes deaf.”

As far as jokes go, this one is certainly a groaner. Some might even call it “sick” or inappropriate. Whatever your opinion, this was an actual “lesson plan” concocted by me as a 23-year-old rookie. I guess I thought it was better than just “reading the chapter and answering the questions”. I’d like to think that some of those kids still remember the Scientific Method…

* no animals were harmed!