Another Dobzhansky quote (see box to left) brings home the idea that biology is the study of the essence of life:

“Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts – some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.”

Our students and others like them will be tasked with solving the threat that global warming poses to our biosphere and all life within it. Perhaps by doing so, they will discover new ways to fuel our automobiles, industries and farms so essential to modern life. SMA graduates and other promising young people will become the doctors, nurses, and medical researchers that will work to solve the problem of new strains of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, and new viruses that make their way from the rainforests into an age in which they can spread around the world in hours, not years.

Students in my biology classes will be introduced to the problems faced by a growing number of organisms on Earth that face extinction, mostly because of our impact on the environment. They will skim the surface of the field of genetics, a field that holds the keys to unraveling the mysteries of some mankind’s most debilitating diseases. They will learn more than most ever thought they wanted to about cells, and what happens to them when they lose control and become cancerous.

Biology students of today are learning things that only a few years ago were hidden in realms that we couldn’t reach. The mechanisms of photosynthesis and aerobic respiration are still studied in biology, but in far more detail than older generations did.  Such is the nature of knowledge – it grows and we have to grow with it.  It is my hope that I can do my part to help students along the path that leads to the enlightening notion that learning is a fun and rewarding lifelong process.