Communicating science is just as important as learning about science. There is no point in learning something and being unable to share it with others. This is why it is absolutely necessary for scientists to be able to communicate their findings to the general public. There’s too many reasons as to why communication is important. One of them, as mentioned by Alan I. Leshner, is the fact that “Public understanding of science not only affects people’s ability to appreciate and make full use of the products of science, it also contributes to the extent of support for scientific research.” If scientists were unable to explain exactly how their research was beneficial, then there would never be any support for their research. It may sound silly because it’s so obvious, but it’s really something to think about. It’s already hard enough to understand scientific articles and papers if you have no experience with science or the issue/topic that was being discussed. Scientists have their own sort of vocabulary that’s perfectly fine when used when in their own circle of scientists, but the general audience might have no clue what words such as “transgenic,” “lac operon,” or “viscous” mean. It’s important for people that aren’t scientists (even though we previously discussed how anyone can be considered a scientist) to understand the basic gist of a specific scientific idea or concept, especially if it’s affecting them in some shape or form. For example, as mentioned in the Framing Science article, “with its successive assessment reports summarizing the scientific literature, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has steadily increased its confidence that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming.” Global warming is a huge issue in our world today, and it’s imperative that people are able to understand how and why this is happening, so that they can know how to approach the problem. Global warming is only one of many problems today that are rooted in science, so successfully being able to communicate science is definitely a must for scientists today.

I enjoyed reading Chapter 9 of Surrounded by Science mainly because I could easily relate to the variety of ways informal science was being spread. I’ve been constantly learning about science through both informal and formal experiences all my life, so I was pretty much agreeing with almost everything in this chapter. The cute little paragraph about fish and the ocean in the beginning of the chapter caught my attention and made me want to continue reading the chapter (a perfect example of Strand 1). I thought it was great how the Liberty Science Center was using cell phones to teach the museum visitor population about the exhibits they saw. Cell phones are being looked down upon recently because they limit social interaction since most people tend to be attached to their cell phones like it’s their second appendix. However, it was reassuring to read that cell phones are also being used for educational and interactive purposes. It made me think of the iNaturalist app we were told to download during the BioBlitz, and how the fact that nearly everyone had an iPhone turned out to be pretty useful!

After reading about the Mystery of the X-Fish story, I automatically thought about our visit to the Poison exhibit at the the Museum of Natural History. After watching a presentation about the story of a man who committed a crime by poisoning another man (I think it might have been his enemy), we were told to move further into the exhibit and look at different scenarios where something had happened and it was our job to figure out what item was responsible for the crime. It was the same exact thing as the X-fish exhibit because both exhibits required solving different problems through observations as well as making educated guesses based on those observations to effectively solve the mystery at hand. I think that’s an excellent way to learn because you’re not only taking in information from the environment, you’re also making your own rational decisions based on what you observed and learning how to think in situations where you need to work out a way to solve a given problem.

After reading Chapter 5 of Surrounded by Science, I couldn’t agree more with the fact that interest is a key factor in informal science learning. Being interested in a certain thing or topic seemed like a simple notion to me-you’re either interested or you’re not. But, after reading this chapter, I saw just how complicated interest can be when it comes to informal science learning. There’s many different aspects to it, aspects that I knew existed but couldn’t really identify. For example, Deborah L. Perry’s model to improve the quality of museum exhibits consists of curiosity, confidence, challenge, control, play, and communication. When I look at or participate in a museum exhibit, I experience almost all of these things, which I thought was really cool. One sentence that stood out to me from this chapter was “These environments are also designed to be safe and to encourage exploration, supporting interactions with people and materials that arise from curiosity and are free of the performance demands that people often encounter in school.” This got me thinking that learning in school is unfortunately hindered because these performance demands are used to give students grades. I want to point out that this is not always the case, but from my personal experience, classes that haven’t interested me have failed in doing so because all I’m doing is attempting to pass an examination with the information I learn. However, the results of removing performance demands in the educational system could potentially be disastrous since the majority of students wouldn’t attempt to learn anything that they didn’t want to. I also feel like the whole liberal arts education debate comes into play here as well, in that some people believe we need to be exposed to a variety of disciplines and fields of study, but that’s a whole other story. The ideal learning environment is one in which you are genuinely interested in the topic at hand, and want to learn about it and excel in it because you just want to know something, anything, about it. You want to discover. You want to find. Humans are curious creatures. We want to be able to know things about everything in our environment, which is an excellent driving forece for learning. Although being human connects us all, having our own personal interests distinguishes us from each other. I can be having the time of my life at an exhibit on extreme thermophiles while you can be at a cow dissection having your mind blown, but what drew us both to each exhibit was the same thing: interest.

