Intersections

Volume 1999 | Number 7 Article 4

1999 Rooting Science in Empathy: Growing Towards a Sustainable Science Practice for the 21st Century Cheryl L. Ney

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Augustana Digital Commons Citation Ney, Cheryl L. (1999) "Rooting Science in Empathy: Growing Towards a Sustainable Science Practice for the 21st Century," Intersections: Vol. 1999: No. 7, Article 4. Available at: http://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/intersections/vol1999/iss7/4

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By Cheryl L. Ney

"Tobe rooted is perhaps the most importantand As I look back on my exploration of the least recognizedneed of the human soul." scholarshipof teaching, I have come to realize that Simone Weil, TheNeed for Roots, 1952. I spent the first six or seven years searching to define the foundations of teaching. I began my I wouldlike to use my experiencesin the Chemistry teaching career by trying to extrapolate from my Departmentat Capital Universityover thepast ten own experience as a studentto the students in my yearsto suggestwhat teaching andlearning in the firstgeneral chemistry course - who were a mere sciences at Lutheran institutions has been and an 13 years apart, so I thought. Through a be about. In doing so, I hope to address the collaborativejournalling project I conducted with following questions: 1) What doesempathy have nursingstudents in chemistry, a project I devised to to do withscience?; 2) Whatis "science practice"?; lowertheir anxiety aboutthe study of chemistry, I 3) What is"sustainable science practice"? and 4) cameto realize thattheir experiences were diverse What does"sustainable a science practice" have to and different from mine. As an example, they do with the teaching and learning of science in were having an opportunity to discuss their fears Lutheranhigher education? andanxieties aboutthe study of chemistry totheir professor as a way of improving their learning -­ Exploring the Grounding for Teaching Science something my staid Arizona State University I cameto Capital University in Columbus, Ohioin professorswould never havedone (after all, many 1987, as an assistant professor, just after of my classmatesand I were not the "cream-of-the obtaininga Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in -crop", the "targetgroup" back in those days!). 1 Biochemistry . Sincethat time, withthe support of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, With the realization that I couldn't solely use my Daina McGary, who is well-versed in thework of experiences to understand the students in the Ernest Boyer2, I have focused my scholarship on courses I was teaching, I turned to the research teaching, specificallyon teaching andlearning by literature on teaching and learning, in general and womenin science. A commitment to teaching on in thesciences, speci:fically3. Since I was primarily the part of our institutions allows faculty in the teachingchemistry to female nursing majors, I also sciencesthe freedom to choose teaching as a focus focusedon theliterature describing the experiences of scholarship. of women and girls with science education.4 Imagine my surprise, when I, a narrowly trained DNA biochemist, learnedthat there was a research Cheryl Ney is Professor in The Department of base for teaching. In turning to the research Chemistry and Director of Capital University's literature on teaching and learning, I had moved Summer Science Institute. away from using "teachers teach as they are taught"ismy foundationfor teaching. This change

Intersections/Summer 1999 3 in direction also demonstrated to me that I could cameupon theidea that pedagogy in science ought use myhighly developed skills in scientificresearch to be grounded in the epistemology of science. in doing research on teaching and learning in the Thatis, how we teach science ought to ariseout classroom. Every good scientist knows that you of whatwe believe about how we knowwhat we start a research project by reading the current knowin science.6 research literature!

