EDITORIAL: Life lessons

Last Updated on Friday, 10 February 2012 15:27 Friday, 10 February 2012 10:19

With zest and humor, evolutionary biologist Dr. Dan Riskin told students assembled for the Southern Connecticut Invitational Science and Engineering Fair at Amity High School why they should consider becoming a scientist.

“You’ll never be bored as a scientist,” he promised them, “because things happen in the biological world that you can’t discuss at the dinner table.”

Nerdy can be sexy, he maintained, and he included a picture of his young wife, smiling for the camera while she was standing in a pool of water inhabited by anacondas.

Drawing from his own life experiences, which led him from the laboratory at Cornell University to the TV studios in Canada, where he co-hosts the show Daily Science, something like a Bill Nye the Science Guy, he shared several lessons with his audience.

• Follow your own curiosity, whether or not there is a prize at the end.

• Pay attention to the world around you — it’s full of surprises.

• Get mentored. Surround yourself with people you admire.

• Mentor. It enriches your own life

• Spend time with interesting people who challenge you.

• It’s not the contest that matters, it’s the experience you had.

• Be awesome.

• Question authority — and that includes your teachers and parents.

• Question your own authority.

• Get outside your comfort zone.

• Swim with sharks and take some risks.

• Use your skills.

• Thinking for yourself is harder than following the rules.

More than 170 exhibits were displayed in the small gym, and this is an opportunity to congratulate the young scientists on doing a bit of all of the above. It is also an opportunity to thank those who mentored them and nurtured the questioning minds along the way.