I ran across this delightful piece of advice: “The next time you want to explain something complicated, write a haiku instead.”
If you know a student who likes science but grumbles at English, show them this:
Carbon increases
Air warms through century past
More heavy rains fall.
Reducing a concept to its basics presents a wonderful puzzle. That next assignment to write a poem will be fun. You don’t have to limit yourself to haiku, but it does boil things down.
Which leads me to a LOL from a proponent of the idea of science with art. Is this a typically dense presentation or what:
Current interdisciplinary dialogue generally perpetuates the ideology that scientists do science and artists do art. However, research and experience shows that scientists—and society more broadly—benefit from scientists creating works beyond their discipline (Swanson et al. 2008, Opermanis et al. 2015). Broadly, creativity is defined as the production of original and useful ideas (for a broader discussion of creativity, see Stein 1953, Barron 1955, Runco and Jaeger 2012), and a variety of creative approaches, primarily from the arts, are increasingly appreciated in science education, communication, and practice (Jacobson et al. 2007, Swanson et al. 2008, Opermanis et al. 2015). For example, in Latvia, the Nature Concerthall brought science and arts (poetry, music, dance, photography, and videography) together as part of an information campaign to enhance public knowledge and awareness of nature conservation issues and resulted in both greater attendance and perceived greater knowledge of biodiversity issues by attendees (Opermanis et al. 2015). At the same time, the integration of creative practice in professional development opportunities for scientists is increasing; the last several years have seen multiple speakers at ecology and environmental conservation conferences (e.g., Society for Freshwater Science 2018, World Conference on Marine Biodiversity 2018, Resilience 2017) using different creative practices to highlight the role and value to ecology and environmental conservation of these practices. At the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity 2018, in Montréal, Canada, Linwood Pendleton’s plenary, “Rethinking marine conservation science in three acts,” brought together poems, music, video, and dance to demonstrate how creative approaches can help to achieve and celebrate breakthroughs in marine conservation science (Pendleton 2018). Research focused on innovation in science also demonstrates that creativity is something we can practice and improve and that proficiency in a fine art, craft, or literary pursuit is a significant predictor of scientific productivity and innovation (Root-Bernstein 2003). Poetry, the focus of our article, is one creative practice that conservation scientists can use to enhance their capacity to innovate, to communicate their work in compelling ways, and to enhance their own learning, as well as that of others. Bioscience Vol 68 Issue 11
Yes, that wall of words is all one paragraph in the original.
What’s your favorite topic? Put on your creative cap and write poetry. Here’s my offering. A new “sciku” inspired by my very first blog post:
Popping out as steam
Jiggling atoms remove heat
Blow to cool your tea
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Kate's Science - Real and Fantastic 