What is a Researcher?

By Karin Patzke (with lots of help from and thanks to Dr. Daniel Calleri at University Of Chicago Lab School)

Research is…. Explore the world Ask questions Observe, Collect Data, Present Evidence. Identify a problem or something interesting in the

world that you want to know more about Communication and Collaboration Context – what else is going on?

Situate knowledge in a particular time and place

Alternatives – how can we explain what we see? Results: Finding and Communicating solutions to

problems in the world

Research and TheoryA theory accounts for many facts and attempts to

explain a great variety of phenomena. Any theory has a large body of evidence (from several disciplines) to support it. And a theory allows you to make predictions which then you can test. A theory can be composed of one or many hypotheses.

Shorter definition: how we arrange our research (our facts!) to make sense of our observations (the world!).Theory of Gravity, Heliocentric Theory, Theory of Plate

Tectonics, Quantum theoryAtomic theory, Evolutionary Theory……

Thanks to Dr. Daniel Calleri for this slide!

Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)

Explore

Darwin’s Finches

Darwin

Collect Data, Observe, Compare and Collaborate

Alfred Russell Wallace

Darwin

What is theory and research for Darwin?

What is theory and research for Darwin?

23 years to publish his theory

Darwin

Questions!

“I wonder why these creatures no longer exist?”

“Why such beauty when no one can see?”

From simple Questions:

To more complex:“If the globe has undergone such profound changes in it’s history (geology), surely all living creatures must have changed with it – to adapt to their new conditions?”

Darwin’s contributions to evolutionary theory:

• Rejected the notion of a constant world: things were changing (speciation)

• Multiplication of species: organisms (living & extinct) descended from ancestral species

• Natural Selection provided a mechanism for evolutionary change in populations• NS is a theory that accounts for all the evidence. Darwin

hypothesized that is took thousands and millions of years, others have since claimed it happens much faster (or much slower…).

Thanks to Dr. Daniel Calleri for this slide!

Darwin

Building Complexity