As an example of this practice, I can remember Understandingthe value of empathy in science using a Journal of Chemical Education article, Exploringepistemological issues in science ledme entitled, "What Goes on in Student's Heads in to the work of Cathleen Loving, a teacher 5 7 Lab" , to changehow I interacted withstudents in educator. · She has developed a usefulframework lab. I resisted asking students theoretical for understanding two important aspects of the questions about their experiment, while they were epistemology of science (The Scientific Theory conducting the experiment. The article reported Profile), which she describes in two continua thatstudents have difficultyenough managingand chartedon an xy graph (something every scientist thinking about the lab procedure, without also can understand). One additional feature of her having to think about atoms and molecules - work is thatshe identifiesthe thinking of important those questions can come after the experiment is philosopher;; of science about these two aspects of over! I use thisexample to show that this research scientific k 1owledge by plotting their beliefs as literatureis very useful for one's own practice of points on the graph. Glancing at the Scientific teaching. Theory Profile, one observes a scatter plot. This leads one to the important understanding that On the basis of my work in the teaching and philosophers of science don't agree about the learningof science, in April of 1994, I was chosen natureof scientific knowledge! to be a facultydevelopment leader in the National Science Foundation funded Women and Science The aspect of epistemology in science I want to project in the University of Wisconsin System. focus on addresses the question, "Who are This was serious business - which got me scientific knowers?". Using Loving's Scientific thinkingeven more seriously about the foundations Theory Profile, this question is explored on the x of teaching - although I really hadn't axis andtherefore as a continuum. On one end of conceptualized my work yet as getting at the scale is the purely rational knower - the one "foundations". It was during this time that I who throughthe correct and dispassionate use of participated in a discussion (at a facultymeeting, "the scientific method", is led to an unbiased, I believe) led by a colleaguefrom the Humanities objective understanding of nature. Two popular - a philosopher, I believe - Tom somebody - cultural portrayals of the best examples of this who was talking about his work- which had rationalitycan be foundin two Star Trek series - somethingto do withgrounding somethingor other Mr. Spock andData- one a Vulcan, theother an in Lutheran theology,that I connectedthe notion of android - they aren't even human! On the groundingto my work. Eureka! I was searching to opposite end of the scale is the natural knower understand the grounding for teaching. As it (surprise - it's not characterized as irrational!). happens, I was also actively pursing an Thisis theknower whose knowledge is hopelessly understanding of feminist critiqul:/s of science, biased by their perspective (including emotions) which required an understanding of the and therefore uniquely their own. Perhapsthose epistemologyor grounding in science. Armedwith who believe in a flatearth, fall into thiscategory. the notion of grounding and an interest in It is important to understand that these are two foundational issues in teaching and in science, I extreme ends of a contiuum and somewhere

Intersections/Summer 1999 4 between these twoextremes, lies modem western McClintock, heightening her powers of scientific knowers. discernment, until finally, the objects of her study have becomesubjects in their own right; theyclaim I have chosen to focus on this aspect of the fromher a kindof attentionthat most us experience epistemologyof science since manyof thefeminist only in relation to other persons."12 critiques of science specifically address this aspect.8 At thetum of thecentury and well intothe An understanding of how Barbara McClintock 1960s, scientific knowers would be characterized carried out scientific research demonstrates two well towards therational end of the scaleof "who veryimportant ideas. Firstis the idea that one can can know" in science. And what gender would do serious scientific research withouthaving to be theseknowers be? Herein lies a critique of science dispassionate and second, rooting scientific developedby EvelynFox-Keller. Anearly work of investigation in empathy can lead to important hers,9 examines the history of modern western understandingsabout nature (afterall, McClintock science andshows that science was foundedto be did receivethe Nobel Prize!). a "truly masculine philosophy" - in which, "thinking objectively is thinking like a man". Of what use is this foundational understanding of Women,emotional creatures, were consideredto be one aspect of the epistemology of science to the incapable of rational thought. But is this so? We science educator? I can think of at least two now have an emerging andrich history of women answers to the question. First, much of the in sciencewhich shows us thatwomen have been researchon theteaching and science, as well as the doing science since their days as seed gatherers!10 experienceof countless science educators, calls for science curricula and teaching that is "relevant". Does a rational investigation of the natural world Many students want to have some connection, requirea cold,dispassionate stance? Another work some empathy, or connection to what they are by Evelyn Fox-Keller suggests an answer to this studying. Chemistry, for example, is much more question. Fox-Keller has also written the interestingwhen you understandthat you canapply biography of Barbara McClintock,11 a scientist a chemicalperspective to yourself and your world. who won theNobel Prize the in 1980s forwork she Secondly, much of the research on teaching and had done in the 1940s and 50s. In interviewing learning in general, (plus the experience of McClintock.for this biography, Fox-Keller noted countless educators), points to the idea that not only thepatient andcareful investigations and different people have different learning (and finely developed cytogenetic techniques of teaching)style s. A sciencewhich welcomes people McClintock but also the empathy, or intellectual whosethinking is rootedin empathy is anenriched identificationthat McClintock held forthe objects science,one thatcan provide deeper understandings of her investigation. McClintock herself used a of nature. phraseto describe this relationship which became the title of her biography, "A Feeling for the Defining science as "sustainable science Organism". It is this empathy which motivated practice" McClintock'scuriosity and was the basis forhow Rooting science in empathy emphasizes the idea she conductedher research: that it is humans who do science. Since it is humans- withminds in bodies,culturally situated For all of us, it is need and interest above all that andhistorically located - conductingthis creative induce the growth of our abilities; a motivated endeavorcalled science, perhaps it is not quite the observer develops facultiesthat a casual spectator value free activity that it is portrayed as. If may never be aware of. Over theyears, a special science is not what we thought it was, what is kind of sympathetic understanding grew m science? Back we go to foundational issues. If

