Ever wondered how much snot you swallow in a day (a litre), or why your feet smell? Sylvia Branzei could tell you straight off. Disillusioned with the way children are being taught science, she invented Grossology-the science of really gross things. For her, nothing is too disgusting if it encourages students to learn more about chemistry and biology. She has published four books on Grossology and is teaching science her way at the Whale Gulch School in Mendocino County, California. Branzei explains to Anil Ananthaswamy why gross is so cool with kids, and how it鈥檚 stirring up science education in the US.
How did you come by the idea of Grossology?
One day in 1993 I was sitting at home clipping my toenails and I started to think about the gunk underneath them. I said to myself: 鈥淚 wonder what that stuff really is.鈥� Then it hit me. Kids like gross stuff. I teach science, so I鈥檒l invent a new science and I鈥檒l call it Grossology. It happened at that moment.
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Did you feel that science teaching needed a different approach?
Yes, I did. I definitely felt it was boring. The predominant method of teaching is still with text-books and it doesn鈥檛 necessarily relate to a child鈥檚 life. I鈥檝e learned through the years that children are most curious about themselves and the world around them. So even if I鈥檓 teaching something that鈥檚 esoteric to children, say atoms and molecules, if I can relate it directly to their lives then I鈥檝e won them over. They listen more closely and they understand.
It鈥檚 hard to imagine teaching without textbooks
Textbooks have an accuracy and a validity to them, but often the students read the textbook with the teacher, the teacher assigns them questions and gives them a worksheet from the book, and science becomes this black-and-white series of facts. With Grossology and the way I approach science, it鈥檚 all about you. It鈥檚 all around you. Instead of reading the textbook to find out what鈥檚 going on in the grass, kids can go out with a magnifying glass and look for themselves. I get them to do their own research, their own science. I turn it around so that they are the ones who have to become experts and I鈥檓 not spoon-feeding them. Too many teachers are too concerned with wanting to be in the limelight. We want to be honoured and to be the boss.
Why do teachers rely so heavily on textbooks?
A big concern in the US is that many people who are teaching science aren鈥檛 trained in it. You have people who aren鈥檛 comfortable with the subject, so they become nervous and dependant on the textbook. The problem feeds on itself.
How do your students react when you teach Grossology?
One of the things I have to teach them about is the excretory system. Now, if I walked into a classroom and said, 鈥渞aise your hand if you want to learn about the excretory system鈥�, no one would move. If I walk into a classroom and say, 鈥渞aise your hand if you want to learn about spitting, burping, pooping, peeing and farting鈥�, all the kids raise their hands. They immediately relate to the approach that I鈥檝e chosen. They really want to learn about it.
What sorts of things do you do in class?
We talk about blood, and we make some fake blood and then we discuss how similar or different it is from real blood. With spit and saliva, they think about how food is dissolved in their mouths. Then we move on to the stomach and we cover throwing up. Then we do pooping, and finally farts. When we cover farting, I get the kids to tally how many times they fart in a day. It leads to very interesting discussions about what a fart is. The whole course has this insane but useful flow to it.
Tell me more about farts.
The cool thing is that our farts aren鈥檛 ours. We have a bunch of anaerobic bacteria inside us which we cannot live without. They make vitamin K for us and they help us digest our food. These bacteria live inside our intestines and they munch on the food that we eat. They like some foods, such as beans, more than others because of the sugar they contain. It makes them gaseous, and they release the gas. They are the ones that fart. I always tell the kids when we talk about this that they can just blame it on the bacteria. 鈥淭hat wasn鈥檛 me, that was the bacteria inside my gut.鈥� So while discussing farting we touch on bacterial microbiology, human physiology and health.
Don鈥檛 you have problems with discipline in class?
There might be kids who think that sitting in the back of the class and burping is funny. But when we鈥檝e finished studying burping, they stop doing it. It鈥檚 as if all those jokes that they used to find funny aren鈥檛 quite so funny once they are armed with the knowledge.
What do parents and other teachers think of it all?
When my very first book came out, the then head of the National Science Teachers Association told a reporter that it was an entertaining book but that it wasn鈥檛 science. But since he left the post, the association has invited me to do book signings and give talks. When I give presentations to teachers, I tell them that if they are going to use Grossology in their classrooms, the first thing to do is to get permission, rather than just run in there like some kind of rebel. What I鈥檝e found from many teachers is that their teaching authority will okay many of the topics, but that they might not want you to study farting or something. Actually, Grossology has become quite widely accepted. It鈥檚 used in classrooms throughout the US. In Oklahoma it is on the list of recommended books for their health curriculum.
You鈥檝e written several books on Grossology. How have they gone down?
In the first book we covered really basic body functions that all kids want to know about: poop, pee, zits, dandruff, farts, diarrhoea, body odours, snot, scabs and wounds. It was really basic. It was mostly about the excretory system, because that鈥檚 the part that our culture seems to find the most disgusting. The publisher printed 25,000 copies, they went on sale in October 1995 and they were completely sold out by 1 December. In six years, we have run out of books three times. I really believe it鈥檚 timeless. It鈥檚 not as if we are ever going to stop peeing. I鈥檝e had quite a few e-mails and letters saying things like: 鈥淚 teach in a special classroom and I couldn鈥檛 get my children to read and we brought out the Grossology book and now my students are reading.鈥� Or: 鈥淚 hated science and then I got your book and now science is my favourite subject. I want to be a grossologist when I grow up.鈥� The funniest letter I got was from a little boy who told me that my book was better than a stinky, cheese-eating goat. I鈥檝e no idea what that means, but it was very funny.
Can you use Grossology in sex education?
I would love to. Jack Keely, the illustrator, and I have written a sex education book but we haven鈥檛 been able to sell it yet. Many of the sex education books are like talking with your grandma. They are prim and safe and condescending. The approach Jack and I use is more like that of a 12-year-old. It is straight talk-honest and realistic. When I write I seem to become the 12-year-old that I鈥檓 writing for. The original title was 鈥淧. U. Berty stinks鈥�. We have decided to tone it down a bit, to take out the slang. Although the book is filled with honest and accurate information about puberty, the approach we used seemed to scare off publishers.
Have you taken your Grossology teaching beyond the classroom?
Yes, we have a travelling museum exhibit. It started in Canada, came to the US and is now in Singapore. We took the book and made it into a 3D, fun exhibit for children and families. The funniest one is the smell garden. You can smell armpits, bad breath, body odour, foot smell and farts. There are little plastic containers and you squeeze the containers and sniff them and try to figure out where the smell came from. Then you try to pick which bacteria made that smell. The take-home lesson is that bacteria are what make you stink.
What did you do before Grossology?
I got a bachelor鈥檚 degree in microbiology and a master鈥檚 in science education. I鈥檝e been involved in every aspect of science education you can imagine.
Does anything gross you out?
I do have a hang-up with spit. Isn鈥檛 that weird? In one of the lab sessions the students learn about how saliva breaks down starches. They take a cracker biscuit and they put iodine on it. That鈥檚 the control. Then they chew up another cracker and they spit it out and test it with the iodine. If starch is there, the iodine shows black. Once you鈥檝e chewed up the cracker, it starts to break down the starch into sugars and the iodine looks more brownish. However, I swear, I barely ever see their finished product because I always end up having to walk out. I don鈥檛 let the students know. If they knew that I was grossed out it would make their day.