SEEING THE 'NATURE OF SCIENCE' - UNDERSTANDING ABOUT SCIENCE

· Use the Nature of Science: Understanding about Science statements below to think about what you have been seeing/experiencing in your host placement. Have you seen these aspects? Where were you at the time, what happened, what were you or the scientists doing/saying? Make a note about this.

Throughout my host placement, there have been many times where I’ve seen the Nature of Science put into practice.

→ Science is based on observation of the natural and physical world around us.

This has been woven throughout every single thing that I’ve experienced and seen with my placement so far, whether it is active observation or subconscious observation. Observing who, what, how, and most importantly, why. Observation has underpinned everything we’ve done, all of the fieldwork, lab work, experiments, to help us further our understanding of science and scientific concepts.

→ Scientists critique other scientists methods and ideas.

During my placement, I’ve seen a few examples of scientists critiquing other scientists, especially while working with PhD students. In order to understand the research being conducted, we were shown documents relating to PhD research. Within those documents were comments from Supervisors and Lab Techs, pointing out potential errors, things to think about, other options/ways to do things, advice, and general instruction. Although I haven’t been in attendance, I have heard about meetings between PhD students and Supervisors regarding their research, and the changes that need to be made to ensure they are/stay/get back on the right track. Sometimes these changes mean an entire change to the schedule or process of how we’re conducting experiments. In SEG, Spacial Ecology Group, we have also spoken about reviews, the different types of reviews, and the process of writing them. Hearing the amount of times some people have had their reviews sent back to them with lots of feedback showed how much critiquing really does go into science, but it was also reassuring to see that such a supportive group had been created to help Masters and PhD students with writing their reviews.

→ Many people from all cultures have developed understandings about how the world works based on careful observations.

There are a diverse range of cultures studying science at AUT, and each of them bring their own cultural perspectives and knowledge to their studies. The biggest example I’ve seen of this so far is through the Mātauranga Māori lecture that I’m attending, taking a deep dive into science through a Māori and cultural lens. The lectures are based around traditions, concepts, values and protocols and understanding why Māori and indigenous peoples do things in a certain way, then learning how to apply some of these concepts into our own practice.

→ Scientists ask lots of questions.

Scientists asking lots of question is something I haven’t necessarily seen a lot of, but I’ve experienced it a lot by needing to ask my own questions to clarify understanding and learn more. The questioning began on day one, specifically when the word ‘nematode’ was mentioned, as this was language I had never come across. Similarly to the acronym PCR; Polymerase Chain Reaction (which I’m still not entirely clear on as I haven’t seen this in action - yet). I have questioned to understand processes and experiments, to see how things work and to clarify my own thinking.

→ Scientists think creatively as well as critically.

This has been seen mainly when we need to problem solve something to do with research or experiments. During one of our site visits, we were collecting soil cores and really struggling to get them out of the corer. Because we couldn’t touch the soil with our hands, gloved or not, we had to get creative. We ended up finding a stick that fit perfectly into the corer, and used that when the cores got stuck. Within Living Labs, I’ve also observed the people who run the group getting creative with the resources they provide, too, going as far as to make their website interactive for schools to use while they’re at the site. It added another great level of engagement to the programme.

→ Integrity and honesty are valued in science.

This has mainly been observed within the protocols. In the lab, if anything goes wrong or breaks, best practice is to let someone know immediately. This was experienced pretty early on in my placement when we broke a beaker and flooded the lab all in the same day. We were scared of the reactions, as we were very new to AUT and still figuring out how things worked. After trying to solve the flooding problem by ourselves, we reached out to the PhD student we were working with and another person who overlooked the lab. By being honest, we got the problem solved fairly quickly and without incident, laughing it off by the end of the day. As it turns out, the area that flooded was bound to have flooded anyway, and it just happened to be while we were using it — lucky us!

If we have made a mistake during helping with research tasks, integrity is shown to let that person know immediately instead of covering it up — no matter how nervous I am. It usually ends up being not a huge deal, and quite easy to fix. All part of the learning process!

→ Scientists are open to changing their minds if new evidence comes to light.

This, I haven’t exactly witnessed yet as a lot of what I’m doing is showing education groups around Pourewa or working with a PhD student who hasn’t needed to change their mind based on evidence — at least, not to my knowledge. I, on the other hand, have done a lot of changing my mind based on new evidence when it comes to science learning in general. I came into this programme very unsure about science, but I have now gained a real interest in it and want to pursue more. Previously, I assumed science was mainly fair testing type of experiments, but my eyes have been opened to yet another whole new world of different investigations.

