The chapter mentioned that while informal learning programs and organizations focus on “interest, emotion, motivation, and engagement” (Surrounded by Science, 166) while schools tend to place a greater emphasis on imparting knowledge. But part of imparting knowledge should involve interest and emotion and engagement and motivation.  Informal learning settings’ ability to teach and share knowledge with its visitors and participants without the formal classroom structure,  the administration of tests, or the pressure of obligated learning and remembering, is effective, I dare say more effective, than formal classroom learning. If schools and teachers incorporated interest and emotion into their instruction, I can’t see how students wouldn’t be more motivated and more likely to engage in and feel engaged by what their learning. Retention of knowledge would probably be improved, too. If learning in the classroom were as interesting and engaging as visiting a museum or other informal science learning space and participating in a hands-on activity, people would probably remember what they learned in school the same way they remembered something they learned on a school field trip, something according to Surrounded by Science, even adults could recall years after their field trip.

“The Mystery of the X-Fish” section mentioned that “perhaps the biggest bonus of the experience comes from observing the kids and how well they work together” (Surrounded by Science, 172). It’s great that kids learn to collaborate on projects and learning, and to work with each other at a young age. It’s important in all areas of study and life in general, but it is especially an important quality and skill to cultivate in future scientists. We discussed the reluctance of scientists to share information and communicate with each other about their work and findings (whether that reluctance is born from worry that the other scientists might try to take credit for and publish the former’s findings first or from lack of precedence of welcome and open communication), so imparting the importance of and encouraging communication and collaboration in youth is especially important for the scientific field if we are to make great discoveries and celebrate and benefit from them together.

It didn’t surprise me to read that people use their religious/ political beliefs and personal opinions to choose news sources and websites “whose outlooks match their own” (Nisbet & Mooney, “Framing Science” 56). This is especially easy now that much of the Internet is personalized for its users. Websites like Google and Facebook collect information based on the links we click on and the articles we read and information we type into the search bar, and auction that information to companies that place personalized ads strategically right under your nose to sell products they think you might be interested in based on what you seem to be interested in. Before I was consciously aware of this personalization, I was surprised and amazed to receive a postcard from my cable company advertising special cooking channels. I realized that I had been reading about French and Asian cooking and recipes on the Internet and that’s how Time Warner Cable thought it would be smart to inform me of their featured cooking channels. Internet activist Eli Parisier calls the asserts that personalization creates what he calls “filter bubbles” [after which his book on the subject is named] for Internet users—bubbles in which we only see what the Internet thinks we want to see based on our “clicks” and perceived interests. Two people can type the same subject into Google’s search bar and completely different search results can come up based on their interests and previous clicks. Filter bubbles allow us to find information about the findings we already believe in as described in Nisbet and Mooney’s piece. This, as Eli Parisier points out, is detrimental to learning: if we can’t and don’t see what’s outside of our little filer bubbles, how can we learn and understand things we don’t already know and how are we to consider other perspectives that challenge our own? We are in danger of becoming more and more insular with the technology that should give us access to an almost infinite amount of information and should broaden our range of knowledge and interests. Sitting in filter bubbles that select  scientific information that already fits our opinion keeps us from learning more about different perspectives and research and further convinces us of the existence or non-existence of global warming or evolution or genetically modified foods.

Chapter 5:

We’ve often discussed the importance of interest in learning, but Chapter 5 pointed to the importance of interest tied to identity. Those who are novices, or explorers, and those who are experts, will have different learning experiences at museums and other informal learning environments. Their identities related to their level of expertise and their personal interest are important factors in their learning choices. Gabe Schwartzman was passionate about the environment and his interest and identity—as a someone who was interested in the environment and may have had some knowledge of it, but wasn’t an expert or a scientist—led him to start the biodiesel fuel project. He abandoned the project after realizing that biodiesel fuel wasn’t the most efficient fuel source for drivers in metropolitan areas, but not before actually creating his own biodiesel fuel and using it for a while. Although he abandoned the project, Gabe—as a fellow tree-hugging greenie, I feel like Gabe and I would be on a first name basis— was glad he took on the project and learned a lot.

Chapter 8: 

Surrounded by Science cited research done by Guy McKhann and Marilyn Albert that presents evidence that humans constantly generate new neurons and form new neural connections, which shows “that learning is truly lifelong” (152). I am a firm believer in lifelong learning, but I know that there are people who become discouraged by their age when it comes to learning. Older people I’ve met claim that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and they say it so often to other people and to themselves that they come to believe it. While it may be harder to learn as one gets older, it certainly isn’t impossible. There are older folk who feel they can’t learn anymore or are discouraged by their slower learning ability and they let those feelings keep them from learning; they let the fear of striking out keep them from even attempting to play the game, which makes me sad. Museums that create exhibits that cater to the needs of the older generation should also publicize the findings of McKhann and Albert’s research to encourage the more seasoned to continue learning and adding new spices and flavors to their life and store of knowledge.

Chapter 7 is my favorite chapter of Surrounded by Science thus far . While it has been interesting to read about the ways students and people, who are, or in my opinion, should be lifelong students, learn and the ways informal science environments and designers, and those reading assignments have made me more aware of the way people learn, I found Chapter 7 to be most fascinating!