Intersections/Summer 1999 5 humans, as natural knowers, do science, than look like? One proposal, coming from several science ought to be reconceived as a human perspectives (including feminist perspectives) is a activity. (Thisis somethingscholars inthe area of call fora sustainablescience practice. scienceand technology studieshave beenactivel y working on in this century.) Borrowing from This is not a call to sustain science as it is but ArnoldPacey 13 (anhistorian of technology),I'd like rather to choose sustainability as an underlying to suggestthat we thinkof science as the"web of valuein allscientific researchand its applications, humanactivity surroundingscience". Thiswould as well as in the practice of science. . certainly encompass much more than what scientists do. It would include the business of What is sustainability? Here are some definitions science, the governmental activities regarding found on the home page of the Center for science, the work related issues scientists, their Sustainable Communities at the University of managers as well astechnicians face, the cultural Washington14 representations of science, science. education, the ethics of science, the use and abuse of scientific • "A sustainable society is one which knowledgeand. so on.describes Pacey this"web of satisfiesits needs withoutdiminishing the human activity" as a "practice". He then goeson prospects of future generations." Lester to define three aspects to "practice": technical Brown, Founder and President, (which would include methods rooted in empathy Worldwatch Institute as wellas dispassionaterationality), organizational (business, legal, governmental) and cultural • "Our vision is of a life-sustaining earth. (values, history, cross cultural, education, etc.) We arecommitted to theachievement of a aspects. Withthis concept of practice, science can dignified,peaceful and equitable existence. be redefined as science practice with technical, We believe a sustainable United States organizationaland cultural aspects to it. Withthis will have an economy that equitably definition, science is positioned in society as an provides for satisfying livelihoods and a enterpriseconducted by whole human beings! safe, healthy, high quality lifefor current and future generations. Our nation will What areimplications the for teaching and learning protect its environment, its natural aboutscience as science practice? One implication resource base, and the :functions and is that this definition of science is useful for viability of natural systems on which all understanding science as it is in today's world. life depends." President's Council on Learning how to apply this understanding of Sustainable Development sciencepractice to issuesof scienceand society can help to raiseimportant issues and concerns forour • "A transition to sustainability involves time. Thisdefinition however doesn't clearly speak moving from·1inear to cyclical processes to the issue of what kind.of science practice we andtechnologies. ''Theonly processes we wouldchoose for the future.· I believe thatthis is a can rely on indefinitely are cyclical; all criticalissue. Manyyoung people don't have as a linear processes must eventually come to top priorityunderstanding why science practice is anend." Dr. Karl Henrik-Robert, MD theway itis (some of us do) - I thinkthat if they want to know anything at all about science A sustainablescience practice then, is a practiceof practice, theywant to knowabout science practice science rootedin thevalue of sustainability. in theirfuture (not just theirfuture employment). Whatcould a sustainablescience practicebe like? What could science practice in the 21st Century Fortunately,models already exist thatmay provide

