How Our Brains Manage Change

I am currently taking a change management course through Algonquin College. It has been a dream of mine for quite some time to understand how organizations and individuals deal with change. From learning about how to determine an organization's readiness for change, to effective communication strategies, overcoming resistance and the neuroscience of change, this has been an incredible learning experience.

One of the ideas I shared with the class is the neuroscience of how our brains deal with change. Most of the basic, everyday functions we do are controlled by an ancient part of the brain called the basal ganglia. This part of the brain requires very little energy to do its work.

However, when we are faced with new learning and change, the prefrontal cortex and the orbital cortex take over. These parts of the brain require massive amounts of energy! This explains why learning new things is tiring! It also explains why it is so comfortable to resist change because it doesn't require investing energy.

The other idea I shared with the class is the Kubler-Ross curve. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross observed people in the process of coping with life-changing situations. Since her research in 1969, the "change curve" she developed can be applied to anyone experiencing change. The key understanding is that we all go through the stages at our own pace, but we always have choice about how we deal with each stage.

I want students to understand that learning should feel challenging and we should expect to struggle at times. It's the way human brains are wired. It's how we approach the challenge of change that makes all the difference.

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things” - Machiavelli

Experiment Design with Plants

Before March Break, we learned about organ systems in plants so that we could design our own experiments on how to improve plant growth.

After writing a clear hypothesis, identifying the independent, dependent and controlled variables and writing detailed procedures, we started planting seeds this week. We will start our experiments when our plants become seedlings and we transfer them to pots.

Pythagorean Relationship

One of the most useful mathematical relationships is the one discovered by Pythagoras (and others) for right angle triangles.

We are learning how to estimate answers and create excellent solutions for problems like the one you see here.