After reading Chapter 8, which focused on how different age groups experience science learning, I started thinking about how extraordinary it is to consider just how much a child actually learns during the first few years of his or her life. Even something as simple as dropping an object and recognizing the effects of gravity helps a child learn about their surrounding environment. If we were able to mimic the way children learn at early ages during adulthood, we would all be geniuses. I really wish we had a way of reflecting on our own childhood learning experiences as children, but unfortunately we remember only a few precious memories or weren’t aware of our thoughts yet. I’ve thought about the first memory I have of my life, and I think I might have been perhaps four or five years old. Our childhoods are a huge portion of our lives, and as a hopeful Children and Youth Studies major, I am so in awe by the fact that we are able to learn so much and yet remember so little of those learning experiences. It just goes to show that the human mind is incredible.

After reading Chapter 7 of Surrounded by Science, which focused on promoting equity in science learning, especially in informal settings, I found myself thinking about how I’ve seen museums doing their best to appeal to all audiences, regardless of their culture, socioeconomic background, or disability. For example, the American Museum of Natural History has a suggested admission fee (meaning that you can pay whatever you want, even just one dollar), which definitely makes it more accessible to people of all different kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds. However, I feel like not a lot of people are aware that this museum has a suggested admissions fee, so I always try to spread the word about this amazing opportunity. I’ve also noticed that most exhibits are accessible to people with different disabilities, which makes me extremely happy that any problems with inaccessibility are being addressed and that everyone has a chance to completely experience an exhibit. This chapter made me think of the ramp in the dinosaur exhibit in the Museum of Natural History, which allows those in wheelchairs to see the room from the same angle as those without a physical disability.

I really liked that the educators and designers whose job it was to address the problems of inequality in science learning turned to the people who knew how it felt like to be excluded from programs, activities, and exhibits that may have been geared toward middle-class whites. Instead of trying to solve the problem on their own, they went directly to the source, like the Children’s Discovery Museum’s Vietnamese Audience Development Initiative team did when they worked with the Vietnamese community. It was a symbiotic relationship between the two communities since the Vietnamese Audience Development Initiative team was working hard to appeal to the Vietnamese community while the Vietnamese community was providing the team with both positive and negative feedback so that the exhibit could ultimately improve. The same applies to the both the Museum of Science in Boston working with people who had disabilities and the Native Science Field Center working with Blackfeet tribal communities.

Overall, I think that taking steps in order to include nondominant groups in science learning is a top priority in the science education field. If everyone is to have an equal learning experience, then there need to be no obstacles at all for any member of any audience. Science is universal, so why can’t science learning be universal as well?

Even though a big portion of Chapter 3 focused on figures and graphs, I really enjoyed reading about neighborhoods that I am familiar with in Brooklyn and learning more about their history. I am actually moving to the Gerritsen Beach area, so it was cool to read about the area’s history, especially because I’ve noticed the Italian/Irish majority in the neighborhood itself (I’ve seen Irish and Italian flags hung outside many homes). I’m also familiar with Sheepshead Bay because I used to attend the Bay Academy which was right next to the end of the big bay on Emmons Avenue and West End Avenue. When reading about all of the neighborhoods I was familiar with, I found myself agreeing with every analyzation that Chapter 3 talked about; I’ve experienced all of these neighborhood communities firsthand and know which immigrants dominate which neighborhood. However, I found it strange that Borough Park was included in the list of neighborhoods that are near Jamaica Bay because it is in fact nowhere near Jamaica Bay. A multitude of neighborhoods are much closer to Jamaica Bay than Borough Park, like Manhattan Beach or Midwood. Even Brooklyn College is closer to Jamaica Bay than Borough Park.

