School has started. Really, it started a month ago, but this is the first time I have had a second to catch my breath.
I am taking an ocean acidification class at HIMB, and was alerted to this great blog:
http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/
Most of my efforts so far have been to try and orient myself, and figure out how to handle all the different things that I am doing. I am teaching 8 units, including the college physics lab, at KCC. I am working on weekends for Nalo Meli, managing hives and selling honey. And, I am going to school, taking 3 classes in physical oceanography, coastal geochemistry and the above OA class. Lastly, I am working in labs (note the plural here).
I am still struggling on a daily basis to develop a position of "science". I think if you were educated as a scientist from the beginning, most of the practices and ways of thinking are innate. Yet, I am an engineer by training, and can't grasp how the grad students and professors I meet are not at all interested in applications. What is the difference, then, between art and science? It seems like both exist simply for the sake of existing... of discovering new truths. I appreciate art, and wonder if I can appreciate science in the same way? The difference, I think, between the two is that scientists, if asked, will say that they are contributing to some greater good, while artists understand that the process is individual and done for the its own sake.
I am working on designing a new physics class for liberal arts majors entitled "The physics of paddling"... I really hope to work on a curriculum soon for this project. After another semester of lackluster test results, I am convinced something has to change, but really am unsure what that is. Should I remove all math from the course? The multiple choice questions are just as hard.
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