In a presentation I attended last year, Dr. Rita Colwell, the former director of the National Science Foundation, described 21st century science as “international and interdisciplinary.” Interdisciplinary is one of those words that is hard to define, but we “know it when we see it.” The article Thinking, Teaching, and Learning Science Outside the Boxes does provide a definition as well as a discussion of its importance and even a “taxonomy” of levels of disciplinarity (yes, I know that’s not a real word!), showing that it’s not an either/or dichotomy. It would be interesting to compare our unit plans with this taxonomy.
Other articles in this issue illustrate activities at these levels: studying biofuels and nanotechnology, building rubber-band cars, integrating science and the arts, and collecting and analyzing hydrology data. These are very powerful kinds of investigations, not simply contrived or superficial collections of activities. Scan your back issues of NSTA publications for more excellent examples. If you need some web resources to get similar units started, check out the Scilinks categories Alternate Energy Sources, Nanotechnology, and Leonardo da Vinci.
I’m sure that most of us have tried some level of interdisciplinary studies. But there are some real challenges (especially at the secondary level). Trying to find common planning time with other teachers is difficult. (Wouldn’t it be a great use of professional development days to actually research a topic and plan some units as an interdisciplinary team?) The students in a science class might report to 2-3 different teachers in math or other subjects. But my favorite is teachers who say “We already so this.” I know that this is certainly true in many cases, but I wonder if having students draw a picture, calculate an average, or write a report represents the highest levels of true interdisciplinary instruction (I’ll have to check the taxonomy.)
I had the opportunity last week to visit several high schools. Although it was for a different project, I kept my eyes open for ideas for interdisciplinary activities. For example, I saw an opportunity for connecting an American history unit on 19th century industrialization and inventions with science units on electricity, machines, and energy. In another class, a student asked “So how does all of this fit together?” I suspect that when we do interdisciplinary studies, we as teachers see the connections and we assume that the students will, too. But we need to show the students how things are connected and model how to make the connections.
It also occurred to me that elective courses are where many students start to see the connections and applications — robotics, graphic arts, technical writing, computer applications, marketing/advertising, culinary arts, etc. And yet often these courses do not “count” much for the GPA or honor roll and are the first to go when there are budget cuts. Hmmm.
Having read this issue, I realize now that when my colleagues and I did our “interdisciplinary” field trip every spring, what we really had was a collection of parallel activities. What we needed to do was identify a theme, a problem, or an essential question to connect the activities. We could still do the same activities, but the theme or question would would focus the students’ attention better and help them see the connections.
Please feel free to share any themes or questions that you have used to plan interdisciplinary learning.