The smell of fumes with a hint of butter and smoke doesn’t sound the most appetizing. On the other hand, banning burnt popcorn from one student for a whole year as a result of this smell makes a lot of sense. This month’s teacher feature leads us down to the first floor, and into room 120.

Since 2004, Melissa Burns has worked in all fields of life science here at the high school. She is now both a college prep and honors biology teacher and the known anatomy teacher. Just walking into Burns’ rooms feels like entering a place of comfort, even for those who dislike science. From small talk in the beginning of class, to helpful question answering, there is consistently a flow of friendship and positive feelings inside her classroom. 

Aside from the overall positives of entering the classroom, there is a noticeable piece of writing on the upper right corner of Burns’ white board. It says, “Burn Popcorn, January 16th, 2026.” This piece of writing might lead incoming students to think of a possible future lab or experiment. However, this is not the case. 

“A student in my advisory burned popcorn and it smelled awful,” Burns said, “And so they are not allowed to have popcorn in advisory for one whole year.” Despite this not being an experimental food test, the scenario could actually be used in one of Burns’ lessons about graphing and learning the effects of independent and dependent variables.

On the subject of lessons, Burns shared that her favorite labs and experiments to perform are the ‘McMush' experiment in freshman biology, and the dissecting labs in anatomy. On the other side of this spectrum, Burns said “...Freshman honors, numbers in science,” when asked about a least favorite lesson or lab,  “just because there is a lot of grading…”. Along with the numbers, Burns also agreed with the students who say that honors biology is extremely difficult. 

Burns’ devotion to her students shows through her friendly smile and warm greetings. In other words, Burns’ stands by her advice of staying kind, which clearly shows through her classroom and way of teaching.