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Title: Teaching Neuroscience in the Art Museum
Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field that investigates chemical and cellular foundations for perception, emotion, and memory. At Kenyon College, these concepts are reinforced through class sessions at The Gund, Kenyon’s teaching art museum, in both lower- and upper-level courses within the Department of Neuroscience. Students explore the neurological basis of visual processing through analysis of abstract works in The Gund’s permanent collection. Using guided inquiry, students explore color’s nonobjective properties, the variability of these properties based on context (color consilience), how color and color combinations imply or express textures and surfaces, and why color is often used as a metaphor for emotion. Our class sessions, refined over several semesters, reinforce principles discussed in didactic neuroscience lectures and elicit productive intersections between art and science. By upholding the rigors of scientific inquiry within the gallery, we have centered the art museum as a place for interdisciplinary study.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1941664
PAR ID:
10561738
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Publisher / Repository:
International Committee for University Museums and Collections
Date Published:
Journal Name:
University museums and collections journal
Volume:
16
Issue:
3
ISSN:
2071-7229
Page Range / eLocation ID:
235-243
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
college neuroscience education, sensory systems, art, active learning
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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