“Every Mistake Would Turn Out to Be a Treasure”: Connecting Art and Science Through Creative Inquiry

• In Event: Critical Imagination: Creativity, Curiosity, and Critical Pedagogy in Diverse Teaching-Learning Contexts

Abstract

This talk will focus on the art science nexus as a pedagogy of imagination and transformative science education. We will discuss an engaged artist residency in Barbuda where students worked with a visual artist to create a mural that displayed their identity as Barbudans in connection to their natural environment. We will also present a side project that emerged where students created a song and music video that described both their challenges and ways of persevering as young people on the island.

Perspectives/theoretical frameworks
We used a theoretical framework that describes the connection between sense of place and identity development. This describes how the meaningful connections that people make to place(s) are intertwined with identity development that then influences how people interact with places and aspects of the landscape, urbanscape and seascapes that they encounter. We complemented this with an “ecologies of knowledge” (Santos, 2007, 2009) framework which posits that knowledge exists only in the plurality of ways of knowing. This enables us to look at art and science in tandem as ways of learning more about self in relation to places.

We used a qualitative approach to data collection that includes examination of the visual artifacts and interviews or surveys with participants.

Data sources include visual artifacts (mural, video), interview with artist, survey of students

In today’s assessment oriented climate where students are taught to only seek the “right” answers, connecting art and science is a way of bringing back creativity into teaching and learning. The process of doing art allowed students to go beyond their comfort zones while learning how to observe and interpret—two skills that are important in scientific endeavour.

This work gives salience to creative ways of approaching science teaching and learning both in informal learning environments and formal contexts during these crucial times when science education is often monolithic in character and static in presentation.

Authors

• Jennifer Dawn Adams, Brooklyn College - CUNY

• Noel Hefele, Independent Researcher

• Sophia Perdikaris, Brooklyn College - CUNY