JoinTeaching Failure in the Laboratory
Many undergraduate science students are misled by “cookbook” laboratory experiments that make science appear to be easy and to always yield anticipated results. This is a direct consequence of the pedagogical approach normally used in science teaching—we use experiments that are “guaranteed” to work. This robs the educator of the valuable lessons to be learned from failure. This article outlines one experiment that uses failure to teach a better perspective on the reality of scientific inquiry.