An Auto-Interview with a Scientist/Artist

Jonathan Zilberg, Ph.D. Fall 1999 Department of Art Education School of Art and Design University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Q. I heard you have invented a game to teach biochemistry to children. Could you tell me more about it? How did you get the idea? A. Yes. It is an idea that came to me fifteen years ago now, in 1983. The game came to me in a vision. It was complete from the start and that interests me for this reason. It is a strange thing to have a vision you know not the kind of thing you want to go around telling people about though I have discussed it over the year with friends. Q. Do you remember how this vision came to you? A. Yes. I had graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in molecular biology and research training in biochemistry with Dr. Barrie Kitto analyzing the structure of sea cucumber hemoglobin. Instead of going into research on monoclonal antibodies at the University of Texas Cancer Research Center, I chanced upon the opportunity of working on an NSF field project in tropical ecology in Costa Rica with Larry Gilbert and his doctoral students. One sunset after finishing up with determining where the butterflies and monkeys had turned in for the night, I noticed a cone shell at my feet on the beach. I instantly realized that it was the perfect expression of a simple integration equation. I suddenly thought to myself that if my undergraduate calculus teacher had held up such a shell in class on the first day and explained how its form could be described through a mathematical equation then it all would have been an easier, more interesting and more productive experience. I could have intuitively and directly connected to the concepts at hand. Now that I remember it, there was display of shapes as mathematical forms in a glass case around the corner in the physics building but it was just something we passed by without ever taking as seriously as it should have been. It was a wondrous thing for me as making this connection suddenly transformed my perception of the usefulness and meaning of calculus. And I thought to myself about what I could do with this idea for biochemistry having at that point moved from biochemistry lab research to tropical ecology field research as I was frustrated with studying molecular structures. I wanted to be able to see what I was studying, directly that is. Anyway, it occurred to me then that I could use visual imagery and motion through space to convey information about biochemistry and developmental biology in more animated complexity than I had been used to in university classes. It was then that it came to me that I could teach the Krebs Cycle to anyone who could say yabadabadoo. Q. What teaching philosophy motivates your invention? It sounds to me that you would prefer active and engaged learning environments in which students connect abstract experiences in the classroom to the world they experience outside the classroom.

A. Indeed. Yes. I am very much a proponent of active learning as you term it. I think it is an essential aspect of the learning process and that ultimately learning must be based in a visceral experience in which we connect to scientific language on some physical level, that we seek ways to see the bigger picture. In fact, this is the essence of this game I invented in that I am convinced that people can learn the Krebs Cycle through dance, sound and images. Q. What is the Krebs Cycle? A. Oh, Im sorry. The Krebs Cycle is essentially the key to life for it is the system in which biological energy is generated. It is the steps in the creation of this energy that people can learn through this dance of life as I call it. Q. Can you give me more detail about this dance of life? A. Well, there are a series of transformation which occur as a glucose (sugar) molecule is broken down to release energy. It is this transformation of molecules and production of energy which I believe anyone can learn regardless of how much science they might or might not know or how high the barriers are that limit their participation in a more advanced scientific education. What happens in this game is that you jump around this biological cycle on pressure sensitive plexi-glass plates. And each time you jump on to the next step in the cycle you hear and see the images changing. In this you learn some basic biochemistry in an active and multi-sensory way. Q. Can you give me some details about this cycle and how the game is constructed? A. The cycle is really about the break-up of a six carbon molecule. Along the way energy is released through a variety of mechanisms that can be best conveyed through visual means and of-course sound and motion to fix this knowledge in the body. You dance into and around this circular step-wise reaction and every time you move from one molecule to another, the lights in the pressure pads the plexi-glass platform below your feet come on so that you see the chemical structure, hear the nomenclature for the structure, and watch the energy cascades along the way. Music, rhythm, art, I see it all working together for the advancement of science education. Q. In what contexts will you use this game? A. I have ideal sites in mind in which I have thought about how I will design the game to fit into the museums structure. It is an important issue to me because I want create a sense of wholeness to the experience such that the architectural space in which this learning experience will take place adds to the overall affect. Different sites present different challenges. The simplest context is the new Austin Childrens Museum which is essentially a two story circular vestibule ideal in its simplicity and as people could watch the experience from above. It is also an important site for me as I studied in Austin as an undergraduate having moved there from Africa so it is very much a home for me and I often return there. Anyway, the game works best inside circular or spiral structures such as in the Guggenheim Museum in New York. How one would use museum spaces to amplify the aesthetic and scientific power of my game and the effect it will have on observers is critical. Q. Do you really think it is possible to do this?

