How to Trick a Teenager Into Doing Real Science

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I need to confess something about the software in Amy’s classroom.

It’s a trap. And I built it.

Let me be clear about who’s talking, because it matters. I’m not a teacher. My wife, Amy Riddle, is — a master’s in education, a degree in natural resources interpretation, a room of sixth graders currently piloting an app I wrote called Project FLOW, and the Chapter Lead for the whole thing. I’m the environmental scientist in the house. I’ve spent years in rivers and a good while training early-career scientists, but I have never run a middle school classroom, and I’m not going to pretend I could. She teaches. I build the software, hide lessons inside it, and then get to watch — mostly from the other side of the dinner table — what happens when a twelve-year-old trips over one.

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How to Trick a Teenager Into Doing Real Science