I didn’t know just how important Jamaica Bay was for immigrants until reading the last two chapters. I thought Chapter 5 was very well-organized because it first gave a little bit of history of the religious denomination that was being described before shifting to how the religious community was tied to Jamaica Bay. It was unfortunate to read about the tension between the National Park Service and members of the Hindu community because of the puja ceremonies. It seemed like there was no right answer to this problem. It’s extremely important for people to feel comfortable when practicing their respective religion, but leaving trash in the Jamaica Bay crosses the line. We need to keep our environment clean and safe, and leaving discarded items, even if you’re following a sacred tradition, is out of the question.

After reading about the eruvim in Chapter 5, I thought about whether I have seen these structures before and perhaps not realized it. It was interesting to read about yet another religious controversy that was focused around Jamaica Bay, especially since it involved a completely different religion: Judaism instead of Hinduism. I thought it was interesting to notice that different religions can be connected through the idea that both see water and Jamaica Bay as a place of symbolism and purity, no matter what their central belief is. I believe that it’s imperative that the National Park Service addresses the needs of these religious communities and creates solutions that allow the groups to continue their rituals and ceremonies without harming their environment. Both sides of the debate will definitely need to be more open-minded and understanding if any solution is to be anticipated in the near future.

It’s instinctive to think of science and art as two separate entities. Science is logical-it employs reason and observations to describe and explain the world around us. Art is passionate and emotional-it is meant to affect us in some way that prompts us to ponder what the art is displaying. However, after considering the relationship between art and science and reading “Art as a Way of Knowing” and “The ArT of The BrAin:“Brainbow” and the Difficulty of Distinguishing Science and Art,” I came to the conclusion that science and art have a unique relationship with one another. Although it may be hard to see at first, they cannot exist without each other. Science is art, and art is science. Both science and art are fundamental parts of being human. How we interpret our world is a direct result of how science and art are influencing our own perspective. I really liked how Ashely Taylor successfully disproved the hypotheses that differentiate science from art because she opened my eyes to see that science and art are truly interchangeable. For example, the first hypothesis stated that science is done for a scientific purpose, and art for an artistic one. What does this even mean? This seemed like a tautological statement to me. Both science and art are ultimately hoping to communicate a particular idea to the audience—this is the true unifying purpose of science and art. Just because something is logical and tries to prove or display or explain a certain fact/idea doesn’t mean that it can’t be aesthetically pleasing and culturally relevant. And consequently, just because a piece of art doesn’t employ the scientific method doesn’t mean science wasn’t used in the creation and observation of the piece. In fact, in order to even describe the relationship between art and science, one must first define what “art” and “science” even mean. There is no one correct answer here, so how can we distinguish art from science and vice versa? My thought? We can’t, and that’s the beauty of science and art.

It’s difficult to describe my connection to art since now I can’t stop thinking about how art is everywhere around me. Actually, this topic-the relationship between science and art-makes me think back to the first Macaulay Seminar we took exactly a year ago, during which we were attempting to define art, and we were discovering that it was an extremely difficult task to do. As I previously wrote in a critical analysis paper, “Defining ‘art’ is something not easily done. Many people differ on what is and isn’t art because each person’s perspective of art is unique. However, it is no question that art significantly impacts our lives. Art is created, observed, contemplated, and discussed; art influences, conveys, entertains, and inspires. Art is ubiquitous–it is all around us and truthfully, anything can be made into art.” Science is art. Art is science.

I think David A. Gruenewald puts it best in “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place” when he states, “Place-based educators do not dismiss the importance of content and skills, but argue that the study of places can help increase student engagement and understanding through multidisciplinary, experiential, and intergenerational learning that is not only relevant but potentially contributes to the well-being of community life.” Place-based learning is a great way to gain more knowledge about not only the scientific world, but a wide variety of topics and disciplines. It’s taking what you have learned and applying it to real world situations or experiences, which I think is the best way to learn anything. I often find myself studying for an exam for a specific subject and thinking whether or not I will actually use the information that I am learning in real life. This only discourages me from further retaining the information for future use, and I tend to automatically discard it right after taking an exam. However, I am definitely sure that if I was prompted to somehow use that information in the real world, I would be more interested in remembering what I had learned and taking the time to learn as much as I could about the given topic.

