1 Darwin and the Arts. Lessons for a STEAM educationMartin Braund About three years ago I was invited to contribute a chapter to a book called ‘Darwin Inspired Learning’. Originating from the Charles Darwin Trust based at Darwin’s home in Sussex, the idea was for authors to reflect on what Darwin means to them and to provide ideas for teaching about Darwin, his life, his discoveries and his significance to science today. Like many of you, maybe, I had been asked to contribute to many books before, but this seemed different and just a little overawing, especially when I learned that other authors included Darwin’s most renowned biographer (James Moore), Darwin’s great- great grandson (Randal Keynes), THE experts on the Darwin finches from the Galapagos (Peter and Rosemary Grant) and many other experts from all corners of the world. I was said to be one of 28 “Darwin Scholars”! I was asked if I could write something about using drama to teach about Darwin and evolution. Of course I had some ideas and even some unused plays I had written from way back in the 1980s when I was writing for Salters Science. I had been developing thinking about how drama relates to science teaching but what could I say about Darwin’s relationship to the Arts? It turned out to be quite a journey and I am still on it! In this talk I use Darwin's changing relationship with the Arts to examine deeper ideas about the ‘two cultures’ (Arts and Sciences) and how science has been perceived (wrongly I believe) in education . I then show how a new vision for ARTS in Science and wider STEM makes STEAM, using some ways of teaching Darwin to show how this works in classrooms.

2 HMS Beagle in the Straits of MagellanHMS Beagle in the Straits of Magellan. After a painting by Conrad Martens Let’s start with how Darwin related to the Arts in his early life. Here are some engravings from the ‘Voyage of the Beagle’. Although these are not illustrations from Darwin’s original book, they are part of associated contemporary artworks that can be studied on the Darwin-online website! (There was an artist who left on board the Beagle, Augustus Earle, but he was forced to leave within a year due to ill health. He was replaced by Conrad Martens) As a young man struggling to make sense of his professional destiny, first in medicine and later theology, Darwin wholeheartedly embraced the arts as did many in fashionable society of the early 19th Century. At this stage of his life there were no conflicts between his growing interests in science and nature and cultural connections to poetry, opera, ballet, fine arts and theatre. Even when at school in Shrewsbury, the adolescent Darwin turned to the plays of Shakespeare and the poetry of Byron to relieve the tedium of rote learning from the classics and other school subjects, which he found so abjectly boring (Desmond & Moore, 1992: 16). Edinburgh’s Theatre Royal provided welcome relief from the horrors of medical dissections by way of ballet and other ‘terpsichorean delights’ (Desmond & Moore, 1992: 23). On the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin turned to Rossini’s operas to relieve the tedium of scientific ‘downtime’ in Montevideo. Darwin expressed his experiences (for example, of summiting the Andes (the lower plate) and of collecting in the dense rainforests of Brazil in terms of the imagery of Tennyson, the landscapes of artist Claude Lorrain and choruses of Handel’s Messiah. Darwin often used the term ‘sublime’ as if to recognise that the beauty of what he saw was beyond rationalisation and theory

3 “I am glad you were at the ‘Messiah’, but I dare say I should find my soul too dried up to appreciate it; and then I should feel very flat, for it is a horrid bore to feel as I constantly do, that I am a withered leaf for every subject except Science. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding out general laws out of large collections of facts. It sometimes makes me hate Science.” Letter to James Hooker, 1868 ... if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature. From Darwin’s Autobiography, about 1876 Here is a picture of Darwin in later life around A daguerreotype, one of the very first types of photographs. After the Beagle’s voyage, as he became progressively more engrossed with validating evidence and constructing theory, Darwin became noticeably estranged from the arts. For example in a letter to Joseph Hooker in 1868 he wrote this (Reveal 1). It seems that as his science progressed Darwin increasingly set the atomising nature of his science above the integrating vision provided by the arts. Fleming (1961) likens Darwin’s atrophy for aesthetics and estrangement from the arts as transformation from an aesthete and broader intellectual, able to draw equally on science and the arts, to an ‘analytical (and therefore ‘anaesthetic’ man) concerned only with scientific facts and theories. It seems that later, in his increasingly scientific life, Darwin could not find the emotional space or mental capacity to integrate the arts, yet this was the very aspect of intellectual life that might have made him more emotionally complete and at peace with himself at a time of increasing self-doubt. REVEAL SECOND QUOTE Reading this about loss of the arts being “injurious to the intellect and my work in Cape Town using drama to teach science where I have had some successes in teaching science ideas, made me think that the enterprise of science (and wider in STEM) and of learning it somehow needs the arts and that science and science learning are not complete without them.

