Science doesn’t take place in a vacuum. It requires mutual discussion and dissemination of information, and cooperation to verify and improve upon results. Chapter 4 was especially ingratiating to read as a result, as I loved learning about how communication and interaction aid science learning. You can memorize lots of theoretical information in any science by yourself, but in order to verify the truth and to build upon your knowledge, it’s necessary to communicate with others. It’s often said that you don’t really understand something unless you’re able to explain it effectively. By exchanging what we know with others, through teaching and being taught in turn, we can reinforce our knowledge of the sciences and help others build upon their own. From personal example, this is especially true with biology and organic chemistry. The former requires knowledge of multiple processes and facts – by repeating them to others you reinforce and repeat the knowledge in your own mind. In organic chemistry, it’s extremely important to verify with others what you’ve learned and the solution to a problem. Solutions are multi-layered and can be very complicated, so the viewpoint of others are required to ensure that your very process of thinking is correct.

At the same time, some degree of moderation should be kept in mind when interacting and communicating with others. As crucial as it is to learn from others, one shouldn’t ask information from others when it would be detrimental to their own learning or the learning of others. It’s a maxim oft-repeated – if you learn it yourself, you learn it forever. With this in mind, we should remember to respect the role initiative has in learning science. Not only shouldn’t we needle others to explain things to us, but we should also take care not to spoon-feed knowledge to science learners.