Neuroscience and Taylor Swift join forces in a new method that tackles the growing shortage of botany experts in a highly creative way.
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Our brains are wired to respond to stimuli.
If we catch a falling object out of the corner of our eye that might hit us, we will immediately jump out of the way without even thinking. Chocolate in the cupboard can also easily spur us into action.
What appeals to us less are inanimate objects, and plants in particular. Our brains simply tune them out and focus on the other things in the room.
This phenomenon is known as 'plant blindness' in cognitive psychology. It gives botany a boring image, resulting in a severe shortage of students.
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The shortage of botany experts is a real problem.
These experts are responsible for ensuring we have food to eat, and the pharmaceutical industry also frequently relies on mimicking existing natural processes, making it crucial to have people who research and understand them.
A researcher named Dr. Glaucia Silva decided to tackle the problem at its root in a highly creative way: Taylor Swift music videos.
In the Taylor Swift method, she screens the singer's music videos at the beginning of class. The videos she selects feature a strong presence of various plants, and the lesson evolves into an engaging discussion about the botany and genetics of these plants.
This method is based on a theory by psychologist David Ausubel, who argued that our brains struggle to process entirely new material. Therefore, it must be anchored by creating connections to a framework of knowledge the brain already recognizes and responds to.
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The method has proven highly successful, and even students who aren't Taylor Swift fans have started showing an interest in botany. They suddenly began noticing plants in other contexts as well—in songs by other artists, games, movies, and even in the real world.
This method is gaining global interest in other fields of study that are also experiencing a shortage of new students, and it may herald a new era of delivering educational material in a more engaging and creative way.
Image: From the music video for the song Cardigan by Taylor Swift.
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👋 Hi, I'm Shlomo Strauss and my posts are not written by artificial intelligence.
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