4 Holub’s three paradigms for sciencePhilosophical Science (from classical Greece) Based more on axioms from which theorems could be deduced by the application of logic Empirical Science (Renaissance –Enlightenment and onwards) Relying on measurement, observation and empirical testing of competing hypotheses – the scientific method Of course there has been thinking about the relationship between the arts and sciences almost since thought has been recorded as writing (Plato and others). Some will know about novelist and physicist C P Snow who argued for a more holistic education embracing both arts and sciences in But I want to turn to some ideas from a lesser known thinker on this, Czech poet and writer, Misroslav Holub. Holub, sees science as best understood in terms of a slow transition involving three paradigms. The first scientific paradigm was essentially that of the Greeks, that today would be regarded as philosophical rather than scientific, being based more on axioms from which theorems could be deduced by the application of logic than on empiricism. Holub sees this first science being gradually replaced by the science of the Renaissance, relying more on measurement, observation and the empirical testing of competing hypotheses. This second scientific paradigm is still dominant and characterises much of present day school science and, I would argue, is partly responsible for its sterility in the eyes of many pupils. Holub’s third science includes post-classical physics in which unpredictability and more open-mindedness abound. Here there are critical roles for imagination, metaphor and analogy. The language of science and its capacity to explain through traditional methods is under stress. It is here at this level that the arts have potential for learning science, and teaching about Darwin and his ideas is one example that I show you now. The Third Science (e.g. Post classical Physics?) Unpredictability requires open-mindedness imagination, metaphor and analogy

5 There are reckoned to be over surviving letters written or received by Darwin and the Darwin Correspondence Project (https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk) has transcribed of these. His letters shed light on how a scientist like Darwin worked. But his letters also include insights on how this particular scientist worked within Victorian culture, often in surprising ways . Well known (sociologically) are Darwin’s many letters railing against the injustices of slavery observed in the plantations of Brazil during the voyage of the Beagle. Thus studying Darwin’s letters and using these as a stimulus for student’s own ideas communicated through their creativity can be a part of curriculum activity that does not just exist in STEM/science lessons but could also be part of history, geography, languages and so on. It is also a way in which science can be seen in its wider socio-political contexts. So now let’s look at an example from the ‘Darwin Inspired’ project/book …

6 This example was part of a Year 10 lesson in the UK (ages14 and 15)This example was part of a Year 10 lesson in the UK (ages14 and 15). Students studied letters exchanged by Darwin with Mary Treat, an American naturalist working on insectivorous plants (Stafford, 2015: 41-43). One additional benefit of using this example was the idea that women did study sciences and made significant contributions, even though these were not always acknowledged at the time. Darwin also wrote in support of Elizabeth Garret Anderson in her application for a Professorship at Oxford, at a time when many intellectuals tried to block appointments of women purely on gender grounds, claiming they were mentally too feeble. Based on information from the letters exchanged by Darwin and Treat, pupils were asked to design their own carnivorous plant, ensuring that they explained how the plant could survive and reproduce (an example is shown). Responses to this task showed a significant degree of creativity and inventiveness but rooted in scientific understanding of how a designed plant might attract, detain and digest its prey. There are many examples that you can see here. Activities like this work in science/STEM lessons because they tap into visual thinking. It is often said that today’s school pupils inhabit a visual world dominated by television, games, computers, tablets, films and so on.. Although many teachers would warn about overusing images at the expense of other modes of communication including talking and writing, drawing on visual thinking may be no bad thing. It has been claimed that visual thinking translates into problem solving ability. Visual thinkers literally “see” the answers to problems enabling them to build entire information systems using their imaginations. There is a fuller discussion of this in my full paper.

7 Drama to learn science Drama contributes to three areas of learning in science: about concepts, about the nature of science, about science’s interactions with society (Ødegaard, 2003). 45 drama-based activities in Life and Physical Sciences (whole lessons and parts of lessons) Advice on planning, avoiding misconceptions and ‘warm-ups’ No on to another arts area … Our work in the drama in science research group in Cape Town and reading other examples in the research literature tells us that students are highly engaged and like using drama but also that conceptual understanding is advanced through use of drama. In the Darwin Inspired book I set out examples for each of Odegaard’s three aspects : Simulations and games to teach about concepts Plays about pre-Darwinian ideas, Darwin’s voyage and his challenge from religious orthodoxy Debates and discussion following plays about life decisions concerning modern day selection using genetics. The one I show here, from the ‘Darwin Inspired’ book (also in ‘Performing Science’) is for the first of these, to teach about concepts, such as predation and differential survival using a game-simulation.

