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A short film that shows how biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, and engineers come together to brainstorm
In a new educational film, scientists use a Rutgers-led experiment to illustrate the creativity involved in real-world scientific investigation. In this scene, Rutgers University scientist Kay Biddle (right) prepares a rover to sample water in the Marika River-Great His Bay Estuary. Biddle’s colleagues aboard the research vessel include (from left) Adam Subas of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Rutgers University researcher Kim Tamatrakorn (seated with a laptop), and Roland Hagan (pilot). (Scientist). (video capture, scientific tools, tilapia film)
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Creativity is essential at every step of the scientific process, a Rutgers University research team argues.
To illustrate their case, they discuss how biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, and engineers come together at every stage of the scientific effort to better understand the ocean’s carbon cycle. Created a short film showing how to do storming.
film, Tools of Science: Creativityincludes scenes filmed at Rutgers Marine Field Station in Tuckerton, New Jersey, and on an oceanographic research vessel.
“We want to show the important connections between creativity, idea generation, and the scientific process,” says Kay Biddle, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS). “They are all essential. If you exclude creativity, science will not flourish and will not be able to tackle and answer problems, especially the complex and grand challenges of how the world works.”
This educational video is the eighth produced by Rutgers. science tools A series aimed at middle school, high school, and early college students. Biddle uses these videos and accompanying exercises with undergraduate students at Rutgers University in his introductory oceanography class.
The goal is to convey a more realistic view of the practice of science and engineering, including how to devise testable questions, how to use data and models, and what it means to collaborate. And it’s done from the perspective of working scientists who do real lab and field experiments as part of several different awards funded by the National Science Foundation. The video on convergence and creativity is part of the Growth Convergence Research Project, one of his NSF’s 10 Big Ideas on Viruses and the Earth’s Carbon Cycle.
Biddle worked with Kim Tamatrakorn, an assistant professor in SEBS’s Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, and Janice McDonnell, an associate professor in SEBS’s 4-H Youth Development Department and a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) agent. I have spent over 10 years tool We are working closely with Los Angeles-based documentary filmmakers at Tilapia Films to produce the series. We also develop practical learning materials that accompany each video to further support the learning goals of teachers and students.
as well as others tool They hope their film will be seen in more schools across the country and the supplementary materials will be incorporated into classroom learning. Nearly 1,500 schools have already subscribed to the series, including many in Los Angeles, McDonnell said.
The teachers who presented the tool The student video has been praised for its highly effective portrayal of the professional lives of scientists.
“I’ve used these in a variety of classes I teach, from freshman biology to the three-year elective research program. I also used them in a summer ‘bridge’ program for new high school students.” said Jennifer Smolin. Research teacher at Princeton High School. “These videos lay the foundation for how to talk about asking questions, developing models, and analyzing data in the classroom, and teach students scientific thinking skills that will be useful in future science classes and in everyday life. It will help explain.”
Another teacher said the idea that creativity traits span both liberal arts and sciences is appealing to imaginative students who don’t understand the applications to science.
“In schools, students often think of themselves as being interested in science or being interested in the arts, but these two fields don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” says the video. said Nancy Fitzgerald, a former teacher at Jefferson Township Schools. to her many students. “This is an important lesson for our students, and we hope it opens doors for students who may have never considered their creative talents to be important in the world of science.”
People may want to become scientists once they realize how wide-open science is for both asking questions and finding answers, the researchers said.
“Unfortunately, I think a lot of students think of science as very formulaic,” Tamatorakern says. “And they don’t realize that science is much more interesting than that. You don’t often get simple right or wrong or yes or no answers.”
The 13-minute film depicts a team of Rutgers University scientists interacting with colleagues from Stanford University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, National Center for Atmospheric Research, NASA, and the University of New Hampshire during the project. They are trying to understand how the carbon in ocean particles from phytoplankton, which makes up the widespread phenomenon known as “marine snow,” ends up where.
To know this, we need to develop new ways to track and characterize these rather fragile particles and determine their destination. Whether they rise to the surface and are recycled into the atmosphere or ultimately sink and become trapped in the deep ocean is directly related to carbon dioxide levels in the oceans and atmosphere. When designing experimental approaches to find answers, we must overcome challenges posed by the vastness of the ocean and the microscopic nature of the particles that need to be tracked.
The film depicts this challenge as a series of many integrated steps of inquiry in which creativity is continually exercised. To move forward, team members have developed hypotheses and invented devices, such as large tanks that simulate ocean turbulence and plastic tubes that mimic the physics of the ocean to clump particles together, just as they do in nature. Build equipment such as.
“The literature suggests that by fifth grade, if children don’t have positive experiences with STEM or don’t identify as STEM professionals, they will forever think they are not STEM professionals. “We know that,” McDonnell said. has developed teaching materials that are easy to incorporate into science classes. “Through our films and lessons, we want our students to see that science is truly amazing.”
The most popular movie in the series is Video. modelingsaid Mr. McDonnell. This film breaks down the scientific practice of representing natural phenomena into mathematical formulas, simulating those processes and events, and making predictions, broken down into concrete steps. Students learn that modeling is an important part of science.
The film received funding from the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and the National Science Foundation.
This article first appeared on Rutgers Today.
–Rutgers University
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