A. Actually I have no doubt about it in my heart. I knew it as a complete phenomenon from the moment it came into mind. I see it as a whole in all its complexity just like you read about visions scientists had when they made major breakthroughs such as with the visions and dream images in which the structures of DNA, the benzene ring and even the periodic table suddenly materialized in the scientific mind. It encapsulates everything I believe about education in a radical sense for it is based in a belief that it is primarily fear and hierarchy, structure and authority, that inhibits us in learning science. I believe that I can pre-empt or lessen this fear and awe through a dance in which virtually anyone could learn a relatively advanced topic in science. This should open doors. The idea is that in the future children would be less intimidated by science and therefore take more pleasure in it and be better at it, be more creative, you know find the artist/scientist within themselves in a way in which science becomes larger somehow. I want them to develop a sense of awe, of the power of the divine if you will in the amazing things we know through science about the fantastically beautiful structures and complex dynamic systems that exist in our world. Its embarrassing in a way because I dont want to sound like a complete whako but it never ceases to amaze me, science that is, how we know what we know and what we do with that knowledge. Q. You mentioned that you believe scientists would be enriched by exploring the artist within themselves which so many do but what about the artists? Should they develop their scientific side to improve their art? A. That is an interesting question. I can only speculate that it wouldnt hurt surely to know about the complexities of the mediums you work with. Ive always been perturbed by the idea of a gap between the arts and scientists. I dont like it and I dont think it is productive. I wonder though, now that you raise the question, for it would seem to me that just as gifted people are gifted in multiple domains, that art and science must nourish each other somehow. Perhaps if we help to enrich and marry both the scientist and the artist within us we would be better off for it. Q. Will you patent this experience? Can you patent an idea for a dance? A. I hope you can but I am ambivalent about the concept of owning a technique. Id rather be seen as an innovator who introduced a new way of learning about science and whose model was replicated by teachers because it worked. In every child who loses that fear of science and who embraces learning with a productive and joyous sprit well who could ask for more than that? On the other hand, I am very interested in the commercial applications of such a technique. I have looked into invention disclosures and patenting and it seems fair enough that as long as I package it properly and field test it that it can be patented as a concept. But that is not important at the end of the day. What is important to me as an educator is to see it become an experimental learning technique which would radically transform the experience children have with science education. Why should they moan and groan about science when they can learn it so easily in this way?

Q. What are the consequences for science education more generally speaking? A. Well, Ive spoken about the fear people have, of the struggle in learning science and I think that this is a giant brake on learning. I want to help teachers to release this break. It can be done through creative experimentation with the learning process. Added to that, if children can be given a sense of wonder for the sublime, of the divinity of nature if you prefer, and of the power in our minds and society to conceptualize such amazing things as the Krebs Cycle, then there are great possibilities at hand. But I have much simpler goals in mind which are simply to demystify the hierarchy of learning. I want to lessen peoples fear of science so as to help tomorrows scientists and artists embrace creativity. Q. Have you thought about applying this technique to other subjects? A. Yes. My motivation is to turn the learning process upside down. You know, first you learn math and simple biology, some chemistry, and eventually if you can sustain your interest in science long enough you get to study things like the Krebs Cycle. But most people never get anywhere close. They drop out along the way and become artists or lawyers or whatever. What I want to do is to invert this process so that we have a sense of the complexity and totality as well as the specifics of relatively advanced scientific information from the start so that we know where we are going. Then we might be able to do the hard work of getting there, but much more easily. Q. And if it does not work? A. Well of-course this might be a complete fantasy and it is possible that I suppose that it could fail horribly but I dont think so because all you have to do is to jump around this interactive musical dance floor going yabadabadoo basically and you cannot fail to eventually learn something about the Krebs Cycle and biochemistry. So how can it fail? The engineering and computerized integration is I imagine a relatively simple challenge. Q. Maybe I could even learn something about this Krebs Cycle stuff. Can you give me some details about the game, the kind of details which scientists would be interested in versus the kind of details artists and social scientists would be interested in? A. Well the details arent worth going in without being able to see them and how they would be visually experienced so as to reinforce the knowledge being transmitted in the process. But do I think that scientists will be more interested in how much of the Krebs Cycle children might actually be able to understand and thus how effective this method would be for not just memorizing chemical names and structures and the nature of the biochemical processes at hand but understanding it all in a highly mobile, dimensional and more complex way for instance in terms of appreciating membrane based oscillating cellular mechanisms. But artists, and I suppose cognitive scientists and neuroscientists, will be more interested in the experiential role of visual, sonic and embodied cues in learning because it would be such a sensory rich learning environment. Q. Returning to an earlier subject we discussed, do you think that this game or dance has revolutionary implications for teaching science and for relieving the fear you talk about which inhibits people from

learning science? What will you think, in a pedagogical sense, if it turns that the technique is not successful? A. I really cannot imagine that it will be successful. It is actually this faith in and of itself in the model that interests me. How is it that we come to conceive such things and to have these deep seated feelings about their potential? Q. So what then are the implications? A. The implications are I think revolutionary, at the risk of sounding delusional. I think this lies in the emphasis on inverting science, and even math education as we know it, on the way in which we kill creativity along the way. We have to find a way to deal with the obstacles, specifically the fear of basic science as something beyond the average persons capacity to comprehend and even master. If I could transform that experience for future children and improve the quality of science education as a result I would of-course be amazed myself precisely because it would provide proof of the purity and integrity of the original vision and its conceptualization. Q. So why did you choose the new Austin Childrens Museum for a test trail? A. I studied molecular biology and biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. I have this strong sense of attachment to the place and I feel that this would be a tangible way of bringing the university into the service of the community something which I do with the arts and anthropology. In reaching out in this way to the larger community through universities and museums I suppose I might be doing something relatively original in terms of current science education as it relates to art and experimental learning but I am sure that all kinds of innovative projects like this either exist in reality or are out there in peoples minds and dreams for the future just as this one is always at the back of my own mind. Maybe you know of some? Q. No, I dont but it brings me to the question or more of an observation that you seem to visit museums a lot. What draws you to them as a scientist? A. I suppose it has nothing to do with science though who knows. I love art. Some art sometimes really amazes me. So I often visit museums and over the years I have discovered childrens museums. These interest me as it is there where you can really see just how interested young children are in science and how much pleasure they get out of science and technology. I find it tragic at how over time our society and education system just kills this natural desire in most of them. Q. All this is making me wonder, do you create art yourself? A. I suppose you could say I do. I think of my idea as an art form. I imagine that the execution of it as a highly aesthetic experience in which both the participants and the observers will experience a sense of wonder and ideally even the numinous so I suppose you could call me an artist of sorts.