Heading to NASA to Become a Better Teacher
For 24 years, including the past 15 at Calvin University, Herb Fynewever’s primary role has been teaching. But this fall the chemistry professor is on a different mission—going beyond his usual surroundings on a journey of discovery.
“I love teaching at Calvin. I love teaching first-year students, and I get a lot of energy from those students,” said Fynewever. “I know you can get into a rut even when you’re doing something you love. It’s great to get out and do something different, learn something new, and breathe new life into your passions, so I’m grateful to Calvin for letting me do that.”
Exploring New Terrain
Fynewever has been selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow for NASA in Washington, D.C. As part of his fellowship, he’ll be tasked with writing the next strategic plan for the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program.
Fynewever said that what excites him most as a scientist is understanding the interaction between science and government.
“I’ve been really curious about this interaction between science and government, and I have a deep personal interest in policy,” he said. “If we don’t have an educated public and policymakers, then even if we get the science right, we don’t necessarily get policies that align with the evidence of science. I have really wanted to get a job in the government temporarily so that I can understand a bit more of how it all works.”
Deepening His Understanding
While Fynewever is taking on the posture of a student this year, he said he’s also excited about how he can take what he’s learning and directly apply it when he returns to his teaching role next year.
“I can read about [policy making] in the newspaper and listen to congressional hearings,” said Fynewever, “but actually being in D.C. for a year and meeting with people who work in the government, getting to know them, meeting scientists who work in the government, and seeing how it all fits together—that will help me when teaching my classes about these issues.”
Fynewever noted that this learning experience will be especially helpful in shaping his “Chemistry and Public Policy” and “Science and Society” courses.
“In my Chemistry and Public Policy course, for example, I have students read primary literature in science and legislation, and I have them watch congressional hearings, among other things, but it’ll be so much better when I can say to them, ‘When I was in D.C., this is how I saw this working.’”
Enhancing the Learning Environment
Fynewever explained that he wants to provide students with a greater depth of learning so that they can be the best possible citizens.
“We need an interdisciplinary approach to advance the kingdom. From Scripture we learn that we are all given different gifts and that to follow our vocation is to be faithful to the gifting that we have,” said Fynewever. “So some of us are gifted to be scientists, to know how to collect evidence from general revelation, to learn about God’s creation. But that evidence only gets us so far. We then need to think about what we do with the evidence; that’s where I feel policymakers have an important role to play. They then take that evidence and use their gifts to determine what the appropriate, data-informed policy is. And then we have to ask, ‘What shall we do as Christians, what shall we do as humans to care for creation, given what scientists have told us about it?’”
Prepared to Succeed, Preparing Others to Do the Same
While Fynewever’s experience is sure to benefit his future students, the fact that he was selected to write the strategic plan for this major government outfit also speaks volumes about the benefit of a Calvin education.
“I think that part of what’s contributed to my success is that when I was taking classes at Calvin, I spent a lot of time in the core curriculum learning how to write and how to discern, [especially while] taking philosophy and history classes. But even in my science classes, writing well was a requirement, and part of the curriculum included writing formal lab reports and getting lots of feedback,” said Fynewever. “At larger state universities, it’s just not possible to have that kind of hands-on training in technical writing, because it’s so labor intensive—and when you don’t have the liberal arts values, core curriculum, and small student-to-professor ratio, there’s no way to get the detailed feedback that you can as a student at Calvin.”
Fynewever added that that foundational work has also allowed him to build up a competitive resume that is full of publications, a number of which he has coauthored with some of his Calvin students.
“I think part of what gave me a leg up for this fellowship is my publication track record and seeing that it’s in science education and that I’m active in contributing to the literature,” he said. “They probably thought, ‘Oh, he knows how to write, how to synthesize data, so this would be a good person to take data from all the stakeholders and come up with a plan to go with this data.’”
Summarizing, he stated, “This is a new opportunity to learn, so I can come back reenergized with fresh insights.”
