Science Teacher

Do you remember Mr. Wizard? If you grew up in the 1980s and wanted to learn about static electricity, the laws of motion or spontaneous chemical reactions, he could teach you in less than five minutes, using only a balloon and a bag of groceries. After all, he wasn’t just a TV personality; first and foremost, he was a Science Teacher.

You probably won’t have your own TV series when you’re a Science Teacher. You will, however, have a captive audience — a classroom full of students — and an arsenal of props: lab coats, goggles, microscopes, Bunsen burners and scores upon scores of beakers.

The subjects and grade levels you teach may vary — you might teach general science to middle schoolers, for instance, or high school-level courses on topics such as astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics and geology — but your mission is always the same: As a Science Teacher, you’re paid to instruct students about the physical world around them.

To do that, you’ll create daily lesson plans that include lectures and presentations, as well as hands-on scientific experiments that illustrate concepts like gravity and transmutation.

Like all Teachers, you’ll assign and grade homework, administer tests and, when necessary, give rewards and discipline. Ultimately, however, your job is developing the left side of students’ brains; even if they don’t remember the Periodic Table when they’re 30, you’ve done your job if they can hypothesize, reason, experiment and substantiate their way through life’s stickiest situations (including, but not limited to, egg drops and frog dissections!).