When I was in high school I took AP Biology from RevaBeth Russell at Lehi High School. She was awesome! She was one of those teachers that actually made you want to learn. She was passionate about what she did and it was infectious. She actually had a handout that she gave to all of her students at the beginning of the year that was labeled ‘Hymn Book’. It was a book that contained song lyrics. The songs were all to the melodies of popular songs but the lyrics had been re-written to be associated with something we needed to learn. For example, a song describing the process of photosynthesis was written to the tune of the Beach Boys song ‘Surfin’ Safari’ and a song about chromosomes was to the Flintstone’s theme:
Diploid - you’re a diploid
You’re a diploid in our family
2N is a diploid
It’s from fusion of the ga-ametes

Let’s photosynthesis - everyone is doin’ this - c’mon photosynthesis with me!
Put a little water in the chloroplast - excite it with some energy
The battery recharges in the chloroplast - a new supply of ATP

Sunny days will ZAP the chlorophyll
Sunny rays will ZAP the chlorophyll

I’m not sure if the Photosynthesis Safari lyrics are exactly right, but you get the idea. That also isn’t where the song stopped - it went on to describe the entire reaction. Man, she was a great teacher. I still remember the handy dandy tricks she taught us to remember the phases of mitosis! I thought about it just the other day in my Anatomy class when my professor asked about what role the centriole organelles play within cells and I knew to say MITOSIS! Some things just stick with ya.

One of my fondest memories in her class was one day when we were watching a video on genetic abnormalities. Now, you must understand that I had the class with my very best friend in the whole world and on that day we were in especially silly moods. The movie started going over how if a cell gets moved from where it is supposed to be and it has already started to differentiate, one might end up with an ear on their foot or an arm out their back. Of course the organ would be useless… and that made me think that if *I* had an arm growing out of my back, I’d probably use it to thwap people across the face with just by using my body to spin around and the velocity would cause it to raise up and hit them. It wouldn’t hit them hard, but the surprise would be worth it. Then, I thought about how if I was a little girl and I had a dress on and spun around, the arm might make the hem of the dress raise higher than I’d want and embarrass me. I shared my thoughts with Di (my friend) and something made us giggle uncontrollably. We tried our hardest to can it, but we just couldn’t. It was one of those jokes where you just kept adding silliness to it and for some reason it got funnier and funnier instead of dumber and less funny. Mrs. Russell told us to be quiet. We made our most valiant effort. I guess the effort wasn’t enough because somehow a box of Grapenuts ended up getting flung in my general direction. I’ll never forget it and it will always be a very fond memory lol.

Now that I am working on finishing my degree in Biology (with a minor in chem) and looking at most likely sticking around genetics (you all know that I have always had a strange affinity for all things Darwinian and for Gregor Mendel’s work with pea plants - c’mon! Punnett squares FTW!) or bioengineering. Regeneration is just so cool - and genetic manipulation with it’s implications for helping to cure disease states or just make SUPER HUMANS (lol X-Men anyone?) is just AWESOME. I just get so awe inspired when I think about evolution. I appreciate LIFE (all forms of it) so very much and enjoy learning and knowing how it is possible so very much. I can’t help but think my passion began years ago in that AP Bio class. Thank you, RevaBeth - and sorry for laughing at genetic abnormalities that day haha.