→ Scientists are open to reassessing existing ideas.

This falls in quite nicely with what I’ve written above, under ‘Scientists are open to changing their minds if new evidence comes to light’, as I’ve had to do a lot of reassessing of my own ideas surrounding science and what it consists of. I’ve also seen this in action when discussing reviews and when the PhD student needed to backtrack a little with their research and data collection — reassessing the ideas that she previously had on if she was on the right track or not, and essentially starting again at a different stage.

→ Scientists are curious.

Curiosity has been seen everywhere I go, with everything I’ve done. If there are other people in the lab with us, without a doubt there will be questions around what their research consists of and what they’re working on. The scientists I’ve worked with are very curious about each others work, and often offer support if they can. I, myself, have been curious this entire placement, and my questioning and communication has been getting better and better. Scientists love getting the opportunity to talk about their work and what they’re researching, and it’s always so cool to have a peek at what they’re getting up to!

→ Scientists are persistent.

Without a doubt. Even when the PhD student got feedback on their data and had to go back a few steps, they still showed persistence and resilience, working out a new game plan to continue moving forward with her data. Whenever we’re in the lab, persistence is something that’s seen a lot — especially if, on the odd chance, something has gone wrong or put a spanner in the works. With Living Labs, we were supposed to take a University group to the Pourewa site and teach them all about native forest restoration, but the weather wasn’t on our side. Instead of cancelling/postponing everything, the facilitator took an informal lecture to the group to run them through the kaupapa of Living Labs and what our end goal will be. The lecture was great, and the students were still engaged and found a lot of the information relevant.

→ Science can be repetitive.

Since I’ve been here, there has been a lot repetition where everything needs to be done exactly the same and in a very controlled environment. This has taken place either in the lab or in the field at Pourewa, where we were doing the final collection for a PhD student’s research, a process that had been repeated four separate times. The process for this was weekly application of treatments on 24 teabag plots on a rotating schedule, then after a period of time the CO2 and moisture levels of the soil in each plot were read. Teabags were carefully extracted and soil cores were taken for DNA extraction. In the lab, teabags were dried, cleaned, and weighed. This process had to be repeated numerous times throughout the length of the PhD students’ research. Another element of repetition that I’ve observed is when it comes to cleaning equipment. A recent example of this was in the lab working on nematode extraction. Between each beaker, the syringe had to go through a sterilisation process of trigene, water, bleach, water before moving onto the next sample. This is so there is no cross-contamination between samples, and we can get clear readings to see what invertebrates are present in which plots.

→ Scientists use a variety of investigation methods to gather evidence and make claims.

There have been many investigations that I’ve been involved in and/or observed; malaise trapping, soil sampling, nematode extraction, tree identification and measuring, audio and camera-based biodiversity monitoring to name a few. Each of these methods gave different information and led to different results. One thing I’ve learnt so far is that in order to understand an ecosystem, there need to be multiple different data sources to obtain all of the information required. A lot of thought and effort goes into gathering evidence and making claims, not to mention research and creative and critical thinking.

→ Scientists take time developing methods so that they can gather reliable data.

This hasn’t necessarily been seen or experienced with Living Labs, as a lot of what they’re doing is experimental and I’ve spent most of my time with them taking educational groups. However, with PhD students, some methods that they have used were taken from other existing methods and adapted to suit their own research. In order to gather reliable data, consistency, repetition, and accuracy is key, alongside a *rigorous* sterilisation process to ensure that there is no contamination or unexpected abnormalities.

→ What science gets done depends on funding (and who is funding).

Funding seems to underpin everything in the science world, and there are very strict criteria in order to secure that funding. It also seems that funding is quite particular, based on funders priorities and what data they want to see collected/what research they want to see get done. 

· Think about the range and extent of the NoS you have just noted personally from your time in your host placement and try to connect it to your classroom. In what ways could students have opportunities to experience and develop these things? 

Write a sentence or two about these opportunities.

Some of the biggest things that stand out to me to help students experience and develop these NoS come from lots of observation, discussion and just getting out there and doing it, experiencing science first-hand and hands-on. Taking students outside the walls of the classroom and showing them that science is everywhere and all around us, all of the time.