Chloe Kwan

Many primary school teachers have similar struggles with limited knowledge of science and discuss the difficulty to properly communicate sophisticated ideas, especially within the fields of physics and chemistry.

This large hole in their knowledge not only affects the teacher's confidence and reliability, but also the children's interest and knowledge about science.

This continuing trend of children straying away from physics and chemistry is also evident in 2025 HSC data, where only 18,000 children took physics and chemistry combined compared to the 20,000 who took biology.

Even in my recent experience, I spent three years learning about why leaves are green.

Yes, I can tell you about chlorophyll, but why did I have to learn about sound waves after school from a YouTube video?

This has followed children throughout the years, as year seven teachers struggle to fill the gaps and students fall further and further behind in their studies.

Drawing from my own experience, I felt like I knew nothing when I entered high school science.

Every topic the teacher would ask, your primary school teacher would have spoken to you about this, yes?

And 30 girls would shake their heads in a solid, unsettling no.

This isn't an individual problem.

This is a problem across different suburbs, different schools, different schooling streams.

My classmates had come from all areas of Sydney, and the one thing we found in common was not our hair colour or interest in a rock band, but a big gaping hole in the subject of science.

I like to play it out and cover the truth, but I have to say, I absolutely hated it.

Even for reference, if I quote from my bright pink Hello Kitty diary, I wrote, I hate science.

It's so boring.

Even a snappy message from my eight-year-old self detailed very clearly and very fervent hatred of science, which poses a question.

How does a child who quite frankly was told off continuously for asking why and how express such hatred for science?

And not only that, but so early on in their schooling career.

Many, I imagine, cannot remember their primary school scrapbook containing leaves and scribbled notes, carefully detailed in gel pen with the title, Science.

However, lucky or not, I can.