You are correct that I have not taken Frontiers of Science. I was not an undergraduate at Columbia and at the time of writing this piece had not thought to attend a lecture or two in person.

I was intrigued to hear the perspective of the students. I try understand how difficult it is for the professors teaching the course because it is a very difficult course to put together. For the purpose of the assignment, I did not want to take on more than I could handle, and therefore decided to take only interviews with students and not professors. I think an interesting sister piece would be from the perspective of the educators, but that was beyond the scope of what I had time to do.

I’m glad that your students felt inspired by Frontiers to move onto taking more science and changing plans. I imagine that is a great joy to hear as an educator!

I think that the problem I was trying to get at was that many of the students entering Frontiers were not as prepared to understand scientific concepts as they are prepared for humanities and other cultural studies. I’m still very interested in this topic, and hope to pursue further investigation into scientific literacy issues as part of an interdisciplinary PhD program (I’m applying for the Fall of 2010, wish me luck!). Thanks so much for your comments and I would be interested in getting in touch with you in the future!

The faculty of Frontiers feel strongly that there is already too much segregation of “science” and “non-science” students in education and in the culture. Columbia’s Core Curriculum doesn’t segregate philosophers from chemists; why should Frontiers?

It is a very difficult course to teach, in part because the way scientists do science is not historical or philosophical but current, hence Frontiers.

I gathered from the piece that you did not take Frontiers? You might enjoy a first hand look (Google “Frontiers of Science Online”).

One of my students in another course recently wrote as follows:

“I am currently a senior in Columbia College and am majoring in Neuroscience and Behavior with a Chemistry Concentration. Coming into Columbia, I had no intention of pursuing chemistry beyond the pre-med requirements. However, things changed my second semester of my first year. In Frontiers of Science, we were exposed to topics across the different science disciplines. I found the chemistry lectures with Professor Nuckolls to be the most intriguing.

Professor Nuckolls made chemistry interesting, applicable, and comprehensible. He would cover the basic concept but provide context to its discovery and/or use and relate it to other disciplines. In addition to this, he would use anecdotes to break down the more difficult concepts. In the short amount of time that I had Professor Nuckolls as a lecturer, he had [unknowingly] swayed me to take more chemistry courses. And now, in addition to my major, I am pursuing a Chemistry Concentration.

Years later, I am still able to look at chemistry beyond the basic concepts and also incorporate them into a more multi-disciplinary context, as Professor Nuckolls had done in his Frontiers lectures. This has been most helpful in my understanding of difficult concepts in my other chemistry courses.”

I really liked Colin’s lectures as well; my attitude towards chemistry in college would have been radically different if I’d had her (my student’s) experience.

Frontiers is an evolving effort that deals with a the scientific literacy issues that you raise as well as the need for students within the sciences to appreciate very early the power of multidisciplinary approaches to new problems. Teaching Frontiers is a real challenge and making it work is hard but important.

Thanks Nat! The interviews were very enjoyable. I had only done one interview before this project, but by the end of this I felt much more confident. It really is an interesting topic, and I wish I could have included much more from the surveys and interviews!

Also, to complement that science-and-art business a little bit, an interesting book I’m reading now — A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit by Alan Lightman.