Course Instructor: Rebecca Grime-McDonald
Ever wonder why the sciences are all considered part of the "liberal arts"? Do you think the portrayal of science and scientists in Hollywood movies is fair and accurate? Are you interested in how history, politics, and religion are related to scientific discovery? Students in this course will use critical reading and writing, class discussion, film analysis, and role-playing to examine the important function science plays in everyone's life, not just scientists. This course discusses how, as part of a liberal education, science is a way of knowing about the world. During part of the course, students will be assigned roles in "Reacting to the Past" games, which will explore important scientific ideas, such as Darwin's theory of natural selection and Galileo's assertion of a heliocentric universe, by recreating the turbulent historical contexts that shaped them.