“Permission to Wonder”: Incorporating Beauty and Aesthetics in the Pre-Service Science Education Classroom

What happens to pre-service teachers' understanding of science education when they are given the opportunity to explore the wonder and beauty of the natural world? This research explores how a class project titled “Beauty and Aesthetics in Science” (Blades, 2014; 2015) impacts students’ understanding of science curriculum, teaching and learning. Drawing on a hermeneutic (interpretive) framework, the primary research question is: How can pre-service students experience science as a tentative, creative space amidst the content focused curriculum they often experienced in science classes? The assignment asked students to choose something in nature that they were curious about, then to research the science behind the topic and to maintain a journal that recorded their findings and their emotional response to their experience. The students were then asked to prepare an aesthetic expression of their discovery and share their creation with the class in a sharing circle. Results from interviews and analysis of student work showed that some students experienced initial frustration with the open-endedness of the assignment, but once they delved into their topic, they loved the opportunity to creatively pursue their interests. Students realized the complexity of their topic and how their initial question often led to other questions. Many shared how this assignment created a much deeper emotional connection to their topic. Students reported that being given "permission to wonder" within a formal education setting was a foreign experience in their own schooling. Findings also demonstrated that students could articulate a better understanding of the indeterminate and complex nature of science and science education

Faraday\u27s Laws of Electrolysis

Physics has no equal, perhaps, in bringing the student to an appreciation of the beauty, the order and the harmony or the universe, and thus drawing the heart and the mind to God whose unbounded powers executed the eternal and marvelous wonders that are all about us. It is intensely fascinating to take peeps into the laboratories of God and wonder what will be the next secret that He will let man in on. It seems as the ages roll by He gradually allows us to share more and more in His secrets or nature; He appears to be slowly un­raveling to man the mysteries or earth, sky and sea. In this thesis, my farewell bow to Marquette, I wish to express my appreciation and gratitude for the good things received at Milwaukee\u27s great university; my appreciation for the wisdom and truth of her philosophy, the conciseness and completeness of her science, the beauty and power of her art, the kindness and courtesy of the administration, and the scholarship and personality of her faculty

Awe and Wonder in Scientific Practice: Implications for the Relationship Between Science and Religion

This paper examines the role of awe and wonder in scientific practice. Drawing on evidence from psychological research and the writings of scientists and science communicators, I argue that awe and wonder play a crucial role in scientific discovery. They focus our attention on the natural world, encourage open-mindedness, diminish the self (particularly feelings of self-importance), help to accord value to the objects that are being studied, and provide a mode of understanding in the absence of full knowledge. I will flesh out implications of the role of awe and wonder in scientific discovery for debates on the relationship between science and religion. Abraham Heschel argued that awe and wonder are religious emotions because they reduce our feelings of self-importance, and thereby help to cultivate the proper reverent attitude towards God. Yet metaphysical naturalists such as Richard Dawkins insist that awe and wonder need not lead to any theistic commitments for scientists. The awe some scientists experience can be regarded as a form of non-theistic spirituality, which is neither a reductive naturalism nor theism. I will attempt to resolve the tension between these views by identifying some common ground

Quartz and Prehnite: Minerals during the Renaissance

Minerals were displayed in wonder rooms for their beauty and used by apothecaries for their medical properties and artists, for sculptures and pigments. Minerals during the Renaissance were collected and displayed in wonder rooms to illustrate the beauty of nature. Humanists would have categorized minerals by their external qualities- color, transparency, form, luster, and smell. Over time, geologists continue to study these external qualities when they are first analyzing minerals, and the internal properties. Today the six major factors in identifying minerals are cleavage, the tendency of minerals to break into flat surfaces; color; crystal form or how the form of the mineral changes as the mineral crystallizes; hardness, the resistance to scratching to measure its strength; luster, the light reflection; and streak, the color of the streak left when a mineral is grinded on porcelain. [excerpt

Longing for Clouds - Does Beautiful Weather have to be Fine?

Any attempt to outline a meteorological aesthetics centered on so-called beautiful weather has to overcome several difficulties: In everyday life, the appreciation of the weather is mostly related to practical interests or reduced to the ideal of stereotypical fine weather that is conceived according to blue-sky thinking irrespective of climate diversity. Also, an aesthetics of fine weather seems, strictly speaking, to be impossible given that such weather conditions usually allow humans to focus on aspects other than weather, which contradicts the autotelic character of beauty. The unreflective equation of beautiful weather with moderately sunny weather and a cloudless sky also collides with the psychological need for variation: even living in a “paradisal” climate would be condemned to end in monotony. Finally, whereas fine weather is related in modern realistic literature to cosmic harmony and a universal natural order, contemporary literary examples show that in the age of the climate change, fine weather may be deceitful and its passive contemplation, irresponsible. This implies the necessity of a reflective aesthetic attitude on weather, as influenced by art, literature, and science, which discovers the poetics of bad weather and the wonder that underlies average weather conditions

One thousand good things in Nature: aspects of nearby Nature associated with improved connection to Nature

As our interactions with nature occur increasingly within urban landscapes, there is a need to consider how ‘mundane nature’ can be valued as a route for people to connect to nature. The content of a three good things in nature intervention, written by 65 participants each day for five days is analysed. Content analysis produced themes related to sensations, temporal change, active wildlife, beauty, weather, colour, good feelings and specific aspects of nature. The themes describe the everyday good things in nature, providing direction for those seeking to frame engaging conservation messages, plan urban spaces and connect people with nearby nature

Creation Theology: A Journey

address, Woolwich Community Health Care Centre, St Jacobs, Ontario, F 7 1995