Art, Design, and Biology

Introduction

Why do the plurality of students look at science class as something you survive not enjoy? It is because for the most part the science canned curriculum is pedantic and just staying awake is a goal of many, including the teacher. So how do I address these deficiencies in a discipline that pushes the students’ academic ability but stays engaging, one way is by adding art. While attending Tim Barringer’s seminar “Art, design and biology” at Yale I crafted a lesson that brings science and art together for enlightenment to the classroom.

In today’s social media heavy environment, we must work at TikTok speed with today’s students in order to maintain their attention and keep the class involved. By adding an art component to my curriculum students are better able to engage, grow, and learn in a holistic educational environment. Empowering the students with the ability to demonstrate not only their intellect but their growth and creativity produces positivity in the students that is long lasting. Real time problem solving with your students during the project allows your students to develop and demonstrate their critical thinking and analytical skills that will benefit the students beyond this unit and this class. I will outline the core knowledge that is needed to teach this unit but the passion to teach and willingness to work with new materials is what will make the reader of this lesson the master of teaching it. This is here to empower teachers that are working with students that will change the world.

Both art and science require close observation skills to understand the subject we are studying. Art enthusiasts stand for hours examining a piece of art to understand the artist’s inspiration as well as examining individual brush strokes and techniques used to create the overall product. In science we also do close observation—not to observe brush strokes in the painting of a bird, but to examine whether or not the barbs of the feathers, the pattern of the individual scales of a reptile, or the bone structure of the animal or human being drawn or painted have been properly represented. If we look at the artist and naturalist John James Audubon, we can see art that is as close as possible to representing what the artist saw.  

Both disciplines require the same patience and attention to detail in order to achieve the final goal and in many ways the techniques are the same. By teaching our students to be observers first, they are able not only to grasp the disciplines we are attempting to teach them; but to build tools that will empower them with critical thinking and analytical skills. In today's society where everything is measured in minutes and seconds the ability and willingness to simply slow down and observe our surroundings becomes crucial.

Homology underpins comparative investigations in biology across all levels, from genes to phenotypes. Homology refers to similarity due to shared descent and lineage, whereas homoplasy denotes similarity resulting from independent evolutionary processes. Nonetheless, considering that there exists only one tree of life, all creatures, and hence all their characteristics, exhibit varying degrees of kinship and likeness to one another. Such sharing may manifest as structural similarity or identity, indicative of a recent common ancestor—exemplified by the homology of human and ape arms—or may denote a lesser degree of similarity, as observed between the wings of insects and birds, whose common ancestor is situated deep within the evolutionary lineage of the Metazoa.1 It may indicate complete sharing of developmental pathways, partial sharing, or distinct pathways. This review contrasts traits categorized as homologous with those typically classified as homoplastic, which include convergence, parallelism, reversals, rudiments, remnants, and atavisms. Developmental pathways may be retained even when a complete structure fails to emerge (rudiments, remnants) or when a structure manifests only in certain people (atavisms). Conversely, several developmental methods can yield analogous (homologous) characteristics. The joint analysis of relational proximity and the extent of shared development uncovers a continuum within an augmented classification of homology, ranging from homology to reversals, rudiments, vestiges, atavisms, and parallelism, with convergence as the sole category of homoplasy, a concept that is unexpectedly antiquated. This realignment offers a potential means to connect phylogenetic and developmental perspectives on homology and homoplasy, a connection that should serve as a fundamental foundation for evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). It will not, and practically cannot, change the identification of homoplastic characteristics in phylogenetic analyses. Viewing rudiments, reversals, vestiges, atavisms, and parallelism as more akin to homology than to homoplasy this means students should direct our inquiry towards identifying the common elements that underlie phenotype formation (referred to by some as the deep homology of genetic and/or cellular mechanisms), rather than framing features in terms of shared or independent evolution.

We are in many ways evolving the methods we apply to teach science so that we can incorporate the information gleaned from scientific investigations. We have a better understanding of how the human mind works and how to incorporate data through all sources including visual. Findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences. First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors’ problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, co-operation, and sexual infidelity.² Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes content of full structure on human mental organization and culture. The adapted mind explores this new approach, evolutionary psychology, and its implications for a new view of culture.

This material is intended to provide a platform for science teachers and others to look at different ways of incorporating art into the science curriculum. It is foundational to my science class pedagogy to incorporate the type of content that enriches the experience for all students. Science gives us, as teachers, so many opportunities to improve beyond the textbook curriculum. The greatest thinkers in antiquity would not have made as clear a distinction in disciplines as we do in modern times. For example, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were simply not able to go to Benjamin Moore’s and pick up the paint they desired to use. They needed to understand the principle of its creation as in what type of pigment and what type of binder needed to be used. Great artists of the past like George Stubbs, in order to fully understand how to paint a horse form, studied the anatomy of the horse and what lies beneath the surface of the skin that they were painting.

Our students can learn more through a well-rounded approach that teaches as well as takes into consideration all possible related materials and has the added benefit of holding the students’ attention while opening their minds. There was a time when teaching was more instruction from a textbook mixed with some examples for the student involvement experiences. This practice would lead students to embrace the material, spend time and effort to study, and understand the subject matter instead of simply regurgitating talking points from a lecture given by a teacher. This is to help us get back to that place before social media, such as TikTok challenges and attention spans that are ever diminishing, by engaging students’ creativity. Creating a connection to biology through art should not only feel natural and proper but also be fulfilling for both students and teachers.