[staff] Natural and Technological Connections
This past Friday, OLP had a staff retreat, in which we spent part of the afternoon at the NY Hall of Science in Queens, to see the Connections exhibit that is currently on display. It is an exhibit that spans quite a large section of the museum, with different activities to show the public different ways our world connects, both from technological as well as natural perspectives.
While there, we visited an exhibit that had an anthill [along with bees, one of the "classic" examples of showing connectivity from a nature-perspective] inside three aquariums that were connected by tubes, which was surrounded by a low level of water. A medium-sized ant had managed to crawl up the side of the main aquarium and out of the small square-sized hole at the top. As ants do, it had crawled around the outside, looking for a way back in.
This reminded me of something I had read when I was studying conflict resolution. The article was on a micro level, discussing the research done on how people react in certain situations. One of the research studies discussed in the article was on youth creating a computerized game on connections they saw in their world. There were several different groups of youth, all creating a different game that represented to them the nature of being connected. Though all different, the groups studies worked in similar fashions, in order to complete the project. It reminded me of the anthill, watching all of the different sized ants working together to create the ideal home – all working together towards a common goal.
In some sense, it is also how GK works as well. GK tries to bring students, of all different backgrounds, together, in order to create an ideal “home”, a place where they feel safe and are able to learn and participate in discussions about global issues, working towards becoming better informed global leaders. It’s always refreshing to step back and see how things fit into a wider picture, to see how things connect. This specifically focused group outing was a fun way to see how our work fits into that wider picture.
Comments
Nice. For me I was interested in the fact that the ant hill was next to a large version of British mathematician John Horton Conway's Game of Life (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life). In The Game of Life, a small set of simple rules dictate whether dots turn on or off over successive rounds. What begins as a simple set of rules unleashes all sorts of complexity.
The way that complexity emerges from simple rules, in which the whole is more complex than the sum of its parts, also describes the ant hill. It is no coincidence they are next to one another.
While I was in the museum I was reflecting on the fact that a youth development model upon which Global Kids relies requires a faith in chaos theory, and on some order to emerge, whether organic, with ants, or digital, like the Game of Life.
Posted by: Barry Joseph | February 9, 2009 5:46 PM