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The natural sciences and museums share a deeply rooted connection that not many people think about. Many people hear the word museums and think of art and history. Yes I know there are many sciences museums across the world and they are very well known, I am simply stating that if you asked ten people the first word they thought of when they hear the word ‘museum’ over half of them I bet would definitely say something other than science. Modern biology and public museums shared a much more common origin than most people believe. Aristotle and his student Theophrastus traveled to Lesbos in the 340s BCE to collect, study, and classify different kinds of plants and animals(Abt, Origins of the Public Museum). This established a scientific approach based on two things: observation and physical evidence. Aristotle then founded the Lyceum in Athens, which was a school that had something called a mouseion, which is essentially a shrine dedicated to one of the Greek goddesses, Muses. The word museum was directly derived from this mouseion(TheCollector.com). A background in biology allows scientists to contribute vital direction of specimens and ecological context to museums, while, on the other hand, biologists’ understanding of the idea of curation helps contribute essential frameworks for public science communication.

Not only did the natural sciences influence early museums, but they continue to enhance museum curation and specimen preservation. Areas in modern biology like Genetics, field sampling, taxonomy, and morphology bridge the gap between static collections and dynamic research archives. An example of this is DNA extraction from fossils or dried plant presses that allows scientists to trace back their origins and compare them to current ecological and evolutionary challenges. Biologists bring a sense of rigor into cataloging biodiversity and preventing errors in species identification(Whatisbiotechnology.org). To quote one of the readings we were assigned in class that I think backs up my previous claim is from Steven Lubar, who states, “Collections are the heart of the museum…They are raw material for research, the basis for exhibition, and the grounding of education.” He also cited that to make connections, you need to actually have things to connect, and that a collection of objects provides the foundation(Lubar 2018).

Biologists who help design natural history museums also are really good at utilizing museum spaces to convey complex scientific topics, climate change and biodiversity loss. Not everyone has a science ‘brain,’ so to speak; some people understand it from the get-go, some need a little help, and some are completely lost. This is why its imperative that scientists and curators work together to figure out ways to exhibit these complex ideas into visual narratives that the general public can digest with ease. Lubar also states how museums need to ” connect objects with ideas, objects with stories, and objects with people.” Essentially, what he is saying is that to bridge the gap between an idea and a person is you have to personalize it in a way, give it a story, or some personality. This way the average person can take a complex idea, personalize it and draw the correct conclusion from using their own thought process, rather than someone spilling word soup at you and hoping you can grasp it. Lubar also goes on to say, “Connections give objects meaning. An object in a vacuum is just a thing; an object in a network of meanings becomes a story, a lesson, an experience.” This directly sums up what I was just talking about: creating an experience allows people to digest ideas that are out of the ordinary, and this is where scientists rely on curators the most.

Let’s work backwards a little bit; I’ve talked a lot about how science helps museums, but haven’t really discussed the opposite, except in the last sentence or two of the previous paragraph. Specific knowledge and methodologies from the museum world help refine scientists’ research methods and public science outreach. Logic learned from curators has most definitely helped scientists build more efficient research repositories and advanced ways to preserve certain cultures, specifically tissue. Biologists, and frankly all scientists, struggle with science communication, and as I stated before, museum principles of interpretation often teach scientists how to make technical concepts accessible to non-experts without actually diluting any scientific accuracy. Lubar also has a great explanation of what I mean here, where he goes on to say how museums are not storerooms, but places where meaning is manufactured through connection.

Ultimately, there is a reciprocal relationship between science and museums, and their intersection results in better science and a more informed public. This is a two-way street, where scientists bring empirical depth and environmental concerns to collections, whereas museums offer the physical space for scientists to bridge the gap between research and human culture. Again, Lubar is hitting the nail on the head once again stating how the best museums will be the ones that can build the strongest ties between their collections and their communities. As society continues to face environmental crises and rapid technological change, the partnership between biological science and museum curation is more vital than ever to maintain both physical evidence of life and meaningful connection with the public.

As I embark on my final year at PSU, I have been asked to evaluate my progress on the Habits of Mind and their signposts. The Habits of Mind are umbrella terms with connected signposts that are part of the General Education requirements here at PSU. They include Self-Regulated Learning, Purposeful Communication, Integrated Perspective, and Problem Solving, each with subcategories that further explain their respective topics. As freshmen, we were required to take a Tackling a Wicked Problem course, where students from different majors were placed in classes with topics of current world problems, and for a semester we discussed those issues and worked collectively in groups on specific projects and papers, voicing our opinions and deliberating potential solutions to the problem, all while keeping those four Habits of Mind in our heads. This aligns with what Abby Goode highlights in her article Slow Interdisciplinarity, writing that higher education must “provide them with opportunities to collaborate across different fields, work in teams to address unsolved, complex problems, and treat them as contributors, rather than just consumers of knowledge.” As I continued on my General Education track, the Habits of Mind became less of a major topic in each class, but they were still somehow rooted in the overall end goal of major projects. The point of General Education here is to reach the summit of the habits by your senior year to ensure a well-rounded education, while becoming an expert in your field of choice. In this blog post, I aim to explain my four-year “hike” to summiting the Habits of Mind.

