Very interesting essay, Smrithi. I wish our kids learned more about this "how we know" in school. Alas, most of the time they just learn what we know, but not how. I wonder if there is an essay you (or someone!) could write about the how we know for specific things that high school students need to learn in biology. Mitochondria, ATP, the Krebs cycle--all the stuff that teens memorize and parrot without understanding: how much more interesting it would be if these things were taught as detective stories, with the machinery of knowing that you describe here as part of how we got clues to our modern understanding.
Thanks Heike! I hope to keep writing more posts that try to bring the "how we know" into the "what we know." For me, learning about the history of the discovery makes the science itself come alive. It would have been so much more fun to learn that way in high school.
Very interesting essay, Smrithi. I wish our kids learned more about this "how we know" in school. Alas, most of the time they just learn what we know, but not how. I wonder if there is an essay you (or someone!) could write about the how we know for specific things that high school students need to learn in biology. Mitochondria, ATP, the Krebs cycle--all the stuff that teens memorize and parrot without understanding: how much more interesting it would be if these things were taught as detective stories, with the machinery of knowing that you describe here as part of how we got clues to our modern understanding.
Thanks Heike! I hope to keep writing more posts that try to bring the "how we know" into the "what we know." For me, learning about the history of the discovery makes the science itself come alive. It would have been so much more fun to learn that way in high school.