Sister makes science come alive
for kids and teachers
by Betty Doskey, O.P.

I was born in New Orleans and lived here almost my entire life, as did my mother. She attended St. Mary's Dominican Academy from second grade through high school. Later the Academy discontinued its elementary school division and became St. Mary's Dominican High School. When Mom got married, right after the ceremony she and my Dad went in their full wedding garb to see the sisters, a custom many Dominican alumnae followed because the sisters in those days were cloistered, and were not allowed to attend weddings. Mom told me that when I was less than a year old she brought me to see the sisters. Because Mother Mary de Ricci was sick, the sisters carried me up through the cloister to her room to see her. You could say that I literally entered the convent as an infant.

Because Mom really appreciated being taught by the Dominican Sisters, when it came time to choose an elementary school for their six children, she and Dad picked a school staffed by these same Dominicans. We attended Our Lady of Lourdes School, though we were not quite officially in that parish. After grade school I wanted to go to Dominican High School. It helped that I won a competitive scholarship there.

Right after graduating from high school I entered the Dominican Sisters novitiate in Rosaryville, near Ponchatoula, Louisiana. Back in the old days, as soon as the sisters finished their novitiate and took their vows, they were missioned (= sent) to teach, usually in the elementary schools. Those who had not yet finished college completed their degree on Saturdays and in summer school, while teaching with a temporary certificate. (Thank God they don't do it that way any more!)

Eventually I got my B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees with a major in chemistry. I taught ten years in grade school, seven years in high school, and more than twenty-five years in college. Some time after St. Mary's Dominican College closed in 1984, I eventually came upon the idea of my present ministry: being a free-lance traveling science teacher. It's great fun, and I get to share my knowledge of science and my teaching experience with grade school kids and their teachers. I give workshops for teachers and I also go around to schools and bring hands-on, cheap, easy, and fun science from classroom to classroom. I tell them that I'm a field trip that makes house calls.

What level of science do I do with the kids? Well, anything from pre-K through eighth grade. Mostly physical sciences. (Biology doesn't survive too well in the trunk of my car.) I haul my stuff in ten-gallon plastic bins with lids. Fossils take two fives instead, because the little kids who beg to help me carry my equipment to the next room can't manage those fossil-bearing rocks in ten-gallon bins. The plaster of Paris and modeling clay for the "fake fossils" that we make aren't light either.

Sound is a very popular experiment, using homemade musical instruments on which we can play real tunes. We use a xylophone made from wood dowels, and another one made from electrical conduit pipe, as well as a set of panpipes made of plastic pipe from the plumbing section of the hardware store.

Electricity features hands-on electrical circuits with flashlight bulbs, wires, and batteries. Children get so excited when those little bulbs light up! Once on a dreary day in a school with an antiquated lighting system, when those first flashlight bulbs lit up, the class spontaneously broke into singing "Happy Birthday to You!" They really love when I bring out the doorbells, buzzers and tiny electric motors to connect up to their batteries. Chemistry, water, light, magnetism -- the kids and their teachers love them all. I get so many hugs from the little ones, so many "Cool's" from the bigger kids, and such creative and artistic thank-you notes, that I feel much appreciated. But when I hear that a fifth grader tugs on his teacher's sleeve during a standardized test and whispers in her ear, "This is easy!  Sr. Betty taught us all that in science!" I know that I have not only entertained but also really taught them.

I hope that my work will help some children learn to feel good about science even at an early age, so that they will feel that science is fun and is something that they can understand and do and succeed at, not something just to memorize and answer the questions at the end of the chapter. I hope to help teachers of self-contained classrooms to make science come alive for their children. So many of those teachers do not have a strong background in science and don't feel comfortable doing hands-on science beyond sprouting bean seeds in a flowerpot. I hope that when we say the prayer in the beginning of class, this prayer will sprout and bear fruit, too:

Dear God, thank you for this beautiful, wonderful world that you made and all that is in it. Thank you for the sun, the moon and the stars, the air, and for the plants and animals and people. Thank you for light, and sound and electricity and gravity. Help us to use the minds that you gave us to figure out how the world works and to love it and take good care of it so it will be in good shape for the people who come after us. Amen.

In 2007, Sister/ Doctor Betty Doskey, O.P. at the invitation of Dr. Elsa Winsor, Dean of Health Sciences, accepted a position teaching Physical Scence II (Earth Science and Astronomy) at Elaine P. Nunez Community College in Chalmette, Louisiana. Chalmette is the parish seat of St. Bernard Parish. The area was devastated by flood waters in August 2005, but the college courageously re-opened in January, 2006. (For more, see Wikipedia: Chalmette, or http://tinyurl.com/yp8rwd.)