As a Biology student, there are some Habits of Mind that come much easier than others. For example, Problem Solving and Self-Regulated Learning come with the program, so to speak. Problem Solving is rather self-explanatory; during undergrad, you take a wide variety of classes from different science disciplines, ranging from Chemistry, Genetics, Ecology, Microbiology, and many more, all with respective lab classes, where you are asked to do experiments and come up with a hypothesis that asks a question and has a subsequent “theory” on what you and your team think will happen based on evidence from previous experiments and scientific articles. Problem Solving is deeply rooted in this process, from tweaking experimental designs to interpreting data and drawing conclusions based on the data received. With that being said, I do not want to say I am an expert problem solver, as I still have two more semesters of lab classes ahead of me; however, if there is a peak I have come close to summiting, Problem Solving is definitely the first one.

Self-Regulated Learning is another one that definitely goes with the territory. There have been many times when the way the professor explains material simply doesn’t click in my head; through no fault of the professor, my brain just works in ways I can’t even understand. Specifically, math classes are where I have struggled the most, and I’ve had to teach myself the material in a way that I can understand. This includes making random Quizlets and study guides that no one on Earth but me could understand, but it worked! Goode notes that this kind of intellectual growth is not instant, explaining that “like a major, which involves increasingly complex courses and years of practice, interdisciplinary thinking requires consistent inquiry, exercise, and metacognitive work.” That being said, I feel as though I can take responsibility for my own learning and present complex topics in a way I can understand, proving a near-summit to the habit.

The two remaining Habits of Mind are Integrated Perspective and Purposeful Communication, both of which I have definitely made progress on since starting at PSU, just not as much as the two others. To start, I’d like to talk about my progress in Integrated Perspective. During my sophomore year, I was required to take a course titled “Integrative Biology.” This course is required for all bio majors, minors, and environmental bio students. All “bio” students, in a way, came from different disciplines in the sciences. In this class, we were asked to come up with an experiment that tested environmental contaminants of concern, or ECCs. We were allowed to choose a specific organism ranging from horseshoe crabs to flatworms, snails, and others. The goal of this experiment was to take a contaminant, such as microplastics, research environmental concentrations of said contaminants, and test them on our organisms to see how they would affect them. During this collaboration, I worked with two environmental biology students and an environmental science and policy student, and we collaborated for weeks on an experimental design and deliberated on results for the subsequent weeks after the experiment. Goode describes this kind of cross-disciplinary openness as “disciplinary permeability, or the ability to allow other disciplines—and their respective priorities, methods, and concerns—to impact one’s thinking.” Although all within the STEM realm, collaborating with students outside the straight biology realm and hearing their perspective when coming up with the methods and discussing results was such a great experience and really opened my eyes as a scientist to wanting to work with students in different disciplines to come up with experiments and test theories!

I collaborate with science-based majors in most of my classes, and it is one of my favorite parts about taking upper-level science classes because I get to hear perspectives from so many different people outside my specific major, and it has made me a better scientist, hands down! I have surely not summited the peak of Integrated Perspective, but I sure am on my way. The final Habit of Mind is Purposeful Communication. This habit hits a little close to home for me; during high school, I was terrible at asking for help, especially in front of a class, and my grades suffered because of it. I was no better the first couple of semesters of college, but that’s where I took the Self-Regulated Learning habit and ran with it. It wasn’t until the second semester of my sophomore year that I finally decided that I didn’t care if people thought my question was dumb or questioned my intelligence, because all I cared about was getting my grade. I definitely had my fair share of asking some pretty “dumb” questions, although I don’t believe in dumb questions, but in clarification of material. As Goode emphasizes, learning “emerges from a community of thinkers who have, over time, cultivated the desire to learn from fields and perspectives that differ from their own.” It has now gotten to the point where, in some of my classes, I am the only one who answers questions, and now I’m good at it because I take my learning into my own hands and because I asked all those clarifying questions. In one of my classes this semester, my professor cuts me off at least once a week and, when he asks a question, says, “Anybody but Nate.” Which makes me look back and realize how much sooner this could have happened if I had just believed in myself all those years in high school. Again, I do not think I have summited any of these peaks yet, and it has been a grind of a hike, but the summits are in sight, and I cannot wait to see the view from the top.

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