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Education class x science class
As a student majoring in a hard science (geology) and as a the daughter of two educators, I have seen first hand the necessity of interdisciplinary work for students as they transition from high school into college. The transition is also a shift from a structured classroom into one with a fluid dynamic that needs a shape but can flow from topic to topic and even benifit from the interweaving of subjects across the disciplines.
This particular web event would have been tricky to post in serendip's format without a lot of extra time. I have instead opted to post it in two documents attached to this post to preserve a bit of the formatting that makes it easier on the eyes to read.
It may seem backwards, but the first file is the final translations and thoughts on this projects and the second file will be the process I went through to reach those final works.
Sitting in a one room hut in Belize, sipping the freshest hot cocoa I’ve ever had, I was somehow able to both relax and enjoy the moment as well as think about just how much wealth I am a part of at home. I knew from the moment we landed in the airport that everything was smaller and possibly poorer in this country, but meeting a local family and seeing the way they were used to living is what has really stuck with me in the years since that trip. To explain, this was technically a science field trip with a group from my high school, but I feel like I learned much more about the culture of Blue Creek Village and the weather of the rainforest than I did about the topics you would find in a general science textbook.
In nature, the span of a tree’s branches is often limited by the span of it’s root system. In a classroom, the spread of the ideas that are discussed and developed is limited by the basis of knowledge that the students bring into the class. The directions this knowledge is spread and allowed to ‘grow,’ however, also depends on the way in which these students are being encouraged to think. It’s very important to consider interdisciplinary classes as a high priority because it is these classes that will allow the trees of each discipline to really flourish and become connected.
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