Science and a Sense of Place: Session One

Science and a Sense of Place

(July 23-August 3, 2007)

Can you tell, from looking at this, what it is?

Can you tell, from looking at this, where it is?

Can you read its history?

not just public art, but a
democratic , creative, community-based process

I. Introduction: doing science "with a sense of place" will raise questions

• about what it means to "do science" /about what science IS
  (cf. the idea of developing an awareness of one's own particular location with traditional ideal: Thomas Nagel on "the view from nowhere"...)
• about the environment
• about culture
• about economics, and race, and social justice....
  (what does it mean to be bused out of your neighborhood?
  what does it mean to be kept in it?)
• about science IN society
• about where we are in the world
• about what the world looks like
• about how we organize the stories we tell about the world.

II. Map-making is a good exercise to demonstrate this.

• draw a map locating yourself in the world
• use your map to introduce yourself to us: where are you from?
• compare maps: what were our different points of reference?
• what various reference frames did we draw on?
• did we omit anything important?
• what do our maps say about how we understand the world?
• what reference frames make the most sense to your students?
• how might you be able to enlarge their sense of place?
• pair up w/ someone located differently, to co-construct a new map of the world: how can you connect your different reference frames?
• what did you learn, by re-drawing a map with someone else? how can you negotiate reference frames that are not shared?

Coffee Break

III. coursekeeping

• logistics: daily/weekly schedule review/parking/sign-ins, etc.
  
  
  
• each morning, a different guest facilitator will share her own frame of reference w/ you, show you how do "science with a sense of place," invite you to design something similar for your own classroom (and the place surrounding it)
  
  
• very expansive definition of "sense of place"--tomorrow morning: psychologist and provost Kim Cassidy about the "place that is the self"
  
  
• each afternoon of the institute
  
  • comment on the morning's session
• • chose a topic that interests you, and create a page in your blog archiving the research you have done
    
    
• final performances about your relation to the material presented and researched here
  • on our last day, take ten minutes to share your most interesting discoveries and thoughts with us
    
    by September 1st, put together a written proposal for educational supplies and materials to put some new/expanded curriculum into practice.
    
    
    
    
  

  
  

  Mollweide Projection,
  (aka an elliptical projection or
  homolographic equal-area projection).
  

  
  IV. Enlarging our map of the world

  • Understanding Ecosytems: Structure and Function

  V. Exploring the Global: "Where Do Humans Congregate?"
  

  • Google Earth
  • National Geographic Map Machine

  
  
  VI. dual conception of the Institute: localizing, not parochializing
  

  

  
  

  
  Uruguayan modernist Joaquín Torres-García,
  The Upside-down Map (1943).
  "A centerpiece in the history of Latin American efforts
  at reclaiming themselves in a world vision.
  Torres-García placed the South Pole at the top of the earth,
  thereby suggesting a visual affirmation of the
  importance of the continent, and in an effort to
  present a pure revision of the world. He was also
  interested in presenting to the world a
  modern "school of the south..."

  So: what have you learned (so far)?
  
  How might you use any of this in your own classroom?

  Before you go: post in the forum BELOW what you found useful from today's session: what can you apply to your own classroom, or you own thinking about teaching? what questions do you have, that you'd like us to address?

  And don't leave til we get your picture!

  • 
    
    Using our Web Page