Abstracting

Why is the Ocean Salty?

I was first introduced to the powers of abstracting in learning as an exchange student in high school. I was living in Australia and while I perfectly understood everything the teachers were talking about my “sister” – another exchange student from Brazil who was placed with me – did not. She knew English quite well but a lot of more complex terms and ideas were lost on her. I became very good at explaining things in different terms, from different angles. I didn’t realize it then but years later when I became a teacher the strength of being able to take a topic and come at it from a different angle is very important. To me abstracting in the classroom is paramount to student understanding.

My main topic for this class continues to be Oceanography. For this project I chose the question of ‘Why is the Ocean Salty?’ I picked this topic because it is in fact a very simple answer, but one that many people don’t know.

For my first abstraction I wanted to make a visual image. I have seen thousands of pictures of the water cycle used to describe ocean salinity – many just have more arrows drawn or little salt shaker cartoons tumbling along the picture. I did not want to use words. I find many scientific images become so over burdened with words that students lose sight of the image. So here is the image I created:

I liked the concept of the funnel. Instead of keeping land as it is normally seen (as all the water cycle images do) I propped it up so the idea of runoff is clearer. All the people I have shown this to agree that it depicts rainwater washing something down into the ocean and then the water going back up again. Which is exactly what I wanted to show.

            For my second abstraction I knew right off the bat I wanted to create a Wordle. For this particular one I used part of a US Geological Survey Publication entitled “Why is the Ocean Salty” by Herbert Swenson.  I went through many different Wordles from different passages of this article and finally settled on the introduction. After pasting it into the Wordle application I played with the layout and colors and came up with this:

I knew I wanted to use a Wordle because of the basic concept of visual words. Since my first abstract was a pure image I wanted to go the opposite this time and use all words. But the beauty of this program is that the words still create something cohesive.

            The weaknesses of my abstractions lie in their reliance on an explanation. Neither would stand-alone as the sole answer to Why the Ocean is Salty. They both require some spoken or written explanation.

            I think the strength in both of these abstractions is the visual. Explaining why the ocean is salty is a very basic one-sentence description. Thus it is usually left to just a few slides in a PowerPoint presentation. Being able to put it into different contexts allows a greater understanding especially with visual learners. 

Patterns - Module 3

As a teacher I use patterning as a tool for initial understanding and then memory retention. Being able to break down a topic into pieces of a pattern allows for students to comprehend the whole easier and then also be able to retain the information. The human brain can quickly remember 7 pieces of information. So if you have a 14-digit number you are out of luck. But break it down into 7 pieces of a pattern and you will remember it.

My selected topic was oceanography. For this assignment I decided to focus on the water cycle. I picked this because of the strong pattern it already has.

The water cycle is always presented as a cycle. It is often shown with arrows moving in a circle. As this way of presenting the movement of water has been a standard of all learning forever it is obviously a tried and true method. It easily showcases to learners that water is not created or lost but simply moved from one spot to another. I definitely believe that presenting water as a cycle helps maintain the idea of continual movement with no loss.

             The only hindrance I found to presenting the movement of water on our planet in a circular pattern is that young learners tend to keep the circular shape regardless of where the water is moving. For example the image below is a very typical diagram taken from an Environmental Education for kids website (http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/earth/groundwater/watercycle.htm)

But it becomes so engrained in their heads that adjustments can’t be made.  If teachers only rely on the movement of water as a cycle like the one above it becomes difficult to add in factors like “does evaporation happen when it is not sunny?” or “ is rain the only way water comes back to the ground from the sky?”         

            So while it is an excellent pattern to rely on and I know I will continue to teach water movement as a cycle I think teachers need to enhance or tweek it a bit to move beyond the basics.

            If I were to reinvent a pattern for the movement of water I would take advantage of the zigzag line. When reading the Sparks of Genius chapters I found myself continually staring at the re-invented periodic tables on page 131. I wanted to try and use the pattern from the 1886 Reynolds version on my water movement diagram. I came up with this (please pardon the drawing skills)

Keeping the same basic image (my Paint version) as the one above I traded out the pink circle arrows for pink zigzag lines. I like that it allows for a different perspective to be seen but I am not sure it still conveys all the ways water CAN move throughout the Earth. But my next attempt to draw lines yielded this:

Also not helpful for learning. In fact I think this last image would qualify as a huge hindrance to kids. It is messy and rather chaotic.

But if we look back at all three images together I think a series of PowerPoint slides would come together perfectly. As a teacher I would start with the basic water cycle. This would probably be a review anyway as most kids grow up with this from kindergarten. Then I would explain its drawbacks. Show the image of the diagonal lines and ask them what they think this image conveys. And then same with the chaotic lines. By leading them into it the last image becomes less confusing. Which is the idea behind patterning for learning!