Personal Narrative Analysis

Just fifty-five miles more, and Dad and I would finally be at our campsite. We were trekking by car to Tennessee from our home in New York City, in pursuit of the first total solar eclipse to span the mainland U.S. in a century. This trip was just the latest of countless science-centered experiences Dad and I have shared, but, given the intense summer heat and the distance we needed to travel to be in the path of totality, it was certainly the most challenging. When our little Honda, packed to bursting with tents, camping gear, food, water, cameras, binoculars, a refracting telescope, and, of course, Mylar sheets (the latter “essentials” - Dad said - for safely looking at the sun), had lurched out of our driveway forty-eight hours earlier,

Luckily for me, as someone who has always found science fascinating, and to whom “speaking” the “language” of math came rather easily, both of my adoptive parents also “speak STEM,” and have nurtured the seed of my interest in these areas throughout my life. Family trips to the supermarket when I was young became fun “hands-on” exercises in exploring shapes, colors, and textures, or in sorting, counting, and weighing. Ordinary, day-to-day challenges easily evolved into “teachable moments” for my dad, who could patiently introduce even seven-year-old me to the Ideal Gas Law while simultaneously patching and re-inflating a flat tire, much as he could expound on the concepts of troubleshooting and hypothesis-testing while diagnosing a faulty VCR. When I begged to know how a computer worked, my dad detached the cables hooked up to our Dell, placed it on the floor, and opened it up, allowing me to explore, and to pester him with questions, to my heart’s content. Soldering, chess, flight, weather, wildlife – with a sprinkling of music, history, geography, and a dash of comic book lore – as a child it seemed to me that there was nothing Dad didn’t know! His enthusiasm for learning, and especially for science, has contributed immeasurably to my own desire to make

Dad is the perfect nature guide. As we hike around a sparkling lake or along a winding trail, he enthusiastically points out to me different insects, plants, tracks, rocks, or nests which have caught his trained eye. I especially love when he clicks into the role of amateur astronomer, using his flashlight to trace out the constellations as we sip our hot chocolate, or helping me keep count of shooting stars during the annual Perseid meteor