Published: January 1, 2005

Interview: Totally Engrossed

Science doesn't have to be boring, says longtime educator Sylvia Branzei—it can be disgusting.

Sylvia Branzei exemplifies grossness, and that’s OK with her. Actually, it’s more than OK—she’s built a career writing about feces, urine, vomit, and other malodorous topics most textbooks stay well upwind of. The former teacher has written five “grossology” books, among them Grossology and You and Grossology Begins at Home . She’s also inspired an album; launched two science-museum shows, including “Animal Grossology,” a traveling exhibition that debuted this fall at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago; and given dozens of workshops, all with the central theme of “grossology,” a term she coined a decade ago for what has been called “the gleeful study of bodily functions.”

Still, the 46-year-old, who has a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and a master’s in science education but signs e-mails “Her Grossness,” is quick to add that she’s not just being disgusting for its own sake. Branzei’s aim is to channel kids’ fixation with the “squishy gushiness” of science into a love of the field and to get them learning by teaching them in their own language.

Teacher Magazine recently spoke with Branzei about the pedagogy of disgust and what, if anything, grosses her out.