Intersections/Sunµner1999 6 some direction for a future sustainable science communitybas ed research are: 18 practice. The earliest example comes from the Science Shops in the Netherlands. The one in • Community-based · research processes Amsterdam, founded in 1977, has as its' mission, differ fundamentally from· mainstream offering socially under-privileged groups an researchin being coupledrelatively tightly opportunity to benefit from the University of with community groups that are eager to Amsterdam's knowledgeand research potential. 15 knowthe research results and usein them Questions brought to the science shop have practical efforts to achieve constructive included, "Is the UV light used for drying offset socialchange. Community-based research printing· harmful to workers? What are the is not only usable, it is generally used to environmentalconsequences of milkdrainings due goodeffect. to strikes in the dairy industry? Is the cleaner, • Community-basedoften research pr oduces "Danclan" harmful to dentures?". In 1987,"an unanticipated and far reaching ancillary evaluation of l 62 cases at the University of results,including new social relationships Amsterdamshowed that investigations undertaken and trust, as well as heightened social on behalfof clients of the local science shophav e efficacy. It may thus provide one given rise to follow-up research, publications and constructive response to the growing manyother enduring practice."effects onacademic concern that American civil society is in crisis andunraveling. At thetime of this study, 2070 questionshad been • · · To create a U.S. community research brought to the shop. Out of that 1875 cases had system that would provide service as been passed on to university scientists, with 385 comprehensively and accessibly as does cases requiring original research to be answered theDutch system would cost on the order (researchconducted by graduate students- some of $450 million annually (45 times the of which ledPh.D. to dissertations!).16 Thism odel current investment in community-based of a science shop shows that resources for research but less than O.3 percentof total university research can be shared with the U.S. R&D expenditures)645centers in (50 community to the benefitof both. have been identified).

The Dutch Science Shop modelhas been adapted "This research differs from the bulk of the R&D in the United States, where it is called conductedin the Unitedmost States; of which - at "Community-BasedResearch". A comprehensive a total cost of $170 billion per year - is analysisof 12 case studies of thistype of research performed on behalf of business, the military, the has bef>11 compiled by researchers at the Loka federal government, or in pursuit of the scientific Institute.17 These projects resulted in concrete and academiccommunities' intellectualinterests." changes to the e<>mmunity such as: energy conservation retrofits of over 10,000 low-income Teaching and learning science for the 2l6' housingunits in Chicago, a moratorium on forest Century logging pending e th conclusion of Alaskan How would our institutions, ourand teaching and legislatorsand activists, replacementof poisoned learning of science change, if developing a drinking water with a safe water line into a rural sustainable science practice in our society were a Kentucky community (and a legal judgement goal? Could we use communitybased research to requiring the establishment of an $11 million accomplish this goal? Some institutions are community healthfund) and the creationof a new already moving in this direction with their health program in Chicago forrefugee women, to emphasis on service learning. 19 A chief concern name a few. Other important findings about regardingservice on leatning ourcampuses is that,

