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Literature in an interdisciplinary science seminar.

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Abstract

Secondary school students tend to compartmentalize knowledge--writing and literature fit in English class; analytical thinking works in mathematics; research and investigation belong in science class; and cultural studies takes place in history class. But what happens when teachers shatter those assumptions? Are students able to make a paradigm shift? What happens when an interdisciplinary science seminar attempts to connect all knowledge in one course? The study of a literary work in a science course can improve both students' knowledge of science as well as an understanding of themselves and the culture they study. In doing so, they create a culture of understanding that fosters connections between ideas and intellectual risk taking, while at the same time breaching the gulf of incomprehension that can exist between literary intellectuals and scientists.

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"Literary intellectuals at one pole--at the other scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension." C.P. Snow

Secondary school students tend to compartmentalize knowledge--writing and literature fit in English class; analytical thinking works in mathematics; research and investigation belong in science class; and cultural studies takes place in history class. But what happens when teachers shatter those assumptions? Are students able to make a paradigm shift? What happens when an interdisciplinary science seminar attempts to connect all knowledge in one course? Just as Aristotle, among the world's keenest observers of the natural world, employed literary devices to convey his science, so too do we span the gulf that appears between the disparate poles mentioned above.

We teach such a course, called Oceans: Past and Present, to seniors at The McCallie School, a boys" college preparatory independent school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In fact, last spring semester we chose to read Carl Safina's Song for the Blue Ocean (1997), a personal narrative that explores science, fishing, culture, and politics. The literary quality of this book became an important part of the selection because Dr. Safina won the Lannan Award for Literature, a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, and Pew Scholar's Award in...

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