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Learning, to me, is more than just knowing what other people discovered- the great "ah-ha!"s from some other life, but is truly about understanding how someone came to the conclusions that he or she did, practicing that myself and learning from experience, from doing. Science, especially biology, in my case, is the chance to really be active in my learning, and connect what happens in the classroom or on the pages of a book to my every day interactions. This article presses each person to make science personal- because it is: it is about the life that I live and the perspective I bring to it. Science is not about "knowing the facts" or learning "the truth" of this life and the world I find place in, but observing carefully with a special kind of mindset. Science is about understanding the visceral interactions with the world to the best of my ability, and I think it gives me the chance to see through a different lens- even to look at the extensive academic information through a deeper connection to the physical and material- where it is not so in my head...it is like the first men who flew on rocket ships to the moon.
I read a book once about their trips, and every man was changed- not by the moon, but by looking back at the world, one small fragile planet- not all that vast, and easily damaged, through that small round window. I think that the author of this article asks every person to cultivate this understanding in the perspective that we bring to the world. Science is a chance- as simple or complex as we make it-to accurately understand the universality of behavior and structure, to the best of our ability. The world truly is small, and this is our chance, with each breath we take, to know how much we all share.
But I am left with the question- how to make that real through a class? It seems to me, that the basics are fundamental to understanding the newly fascinating elements of science, but there is little understanding of making the "basics" of science something that excites direct connection to my life- how do I make the unquestioned theories of old something energizing for my constant learning? Something that I do, instead of that I read? One idea that comes to me, is to make the unraveling of scientific knowledge more personal- understanding the amazement that accompanied the discovery of the cell in cork, or the massiveness of the task of naming the parts of the body- even one as simple as a worm- it is possible that that view into the birth of science, into the awe that accompanied each leap, can encourage the ability to question and understand the facts as pole-vaults of insight, can lead to synonymous moments of "ah-ha!"