Visualizing Science

I had a fantastic science teacher, Mr. Rees, in high school. He made it apparent to me that an unfortunate divide exists between the general public and the scientific community when it comes to understanding scientific concepts. David Suzuki, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and other great names, have devoted great efforts to bridging this gap and helping people appreciate science.

Now, I give you Felice Frankel...

Felice Frankel is a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard and research scientist at MIT, working with scientists to make spectacular, and communicative, images of their work. Working with researchers to create these images, she found that having them draw images for her improved not only her understanding, but improved the researchers ability to communicate their concepts. Enter "Picturing to Learn", a collaborative project she is heading that challenges undergraduate students in the sciences to draw illustrations that can explain a scientific concept to a different target audience, for example a high school student.

Science is increasingly involved in every aspect of our lives... without a fundamental understanding , everything from our cell phones and pharmaceuticals to our brains and babies is just a black box.

Images:
Ferrofluid photographed by Felice Frankel (Top)
Student Illustration of a Particle in a Box (Bottom)