Intersections/Summer1999 7 service learning is a curricular emphasis that Higher Education, Interdependence and the competes with plenty of other curricular goals (as Authorityf o Knowledge. The John Hopkins well as other types of interests) on a universjty University Press, 1993. Tobin, Kenneth, editor, campus. Whatwould it mean for an institution The Practice o f Constructivism in Science to boldly chooseservice learning as their sole focus Education, Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates, - even thein sciences? To commit the human and 1993. material resources of the institutionto the ac 4Rosser, Sue V. Female Friendly Science: ofteaching and learning for sustainability? ApplyinaWomen's Studies MethodsTheories and toAttract Students , Pergamon Press, 1990. Freedomfor individualswithin institutions an 5Pickering, Miles, ''What Goes on in Student's institutional freedom Heads in Lab", J.Crum 6 Ed 4(6), 521-3, 1987. 6 There is one final issue I would like to raise. Reeves, B.J. and Ney, C., "Positivist and While, I personally am eternally grateful for the Constructivist Understandings About Science and freedom that Capital University, a institution of Their Implications for STS Teaching and Lutheran higher education, provides to me to Learning", BYll Sci Tuch� 12, 195-9, 1992. envision sustainablescience practice and to work 7Loving, Cathleen C., "The Scientific Theory towards thoseends by what means I can, I have to Profile: A Philosophyof ScienceModel for Science ask myself the following question: How and by Teachers", J. Res in Sci Teaching 28(9), 823-38, what means do our institutionsbecome more than 1991. the sumof its individuals acting out theirfreedom? 8Harding, Sandra, The Science Question in I wonder if we, all of us, at universities and Feminism, Cornell University Press, 1986. colleges - faculty, staff, administrators, students Haraway, Donna, PrimateVisions ; Gender, Race and their parents as well as Board of Trustee and Nature in the World of Modern Science, members, have the courage to work towards Routledge, 1989. Longino, Helen E., Science as creatingsome kind of"institutional freedom" that Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in wouldallow for the development of universities of Scientific Inqµi:cy, Princeton University Press, vision and promise. Can we break free from the 1990. 9 constraints of today's corporate culture that are Fox-Keller, Evelyn, Reflections on Gende r and lurkingin manyof ourinstitutions, where teaching Science, Yale University Press, 1985. and learning have often become solely about ioAlic,Margaret , Hypatia's Hentaae:History A of preparing for the job market? Can "we" as women in Science from Antiq_uity throufdt the Institutions of Higher Education strive for the Nineteenth Century,Beacon Press,1986. Rossiter, wholeness God · wants from Abraham - not Margaret,Scientists Women inAm erica: Stru2gles r 20 perfection but integity? and Strategies to 1940, John Hopkins University Press, 1982. Rossiter, Margaret, Women Scientistsin America;Affinnati Before ve Action Footnotes 1940-1972, John Hopkins University Press, 1995. 1 While in Chicago I was a very active member of 11Fox-Keller,Eve lyn, A Feelingfo r the Or£3IUsm: AugustanaLutheran Church (across from LSTC), TheLife and Work of BarbaraMcClintock,W. H. wherewe had a two-year-long discussion centered Freeman and Company, 1983. on "faith seeking understanding,understanding 12ibid, p 200. seeking faith" 13Pacey, Arnold, Culture 2 The of Technology, Boyer, Ernest L., Scholarship Fourth Printing, MIT Press, 1989. Reconsidered;Priorities ofa Professoriaw, Jossey­ 14 http://weber.u.washington.edu/---common Bass, 1990. 15Zaal, R. and Leydesdorff, L., "Amsterdam 3 Bruffee, Kenneth A. Collaborative Learnin g: Science Shop and its influence on university

Intersections/Sw:nmerl9998 research: theeffects of ten years of dealing with 18ibid non-academic questions", Science and � 19Rhoads,. R. A., and Howard, J.P.F., Editors, �' 14 (6), 310-6,1987. Academic Servicef I,.earnq:APedagogyo Action 16ibid and Reflection, Jossey-Bass, 1998. 11 Sclove, R., Scammell, M. and Holland, B., 2°Christenson, T., "The Freedom of a Christian", "Connnunity-Basedin Research the United States", plenary paper for "Vocations of a Lutheran The Loka Institute homepage. at College/UniversityConference", August 1998. http://www.amerherst.edu/-loka/menu.html

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