8 Warblers and Cuckoos The activity I call Cuckoos and warblers.First I should explain that the Cuckoo is a European example (although the adult cuckoos migrate to some sub-Saharan African countries in the European winter). The cuckoo is a mimic parasite that lays an egg into a host bird’s nest (in this case it is a Reed Warbler). The parasitic chick hatches first and ejects the host’s eggs, ‘fooling’ the host (in this case the reed-warbler) into feeding it until it is able to fly and fend for itself.

9 Cuckoos and Reed WarblersThe main taught concept is colour variation conferring different survival rates of prey (caterpillars) so that individuals with better survival chances are more likely to breed (and pass on their genes). The game-simulation can be played outside or in a classroom or school hall . The idea is that a pupil or the teacher plays ‘the cuckoo’ who wears a ‘tongue’ made from card carrying velcro strips to which the caterpillars collected as prey by the other pupils playing ‘reed warblers’ are attached. The game starts when the cuckoo calls “feed me”. The ‘reed warblers’ search for and capture caterpillars, represented by different coloured wool strands some brightly coloured which stand out against various backgrounds, others having more camouflaged colours. The wool ‘caterpillars’ can be stuck onto the cuckoo’s tongue from top to bottom in order of retrieval, providing a record of colours of prey selected as predation continues. The patterns can be discussed in terms of changes in relative selection pressure as more brightly coloured and obvious individuals are selected out first. A feature of drama is that it has potential to generate additional misconceptions through comparison with reality. In this case it is necessary for pupils to appreciate that cuckoos are not normally fed by more than one pair of reed warblers. How good the drama is as an analogue for nature can be part of discussion that follows the drama-game. In our Cape Town work I noticed that teachers do not spend enough time debriefing or discussing the drama. This was particularly noticeable for student teachers who were drama specialists. They seemed to assume that the potential of the drama to establish learning was so powerful that nothing else was needed to embed concepts or address shortcomings of simulations. As with most learning events, consolidation by the teacher and reflection by learners makes fuller impact of the activity more likely.

10 Why do we need the Arts in teaching STEM subjects?For almost all of the history of education in science and mathematics pupils have been less enthusiastic about STEM subjects than Arts or Humanities Pupil attitudes to STEM in society and in school remain quite poor In spite of huge investment to improve STEM teaching, there is still a shortfall in recruiting enough people to STEM in higher education and careers There are concerns that a generation are scientifically illiterate and ignorant of key issues affecting health and the future of the Earth So what of the wider need for Arts as part of Science Education? What some call STEM to STEAM I have established some reasons why and how I think science relates to arts and how this might play out just for one area of learning –about Darwin and his ideas (though this also goes wider into the sociological side of science in society) but to conclude this paper I would like to turn my attention to why STEM education needs the Arts and how this might happen. Run through bullets quickly … CLICK! If all was perfectly OK in the world of STEM learning, perhaps there would be no need to consider radical change .. But there are some continuing and worrying trends .. That have been around for some time … In two recent reports, one for the Royal Society in the UK, which I worked on an co-authored, and one for the National Academies of Science in the US the stories are the same: As on slide bullets …

11 STEM to STEAM Re-envisioning STEM education should take place at three levels: MACRO-level (curriculum) change Towards a STEAM curriculum – Interdisciplinary collaboration Establishing a core of Science and Arts for all to age 18/19 and beyond MESO-level (course) changes Building in STEM-Art and Art-STEM examples to context-based learning in STEM subjects (e.g. Salters/Nuffield/Horners; and Bio, Physik and Chemie “im Kontext” courses) MICRO-level (pedagogical/classroom teaching) change Using Arts methods to teach STEM: Creative writing, poetry, 2-D and 3-D work, dance, drama and music So how might the Arts be used to re-envision and re-invigorate STEM education … I see this taking place at three levels of actions … As is on slide … CLICK! to reveal subheadings

12 Do schools kill creativity?Ken Robinson, TED 2006, Do schools kill creativity? … I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original – and by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this – he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. Let’s leave the last word on why arts are so important (even to someone who has spent their lives teaching science!) to someone far more eloquent on this matter than me. This is part of what Ken Robinson , previous leader of the Arts Council in the UK and a champion of Arts Education said at the TED talks in 2006 (viewed more than 12 million times on YouTube) I’ll read it out to you …

13 Darwin and the Arts. Lessons for a STEAM educationMartin Braund Thank you Follow Martin Braund on Research Gate