Fully understanding the idea of “abstracting” was definitely a bit more abstract for me than some of the other ideas we have looked at in the course. Physicist Werner Heisenberg states, abstracting is “the possibility of considering an object or group of objects under one viewpoint while disregarding all other properties of the object. The essence of abstraction consists in singling out one feature, which, in contrast to other properties, is considered to be particularly important” (Root-Bernstein, p.72). So, once again we are looking at an ordinary topic through an unordinary lens. This is difficult. One idea that really stuck with me from the reading was people “can identify abstracting when they see it, but very few can actually tell you what makes abstract art abstract” (Root-Bernstein, p. 72). This reminds me of a time when I was trying to create a general rubric for creativity. I felt like I knew creativity when I saw it, but I couldn’t pull apart the elements that actually made a piece creative. This makes things especially challenging when trying to grade students on something that you can’t really explain. Over time, I have come up with a more reasonable and reliable rubric for creativity (strongly following the work of Mishra and Henriksen) but, I continue to tweak it. Abstracting reminds me of this. Like creativity, it is something that we see all the time, but the dynamics of it are not crystal clear.
My larger overarching concept is plants. For this assignment I chose to focus on pollination and the moment the bee picks up the pollen from the flower. I chose this topic because it is a necessary element to life as we know it. For the first part of the assignment I chose to abstract the topic by writing a poem from the viewpoint of the flower. For the second part of the assignment I chose to analogize the topic by creating a simulation for my students. In order to complete these two tasks I watched several videos in slow motion of bees landing and picking up pollen from plants. I went through several versions of abstracting before I found something that felt right.
Pollination plays a large role in life on our earth. Without pollination, plants would not reproduce, which in turn would affect our entire planet. The moment a pollinator (or bee) picks up pollen from a plant is a key step in the process of pollination. It is also an interesting one. By zooming in on this particular moment, it would allow students to connect with the importance of this simple step in pollination. We know that exploring topics through multiple senses leads to deeper understanding for students.
Here is my poem, abstracting pollen being picked up from the viewpoint of a flower:
Alone I Wait
Alone I wait
for the tiptoeing beast
At my expense
he will have his feast
Alone I wait
for a single dance
My delicate filament
don’t stand a chance
Alone I wait
for the sticky straw
To slurp away
with his toothless jaw
Alone I wait
for the dusty bee
To silently take
a part of me
How does rubbing a cheese puff relate to pollination? That is exactly what I want my students to figure out. According to Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, “analogies recognize a correspondence of inner relationship or of function between two (or more) different phenomena or complex sets of phenomena” (p.142). To help students understand what it would be like to be a bee picking up pollen during pollination, I have created this analogy between two different phenomena. Students will need three materials, a juice box, cheese puffs, and a paper flower. For this analogy, students will become the bee, the juice box is the nectar, the cheese puff is the pollen, and the paper flower is the flower. As students drink from the juice box, they will rub their fingers on a cheese puff and the cheese will transfer to their hands (as a bee would pick up pollen while drinking nectar). Then they will “fly” to another student’s paper flower and rub their fingers on the flower, thus transferring the pollen to another flower.
Nicole Mifsud 