Acquire the knowledge and skills to effectively work both individually and collaboratively on
complex, interdisciplinary issues and systems, and be able to:
research, analyze, and describe the parts, relationships, and interactions
create abstractions and models of complex systems/situations/issues
evaluate their fit and usefulness
communicate about and act on their work and findings
Motivation and "Trigger"
The world is becoming more complex by the year.
Things happen faster ("acceleration") and they affect each other in multiple (sometimes unexpected) ways ("interconnectedness")
Some Implications
- multiple issues, aspects, relationships, and angles need to be analyzed at the same time
- interdisciplinary knowledge and skills are becoming even more important
What we can do?
- Lower the walls between subjects/knowledge domains (science, literature, history, math, computer science, languages, art, etc.)
- Make/Model more interdisciplinary connections
Examples/Ideas
- Identify a few "fruitful" issues/topics/ideas and work on different aspects/angles of them in different domains/subjects.
- Example 1: Tessellations
- Math - geometry: shapes, angles, symmetry, rotation, displacement
- Art - different patterns, balance, symetry - e.g., M.C. Escher
- History - Spain, Middle Ages, Moors, Alhambra Palace, etc.
- Language - Spanish - describing the art, the period in Spain, etc.
- Computer Science - programmatically create tessellations, repeat/loops, calculations
- Science - Voronoi Tessellations (biology - cells, bones, ecology/hydrology - forest/plat/canopy growth, chemistry - position of nuclei in molecules)
- Example 2: Celestial Bodies (stars, planets, systems)
- Physics/Math - motion equations
- Art - color, balance, motion
- History - Kepler, Marine Navigation, commerce, collonialism
- Computer Science - programmatically simulate system/planet/galaxy rotations/behavior
- Science - astronomy, biology (life), optics (telescopes, prisms), chemistry (gases, fluids, spectra)