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Article: Science Fiction
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- September 11, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Fascinating as the study of science may be, introductory
courses can be off-putting to those not dedicated to the subject. So
Steve Grebe, associate professor of biology at American University,
likes to liven up his classes by inviting famous guest lecturers:
Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Gregor Mendel, Charles Darwin. Grebe does
this by portraying the late greats himself, complete with costumes,
wigs and foreign accents.
"Science is more than just ideas, it's people," says Grebe, who
looks for "quirky, humorous" anecdotes to humanize the textbook
biographies of the scientists he covers in his course, Great
Experiments in Biology.
There's Leeuwenhoek, for example, who in the 1600s invented a ...