The scientific method is taught as far back as elementary school. But students almost never get to experience what I think is the best part: what you do when something goes wrong. That’s too bad because self-correction is a hallmark of science.

In ecology and evolution, most graduate students don’t get to experience iteration firsthand, because they are often collecting data right up until the end of their degree. I didn’t experience it until my postdoc, when we failed to repeat a previous experiment. It took several experiments and a lot of time  – two years! – to figure out why. In the end, it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve done.

Wouldn’t it be great if undergraduate students actually got to do this as part of their lab courses (i.e., revise and repeat an experiment), rather than just writing about it?

One thing that can come close – teaching you how to revise and repeat when something doesn’t work – is learning to code.