Writing Scoop: Interdisciplinary Themes

Interdisciplinary education has long been discussed as a means to broaden perspectives in the secondary school curriculum, as well as to incorporate subjects sometimes overlooked or relegated to minor status.  Some teachers welcome the opportunity to integrate music with literature; art with history; science with geography and other topic inclusions that may not seem apparent into their areas of expertise. Math and science are natural interdisciplinary courses. Science and math relate to each other through their subject matter. But when art history, sociology and psychology are discussed in an astronomy class as a way to illustrate, through paintings of the era, the impact that scientific discoveries had in different eras, students may begin to think in terms of multi-dimensional topics.  For example, how did people of disparate centuries view stellar bodies and their behaviors?

 

The above painting is the way an artist portrayed a solar eclipse in the 1500s: Astronomers Studying an Eclipse, by Antoine Caron, 1571.

On the other hand, a 1923 painting by Howard Russell Butler, Solar Eclipse, Lompoc 1923, shows the eclipse isolated in a dark sky.

The earlier depiction of a scientific phenomenon is focused on the wonder/perhaps terror expressed by the people of the day, who are witnessing the eclipse.  However, by 1923 an eclipse might have been a more commonly accepted scientific occurrence.Therefore, a painting of the eclipse alone may have communicated enough for both the artist and the viewer to understand the powerful effect of this rarity in nature.

Most recently, an interdisciplinary approach to learning has been strongly advocated through S.T.E.M.: the combined teaching of science, technology, engineering and math.  These subjects have a natural affinity for each other and adapt wonderfully to all phases of teaching and learning.  In the future, hopefully more subjects will find their way into broader curricula planning.  Insights into a multi-faceted learning spectrum will only advance and continue to improve our society.