Maybe we need More Math in Science

This week, I found myself thinking a lot about math.

Which might seem strange coming from a science teacher, but it really shouldn't. STEM literally includes both science and math, and technology and engineering aren't exactly math-free either. Data, measurements, calculations, graphs, patterns, and numbers are deeply embedded in science.

Still, I've realized lately that I may have been taking some basic math skills for granted.

It Started With a Graph

This week, my Anatomy & Physiology students were looking at bone density in astronauts. They had a table showing how bone density changed based on the amount of time astronauts spent in space, and part of the assignment required them to take that data and create a double-line graph.

I thought the graphing portion would be fairly straightforward.

It was not.

Some students did fine, of course. But quite a few genuinely did not understand how to take the numbers from the table and plot the points on a graph.

Then we got to setting up the axes.

How many intervals should there be? What should each interval represent? How do you decide on an appropriate scale? How do you space the numbers evenly?

That was where I really started realizing we had a problem.

I remember learning how to do these things sometime around middle school. Granted, that was a different time, and I'm becoming increasingly aware that I can't assume students were taught something just because I remember learning it at their age.

But I wasn't expecting basic graphing to be this difficult.

And then I remembered the pie charts.

"What's a Pie Chart?"

During our integumentary system unit, we studied fingerprints. We determined how many students in our class had each type of fingerprint pattern, and then I asked students to create a pie chart showing how common each fingerprint pattern was in our classroom.

I kid you not, I had students ask me what a pie chart was.

Not how to calculate one.

Not how to determine the percentages.

What a pie chart was.

I had to pull up an example and show them.

These aren't isolated incidents anymore. I'm noticing a pattern.

The assignments my students struggle with the most are often the ones involving numbers, graphs, proportions, data, or some other application of math.

And apparently, I'm not imagining the larger problem.

Florida's Numbers Tell a Similar Story

I teach in Florida, so I went back and looked at the most recent Florida Department of Education assessment data.

In 2026, 61% of students scored Level 3 or above on the Algebra 1 EOC, while only 55% did so in Geometry. Compare that with 74% in Biology 1, 76% in Civics, and 73% in U.S. History. Florida actually saw improvement across these assessments from the previous year, which is encouraging, but mathematics—particularly Geometry—still stands out.

Obviously, those numbers don't tell us everything. They aren't the same groups of students taking identical tests, and statewide assessment scores aren't a perfect measure of what students know.

But they do make me feel a little less crazy for what I've been noticing in my own classroom.

At every school where I've taught, math has seemed to be one of the biggest areas of struggle.

And now we're talking about what to do about it.

Math Across the Curriculum

We recently had a staff meeting where we discussed implementing more math across the curriculum.

Our school is starting something we're calling Formula Friday. During second period on Fridays, every teacher will give students some type of basic math problem to work through, regardless of the subject they teach.

As you can probably imagine, that idea received some mixed reactions.

Some teachers who don't teach math weren't particularly comfortable with the idea of having to help students solve math problems. And I understand that. If you teach history or English and haven't had to explain certain math concepts in years, suddenly being told you're incorporating math into your class probably isn't your favorite staff meeting announcement.

I even had a little bit of that reaction myself.

There is something slightly frustrating about thinking, Why am I using time in my science class to remediate skills from another subject?

But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that, at least for science, that's probably the wrong way to look at it.

Because math isn't really another subject when you're doing science.

Math Is Already in My Classroom

I don't need to randomly put Algebra problems into Anatomy just so I can say I'm incorporating math.

The math is already there.

Students need to understand percentages to interpret data.

They need to understand proportions.

They need to understand scales.

They need to know how to read and create graphs.

They need to look at a data table and recognize patterns.

They need to understand what it means when one variable increases while another decreases.

They need to determine whether the numbers actually support the conclusion someone is making.

And honestly, those skills matter far beyond my classroom.

Students are going to encounter graphs, statistics, percentages, and data for the rest of their lives. They will see them in news stories, medical information, advertisements, social media posts, research, workplace reports, and about a million other places.

Being able to look at a graph isn't just a math skill.

Being able to look at data and ask "What is this actually telling me?" is a life skill.

So I'm Trying Something Different

I've already started incorporating more data analysis into my science classes, but this week made me realize that I want to be much more intentional about it.

My goal is to start incorporating short data-analysis activities into our regular bell work.

Nothing huge.

Students might get a graph, diagram, chart, or data table and have to answer a few questions about it.

What trend do you notice?

Which variable changed the most?

What happened to one variable as the other increased?

What conclusion can you actually support with this data?

Or maybe sometimes the task is simply figuring out an appropriate scale for a graph and plotting the points correctly.

I don't want every one of these activities to become a 30-minute lesson. The idea is actually the opposite.

I want students interacting with numbers and data frequently enough that it stops feeling like a big deal.

If they see a graph once every six weeks, of course they're going to forget what to do with it.

If they have to interpret one for five minutes several times a week, maybe reading data eventually becomes just another normal part of science class.

Maybe That's What "Across the Curriculum" Should Mean

I still don't think every teacher needs to suddenly become a math teacher.

But maybe math across the curriculum shouldn't mean taking a random Algebra worksheet and putting it into every subject.

Maybe it means identifying where quantitative thinking already exists within our subjects and making sure students actually know how to use it.

For me, that's graphs, measurements, percentages, patterns, data tables, proportions, and interpreting evidence.

For another subject, it might look completely different.

What I've realized this week is that I can't assume students already have these skills simply because they technically learned them somewhere else.

If my students need to understand a graph to understand the science I'm teaching, then I may need to teach them how to understand the graph too.

And if practicing those skills in my classroom makes them a little stronger in math along the way?

I'll take it.

Because ultimately, I don't just want my students to be able to memorize the parts of a bone or identify a fingerprint pattern.

I want them to be able to look at information, make sense of it, and figure out what it's actually telling them.

And apparently, we're going to need a little more math to get there.

*How I Make these posts: I ramble off my thoughts into a voice memo on my phone. Then, I plug the transcript into AI and ask it to make it a little less chaotic and organized better! If the formatting looks AI generated, that's because it is; But I promise the thoughts and stories are all mine! - Thank you for reading!