A previous chapter mentioned that science, though considered objective or an objective field because of the importance of facts or well-supported theories, is affected by their cultural values and perspectives: “science reflects the cultural values of those who engage in it,” “the recognition that science is a cultural enterprise implies that there is no cultureless or neutral perspective on science, nor on learning science” (Fenichel and Schweingruber; National Research Council, 20). Chapter 7 addresses the latter point that science and science learning are not unaffected by culture; it points out the ways culture can be limiting when it comes to learning, and the ways informal learning spaces have tried to include those who might be limited by culture. Including translated labels and other translated language options is an improvement that is most important and relevant to me. My parents are both Chinese immigrants, so it can be hard for them to understand the exhibits at museums, which by extension make it hard for them to be interested in and to engage their children in the exhibits. My mom is fairly fluent in English for an immigrant but has trouble understanding all the words and concepts described on labels. My dad is much less accustomed to English so he has a much harder time understanding what’s going on, and my experience has been like Artur’s: explaining and having conversations with my dad about the exhibits can be frustrating because I don’t have a large enough Chinese lexicon to verbalize my thoughts. I’ve found, however, that the language barrier between us is an opportunity to stretch my Chinese limits as it encourages me to learn more about my first language to engage my dad in conversations about the exhibits I drag him to. The language barrier has also sparked interesting conversations about his thoughts and experiences about the exhibits that are unrelated to descriptions on museum labels. He tells me about what certain pieces or works remind him of in China, which is an opportunity for me to learn about his childhood or life in China, and is also a special way for us to bond.

Translated labels and translated language tools such as audio guides are helpful tools for non-English speakers and their children to engage with exhibits and engage in conversations about the exhibits, but there are still opportunities to learn and have interesting conversations without those tools.

I really enjoyed Ashley Taylor’s piece, “The Art of the Brain.” People often categorize art and science in two very different and separate categories but Taylor points out the difficult of distinguishing between the two. Both areas involve creativity and methodology and neither can easily be defined as solely complex or solely simple.

When I think about science and art, I associate science with a objectivity  and art with subjectivity. Art and artists can be [debatably] objective, and I know that science can be subjective and personal. Even Surrounded by Science makes a point of how scientists, who are supposed to be unbiased and objective, are, by their experiences and interests and perspective, not actually unbiased. Their view of the subject they study is directed by their personal feelings and inclinations.

Julia Buntaine says that art and science both involve “an unquenchable thirst for understanding the nature of our existence” (The Art of the Brain). First of all, I love the quote; the words are beautifully strung together. Second of all, Buntaine is right. Scientists have gone to great lengths, dedicated and risked their lives and reputations and spent all their pennies on their research and field of study, in part because they love their work and in part because they’re curious and have an insatiable desire to explain why things are the way they are. Artists, too, have an insatiable desire to explain, except that they’re—especially in more contemporary art that doesn’t involve fruits in a bowl or flowers in a vase—work is more about using art and self-expression for self-discovery. Science usually involves measurements and concrete explanations, when there are answers and explanations, but art sometimes says what can’t be accurately conveyed in words. This has been my experience in creating art. Sometimes there are no words, which is incredibly frustrating sometimes, but I can find peace in the “just doing” or “just being” way of art.

I’m conflicted about my feelings towards art and science. I feel that people too often see them are separate and unrelated entities and draw many lines to divide them. But at the same time, I draw lines to separate them, too. I’m also finding that I don’t have the words to explain exactly how I feel. Perhaps I’ll paint.

While I found David Gruenewald’s piece more difficult to read because he made references to pedagogical experts and theories I am not familiar with and seemed to be writing for an audience of fellow experts (or at the very least, people who are reasonably knowledgable of pedagogy), I thought he made a good point about bringing together critical pedagogy and place-based education. Learning and thinking critically about the context and social/economic/political influences of a subject are important to understanding the subject and realizing that the certain events or things that we accept as being true don’t happen in a vacuum. It is also important to receive place-based education not only to get a “real” sense of what the particular space is—whether rural and natural or urban and man-made—but also to recognize that our actions have a “direct bearing” (Gruenewald, 3) on the quality and life of that space.
Freire’s words sum up Gruenewald’s marriage of critical pedagogy and place-based education perfectly: “reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world” (Gruenewald, 5). Learning about the environment—rural or urban, natural or socially constructed— we live in is not an isolated activity. Understanding the environment is connected to working to preserve or reform it.
The place-based educational spaces in “Learning in Your Own Backyard” describe Gruenewald’s point. The Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Bay Area Discovery Museum, and Lower East Side Tenement Museum all serve to teach visitors about the environment, whether it’s the ecological environment of nature’s species or the social environment that nurtured a community of a specific time, and to engage visitors to be active participants in preservation and even social and political reform. That, Gruenewald would say, is critical pedagogy of place at its finest.

As someone who is a firm believer in social learning, and someone who loves to talk, I found a lot of the information in Chapter 4 to be interesting, but not too surprising. Engaging in conversation about a topic of study, not just the topic of science, reinforces one’s memory on the topic through exercise of auditory and oratorical skills. It didn’t surprise me that parents who bring their children to museums, and don’t merely let them loose to explore on their own, helped their children learn more about the exhibits. In my family, I’m the one who drags my parents and brother to museums, but discussing exhibits, pointing out salient details, and identifying why a certain painting resonates with one of us or talking about a cool fact about whales serve to encourage learning in both me and my brother—the children—and our parents.

Surrounded by Science also makes  good point about how too much parental involvement and guidance limits learning. Parental participation that inhibits child participation prevents the child from engaging in the learning process. In the past, whenever I tutored my younger brother or did an activity like putting a puzzle together, and I knew the answer or figured out how to tackle the activity before he did, I immediately hinted at the answer to the question in his homework or did what had to be done. Instead of guiding him and encouraging him to think about the problem and arrive at the solution or find the matching puzzle piece on his own, I did the work. In doing so, I took away his opportunity to think critically and learn from whatever he should have been doing. Sorry, Evan! I realize now, that as his older sister who has had a few more years of schooling and whose interests and area of knowledge differ from his, I have a responsibility to encourage and guide his learning experience, not take it away from him.