Oldal 29 [29]
OCR
28 2 MULTI-SENSORY COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION environment that involves almost all senses: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, and tactile. It is not the artistic value of the methods that we want to emphasize. However, the presence of arts gives the class a touch of liveliness (beyond the cognitive benefits). Dance means movements, patterns, music, and rhythms. Choreography is the art of making structures in which movement occurs. Dance is one of the most complex human activities involving the whole body and, what is more, the entire person (physical, cognitive, affective). As with dance, music is also characterized by repetitive rhythmic patterns. Additionally, during role-playing, actors follow scenarios that could also include patterns. Patterns and structures, as common elements in several art forms, represent the bridges between sciences and arts. For example, according to Hammel (2002), music is a logical structuring like a mathematical proof of itself. Stern, one of the initiators of the Math-Dance programme, stated that they translate pattern into choreography and pattern into math (Schaffer, Stern, & Kim, 2001). 2.5.1 Combining science education with arts Since 1998, practising mathematicians, artists, musicians, and scientists have come together at the annual Bridges conferences to discuss connections existing among their fields of interest (Bridges Organization, 2004). In line with this initiative, in recent years, more and more papers have described works that combine science education with art. 2.5.1.1 Science education on stage Downey uses his mathematical work as inspiration for the dances he choreographs and performs. His research includes algorithmic processes. In his opinion, since dancing means following a series of logical steps sequentially, Scottish country dances bear a striking resemblance to algorithms. Thinking about things moving in space, choreographers actually visualize algorithms (The dance of mathematics, 2006). The Fibonacci and Phi and Une Journée Abstraite dance performances (initiated by Alban Elve’d Dance Company and worked out in collaboration with university scientists) create a fusion of mathematics, CS, graphical art, and dance. Fibonacci and Phi is played on the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio, Phi. Une Journeée Abstraite introduces theoretical concepts of CS such as computability, language expressiveness, and Turing machines (Burg & Liittringhaus, 2006). For the celebration of Einstein Year, in 2005, the Institute of Physics (UK) and Rambert Dance Company created Constant Speed, a performance inspired from the Einstein theories (Baldwin & Rivers, 2005). In 2006, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange Company premiered Ferocious Beauty: Genome,
