Informal Learning

As the first decade of the 21st century ended, policymakers, funding agencies, and cognitive neuroscientists increased their interest in “informal learning.” The term refers not only to general arenas, such as play, that involve exploration and discovery, but also community organizations that enable learners to learn and work together on joint projects. The National Science Foundation, as well as other agencies, now recognize that much of the learning that goes beyond scripted and standard information takes place informally and primarily through observation, demonstration, trial and error, and corrective thinking. Art and science work together and not as separate disciplines in these instances. In informal learning across sites, tasks, and age groupings, learners sketch, model, and enact and dramatize their ideas in order to deepen their own thinking and to get their ideas across to others. For more on Heath’s research on these points, see the articles listed below.

In 2009, MIT scientist David Edwards coined the term "artscience" to call attention to the inextricable relationships between art and science. In doing so, he joined artists and scientists who have consistently lamented the separation of art and science into two separate disciplines or fields in the eighteenth century. Art historians such as Martin Kemp and Barbara Stafford have written extensively about "artful science" as do many contemporary designers, engineers, and medical specialists. Without sketches, diagrams, drawings, and models created through principles of art to represent scientific concepts and practices, the analytical and practical work of building bridges, carrying out laser surgery, and cornea transplants could not go foward.

The technologies necessary today for music and video production draw young people around the world into artscience. Heath's current work examines how the young begin and develop their exploration, creation, and design through both art and science. Learning very much on their own time and directed by their particular areas of interest, young women and men seek out expert guides and models, search documentation, and practice relentlessly to pursue their goals of expertise. Skateboarders, surfers, and musicians become designers, small-business developers, and community organization leaders to promote the value of their artful science for other young people.

Driven by the lure of high-risk climbing, long-distance hiking, and foreign travel to locations that offer special physical challenges, a growing contingent of young people increasingly dedicate themselves to environmental conservation and social entrepreneurial efforts to clean up polluted waters and landscapes. As media stars around the world integrate facts, figures and human interest stories into their performances, young people see opportunities for increasing their own involvement "to make a difference" through artscience.

Indigenous ecological knowledge, the province of elders throughout past centuries, is now coming into the music, dance, and visual arts of festivals and ecotourism ventures planned locally and promoted internationally. The young lead these enterprising initiatives with their commitment not only to do their part to save the planet but also to reconnect with local resources, history, and adaptive preservation.