Chapter 3 was particularly interesting to me because it discussed interactivity and the learning process involved with interactive engagement. It makes sense that interactive activities, especially those that engage senses beyond our ability to see and hear by encouraging learners and participants to touch and becoming physically involved in their learning process, make for effective and interesting learning experiences. Being able to turn knobs and push levers to make something happen is far more interesting and makes information about a certain phenomena easier to understand than merely reading an explanation of it.
The Cell Lab activity not only encouraged student participants to use their sense of touch to engage their learning of scientific phenomena and allowed them to conduct experiments, but also gave students lab coats and goggles. This encouraged students to imagine themselves as capable science learners and even as scientists. In class we discussed the general image that came to mind when people and children in particular thought of scientist: a solitary male with wild “mad scientist hair,” wearing a lab coat, surrounded by beakers with cool colored chemicals. Giving children lab coats and goggles makes them feel included in the often-considered exclusive field of science, and participating with their peers shows them that science is a group effort and that learning and engaging with scientific ideas is more meaningful and easier to learn when scientific experiences are shared with others.
All posts by Adrienne Zhou
Citizen Science Reflection
On Jeffrey P. Cohn’s article “Citizen Science: Can Volunteers Do Real Research?”
Cohn’s article discussed Citizen Science, a form of informal science learning that incorporated many strands of informal science learning mentioned in Surrounded by Science. Citizen Science projects allowed and encouraged volunteers to understand scientific content and knowledge, to engage in scientific reasoning [while not by manipulating or testing in the form of experiments, but by observing and exploring the living things on which they collected data], and to use the tools and language of science (strands 2, 3, 5). One would hope that Citizen Science projects also encouraged volunteers to reflect on the scientific experience and the learning experience and cultivate a scientific identity (strands 2,6). Citizen Science also relies on the first strand; without an interest or curiosity in the subject of a citizen science project, few would volunteer to participate.
While Cohn’s article was an excellent example for understanding the six strands of informal science learning, it was also an interesting and impressive read. It’s ironic that scientific organizations and groups “can’t get enough research assistants to do what [they] can get volunteers to do” (Cohn, 193). I would think that researchers love their field of work and would jump at every opportunity to be involved in research, whether or not they were compensated for it; after all, they did choose to make scientific study their career.
Citizen Science projects are such a great idea that I’m surprised I haven’t heard about them until this class. The field of science benefits from the data collected by citizen scientists and the public is inspired to appreciate nature, and learn more about and be involved in a field of study that it finds interesting. I used to think scientists were highly-educated and highly-trained professionals who were a very exclusive group, and too an extent they still are, but projects and experiences like citizen science make science a more attractively inclusive subject, especially if citizen scientists can be as young as third graders to participate.
-Adrienne Zhou
Chapter 2 (Science and Science Learning) Reflection
I liked that Chapter 2 acknowledges the social and cultural forces that influence science and scientists. Scientists are drawn to what they study by personal interests as well as the social and cultural conditions of their time and view their discoveries and observations through those lenses. As the chapter states, “science reflects the cultural values of those who engage in it” (Fenichel and Schweingruber; National Research Council, 20).
I also enjoyed the idea of inviting laypeople with strong interests in certain areas of study, such as the study of birds, to partner with trained scientists and experts in the field to further the knowledge available. The experience of Project FeederWatch was beneficial for both “citizen scientists” and trained scientists; citizen scientists had the opportunity to be challenged and learn more about and be actual participants in furthering research on birds and bird behavior, and trained scientists learned that some of their hypotheses were inaccurate and the data gathered by citizen scientists were so significant that they were published in peer-reviewed journals.
The “strands of science” learning described the whole process of informal science learning, which I thought was very thorough and marked the steps of informal learning from the very beginning with sparking an interest to encouraging the informal scholar to think scientifically with scientific reasoning and to use tools and vocabulary that trained scientists and experts use and to develop a scientific identity. This process definitely engages scientific interest and if followed through, can make an informal scholar, a citizen scientist, feel like an important and included part of a field more traditionally represented by formally trained individuals.
“The 95 Percent Solution” Reflection
While I was initially surprised by the findings that students spend so little time learning in schools, I realized that experience is not too surprising. In my experience, and those of most of my peers, much of what I learn in the classroom is “learning for school, as opposed to learning for life” (Falk and Dierking 489). I’ve read textbooks and taken notes on so many subjects and seem to retain the information I take in just until after the exam or presentation that tests that knowledge. During winter break last year, I reflect on my first semester of college and all the classes I took and tried to remember what I had learned. I had done so much reading and attentive listening and participating in class and so much of the information I tried to recall was vague, even in subjects I was particularly interested in. It worries me that I can’t explain Hobbes’ philosophical theory in more detail than he believed humans to be inherently evil and belligerently competitive, and therefore need a single ruler to keep them from constantly going to war with each other.
It doesn’t surprise me though that interest encourages learning and that those interested in a certain topic are more knowledgable than those who’ve had more formal schooling. I’m interested in Biology and Chemistry, have taken those courses, and remember names of certain bones and the functions of certain body parts and organs, but my interest in nutrition and physiology has made me more motivated to learn about the body and the effect food has on it. I still believe formal education is important though, and that we should be learning both inside the classroom and out. While interest is an important part of learning, lack of interest should not be an excuse to be avoid learning a certain subject; resistance to learning is more of a hinderance than lack of interest.
Introduction/ Bioblitz
Helllloo! My name is Adrienne Zhou and I am currently double majoring in Health and Nutrition Science and Sociology. I hope to become a nutritionist, and later social activist in third-world countries. I’d also like to go to culinary school in France and be trained as a chef of French cuisine. I’d also love to be a sushi chef.
I expect to learn a lot about science and the less-structured ways we, as denizens of a great city with many cultural and scientific public resources, learn about science. Knowing and understanding the subject of science would make me more well-rounded, and therefore more capable of understanding different perspectives. It would also made me a more informed nutritionist.
For the Bioblitz event, I studied lichen, which are tiny organisms that are a combination of fungus and algae, in Central Park. My group and I searched for, identified, and counted lichen on trees and rocks. Lichen are a little known part of the food chain; they are a source of food for animals like moose and deer; some animals eat as much as 7kg of lichen for a meal! Lichen have also been disappearing because of air pollution, so the absence of lichen are a sign of heavily polluted air, which affects the quality of life of all living things and the environment.
The volunteer who lead my group was very knowledgable about many things; she does research for the Botanical Garden and was especially knowledgable on the subject of lichen. There were so many different kinds of lichen and she was able to identify all the little organisms, which all looked the same to me, which was very impressive and says a lot about her dedication to lichen studies. She participated in Bioblitz as part of her research for the Botanical Garden and also because she was interested in the opportunity to study life forms in Central Park.
This activity makes us as New York citizens more aware of the environment and nature that the city was built on, which, one would hope, makes us more conscious of the choices we make and the consequences they have on the environment.
The Bioblitz event was a really great opportunity to see Central Park from a different perspective. I go to the park to sit on the grass and read, or to people watch, or to bike or explore and connect with the greenery set in the middle of concrete jungles and enormous skyscrapers.
What I used to consider moss on the tree, I found out, was actually lichen! That made me think about the trees in my neighborhood and how I was so close to lichen for all of my life and didn’t even know they existed. I didn’t like that all the lichen looked the same to me; I studied the different kinds we encountered and tried to differentiate them, but wasn’t very good at it, but I would love to partake in another activity like this!
