Poetry as a Creative Practice to Enhance Engagement and Learning in Conservation Science

Abstract

Creativity is crucial to the capacity to do science well, to communicate it in compelling ways, and to enhance learning. Creativity can be both practiced and enhanced to strengthen conservation science professionals’ efforts to address global environmental challenges. We explore how poetry is one creative approach that can further conservation scientists’ engagement and learning. We draw on evidence from peer-reviewed literature to illustrate benefits of integrating science and poetry, and to ground our argument for the growth of a science-poetry community to help conservation scientists develop skills in creative practices as a component of professional development. We present examples from literature as well as two short poetry exercises for scientists to draw on when considering writing poetry, or deciding on forms of poetry to include, in their practice. Opportunity exists to grow science–poetry projects to further our understanding of what such initiatives can offer.

Creative communication – using poetry and games to generate dialogue between scientists and nonscientists

“…By collaboratively writing and sharing poetry together in a safe and supportive environment, these hierarchies can be levelled, paving the way for a genuine exchange of ideas between different publics that have relevant and useful expertise and knowledge. These collaborative sessions [18][19][20] are successful in generating dialogue for three reasons: they give permission to nonscientific publics that they can share their expertise, they give permission to the scientists that they can display an element of pathos (i.e., an appeal to the emotions), and they create a sense of shared vulnerability.…”

The Twelve Cranial Nerve Haiku of Christmas: Finding a Place for the Haiku in the Anatomical Learning Toolbox

“…Writing haiku certainly provides an opportunity for students with different learning styles and talents to express themselves in a way that is not possible in other science assessments (such as the dreaded laboratory report). And this may be why haiku and other forms of poetry increase engagement with scientific content (Furlan et al, 2007;Januchowski-Hartley et al, 2018), as they break from traditional norms. As a novel approach to learning, haiku writing may improve students' motivation, and recent evidence shows that motivation is an important predictor of success in anatomy students (Abdel Meguid et al, 2020).…”

“…The potential to inspire non-scientists, both inside and outside of the classroom is perhaps one of the best justifications for including haiku writing in anatomy. Poetry is increasingly used to raise awareness, engage and capture the public's attention, and enhance their scientific knowledge (Illingworth, 2016;Januchowski-Hartley et al, 2018;Fernández-Giménez et al, 2019). This is particularly important, because scientific articles are complex, and often laden with discipline-specific language that puts it out of public's reach (Doubleday and Connell, 2017).…”

The Potential of Circ’s Model in Poetry Learning at Higher Education

“…In terms of interpreting the meaning or content of poetry, student interpretation varies because they have different experiences and knowledge. Poetry learning is prioritized on the affective development of students, to enrich their experience [24], and serves as a creative practice of students [25]. In general, their learning outcomes provide enough evidence that they are skilled at understanding the building blocks of poetry, namely the physical structure and inner structure of poetry.…”