I also think that place-based education is an excellent way of getting more people involved in their own communities because it builds a symbiotic relationship between people and the environment. Just like Turtle Bay Exploration Park, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum, many place-based learning sites are meant to stimulate one’s interest in and increase one’s awareness of the environment that they’re currently in, be it their own home environment or a new environment that they’re visiting. For example, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum is meant to “present this story [the story of 19th and early 20th Century immigrants] in such a way that the visitors would make connections between the past and the present, confronting their assumptions about contemporary immigrants …” However, by gaining knowledge about these place-based education sites, we are unconsciously creating both physical and emotional ties to them. We associate a certain memory or a certain emotion with that learning environment, and we want to preserve it as much as we can. Thus, place-based education ultimately influences us to want to preserve the learning environments we interact with, which results in a positive outcome for both learner and environment.

After reading Chapter 4 of Surrounded by Science, which focused on the communication between individuals during science learning, I was surprised at how a simple conversation can be broken down into different types of talk: perceptual, conceptual, connecting, strategic, and affective. Unlike viewing an exhibit on your own, interacting with others while looking at an exhibit is able to provoke all of these different kinds of spoken observations, whether by pointing out a feature or pointing out an association between an exhibit and a personal experience. The presence of just one other person helps an individual learn more about the given exhibit because the interactions that occur between the two members of the dyad are able to benefit both members; they are able to learn from each other by engaging in conversation about what they are seeing or interacting with. Not only does interaction have a positive effect on science learning, but it is able to help researchers observe how different people learn in different ways. According to Surrounded by Science, ” engaging in conversation and discussion promotes learning as well as provides a window into the thinking of individuals or groups. By listening to what people say, researchers can find out what learners know and understand, what emotions have been evoked by an experience, and what gaps in learning may remain” (66). By knowing how an individual responds to certain exhibits or experience, researchers are able to revamp exhibits, perhaps by making them more interactive, or more visual, or more related to other exhibits.

However, interaction doesn’t only have to occur in an informal science setting; it’s definitely effective in informal as well as formal science institutions. I often find myself in situations where those in charge of the formal learning institution (for example, a class at Brooklyn College), will start up a conversation about a certain topic, be it scientific or not (but everything relates back to science, right?). I feel like I always learn more about the topic through the conversations I have with other people in the classroom than when I think about the chosen topic to myself. It’s always better to acknowledge another person’s perspective on something, because it might be completely different than your own, which will lead you to have even more knowledge about the topic. As the great scientist Albert Einstein once said, “The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size.”

I really enjoyed reading this chapter from Surrounded by Science, especially because I am one of those people who learns more about a certain topic through my own interaction. Simply listening to someone explain a specific concept, or even reading about it on your own, doesn’t produce the same effect as does actively participating in what you have just learned. For example, I took Anatomy in high school. In order to learn about the skeletal system, I read around ten or more pages of an anatomy textbook and committed what I learned to memory. Even though the topic itself was interesting, my mode of learning about it was not. Don’t get me wrong—reading is a great way to learn about a topic of interest—but unfortunately sometimes reading can get boring or monotone. And it’s times like that when we need to get creative and fun. So, in order to further understand the skeletal system and memorize where each bone was, my friends and I would randomly pat each other on certain spots on our bodies and say things like “Hey! That’s your humerus!” or “So this is where your phalanges are!” What I did with my classmates to learn about the skeletal system was similar to how the stationary bicycle pedaling exhibit taught children about the role and structure of the lower part of the skeleton. We were able to learn a topic simply by somehow relating it to ourselves, and being able to physically see and/or touch exactly what we previously read about. I completely agree with the notion that interactive experiences are key to understanding different scientific concepts.

In terms of learning about science through media, I believe that this is a perfect way of teaching any age group about a certain topic. Media is becoming more and more important in today’s world, in both informal and formal settings. So why not use it to our advantage by informing a general audience about science? One form of media that just came to my mind right now is the mini clip (I think it’s about ten minutes long) in one of the dinosaur halls at the American Museum of Natural History. I love watching it, even though I’ve probably seen it a lot of times. Even though I know what to expect in the mini movie clip, I still enjoy relearning the same information because it’s both entertaining and interesting at the same time.