TOAD Talk: Heather Grant

Hi everyone. I’m Ms. Grant. I teach science--IS2 and Advanced Biology and this year I also coach JV lacrosse and run the beekeeping program. 

Today I’m going to tell three things I’ve learned as a biologist and how they might apply to your everyday lives. 

Those of you who were at Jack Law’s talk last spring might remember that he talked about curiosity as a form of love which he defined as “sustained compassionate attention.” At the same time, I had Hozier’s Someone New stuck in my head and thought that that artist was probably referring to falling in love with a different person every day. I related to him because I fall in love with a different weird organism every day.

Here’s an example: Do you know those massive, all-black carpenter bees? Those are the females. Male carpenter bees look like what you’d get if a bee mated with a snitch from Harry Potter. I had read about them but never really believed they existed because they looked so wild. And then last spring I was on a hike and my older kid Max said “Mama, there’s this beautiful golden bee over here!” So of course I was off running to see what they had found and then watched them with amazement until it was time to head home for dinner. 

These moments outdoors are some of my favorite memories and those that drove me to major in and then teach biology. As a student of biology, I’ve always loved how the use of microscopes has expanded the range of things that I could be amazed by. A favorite quotation of mine related to this idea comes from English author and playwright Eden Phillpotts who was reflecting on the power of using a hand lens to magnify plant parts. He wrote:

“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”

When using microscopes there can be a steep learning curve--there are just so many things to adjust and getting everything just right (the lighting, the level of magnification, the focus, the spacing between the eyepieces) is so tricky. It’s rather common to find yourself focusing on dust or a crack in the slide or even the reflection of your own eyelashes.

One time when I was really struggling to track down some speedy protists in undergrad, my advisor stopped, looked over shoulder and whispered “use your eye of faith” and then just walked away. He was known for doing this type of thing--providing somewhat cryptic advice with no further explanation and letting you figure it out. With this particular piece of advice, I took it to mean “you’re trying too hard, searching for this thing that you know is there...have some faith that you’ll find it. Calm down and relax a bit, you will.” So I did my best, pretending to be a calm person, and it worked. And I’ve found that advice to be pretty helpful in life in general. 

Lastly, whether you’re scanning for golden carpenter bees in the barranca or feverishly searching for protozoans on a microscope slide, be thoughtful about what you develop as a search filter--because there’s pretty strong neurobiology research about how you’ll quickly develop a skill for finding that very thing. The Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenom basically states that once your awareness is heightened for something you’ll see it more often--you’ve likely experienced this when you learn a new vocabulary word or hear a new song and then that word (or song) seems to suddenly be everywhere. Which is great in the field or in the lab...but in life it can be tricky if you develop a strong penchant for finding disaster or mistakes...when looking for joy or things to be grateful for would be a more uplifting life choice. 

So, to wrap it up...some advice from your local biologist: be open to falling in love with some weird new thing every day, calm down and use your eye of faith, and be careful what you look for because you might find it!