Karen Knutson

Connecting with Art: How Families Talk About Art in a Museum Setting

In this chapter we explore the question of what families learn about art during visits to an art museum. Museums are informal learning environments that can be designed to provide experiences that reflect disciplinary thinking and support explanatory engagement (National Academy of Sciences, 2009, Learning science in informal environments: Places, people, and pursuits. Washington, DC: National Academies Press). Conversation is a natural part of a museum visit, and researchers have discovered that analyzing these conversations provides access to the processes of learning that take place in informal settings. Studying conversations allows researchers to explore the ways in which prior knowledge, motivation, and the specifics of a particular moment create a context in which a learning experience transpires. Science museums in particular have looked closely at the ways in which mediation helps to shape more fruitful learning experiences, and they have designed environments to support the learning of particular concepts or learning behaviors (Borun et al., 1998, Family learning in museums: The PISEC perspective. Philadelphia: The Franklin Institute; Humphrey, Gutwill et al., 2005, Fostering active prolonged engagement: The art of creating APE exhibits. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press).

Interest and the Development of Pathways to Science

In this chapter we review two lines of work that trace the ways interest in science is triggered in everyday activity and then, once triggered, is extended and deepened. We take an ecological view of interest development, exploring social, cognitive, cultural, and material resources that contribute to a pathway from interest to disciplinary expertise and engagement. The chapter brings together two complementary lines of empirical work. In the first line of work, Crowley, Knutson, and colleagues conducted 2-hour retrospective life-history interviews with adult scientists and engineers asking about their early disciplinary interests and the ways those interests developed and were supported throughout life. In the second line of work, Barron, Martin, and colleagues prospectively followed youth engaged in science and technology to identify ways their interests were supported and extended across everyday, informal, and formal boundaries. We first present examples from each of these two lines of work, and then a cross-study synthesis that points to new questions about interest development. Our findings suggest that individual interests in science often emerge before high school, and as learners become passionate about a particular interest, they increasingly seek out and create opportunities to learn by engaging parents and peers, taking on new projects, enrolling in programs or visiting informal learning settings, and/or pursuing resources in books or online.

Prolonged food restriction decreases body condition and reduces repeatability in personality traits in web-building spiders

Variation in state, which is any factor that alters the value of decision options, is likely one of the most common drivers of personality differences. However, the general relationship between individuals’ body state and various personality metrics/average behavioral type, repeatability of behavior, and behavioral syndrome structure is still poorly resolved. Here, we manipulate body condition in three spider species (Agelenopsis aperta, Latrodectus hesperus, and Anelosimus studiosus) using contrasting feeding schedules. We then assessed the effects of historic feeding regime on individuals’ body condition, boldness, and foraging aggressiveness. We further assessed the effects of feeding regimes on the repeatability of boldness and aggressiveness and the presence/absence of correlations between these two traits. We found that feeding treatment impacted individuals’ average boldness and aggressiveness in two species (A. aperta and A. studiosus). We also noted that among-individual variance in both boldness and aggressiveness was severely reduced when A. aperta and A. studiosus were subjected to prolonged food restriction, steeply reducing repeatability in these traits. Finally, we noted that correlations between boldness and foraging aggressiveness were detectable only in one case, revealing no compelling relationship between food restriction and the presence/absence of behavioral correlations. Taken together, our results suggest that food restriction has only weak, circumstantial effects on individuals’ average personality type and the correlations between behavioral traits. However, there appears to be a robust positive relationship between food availability and the signature of consistent individual differences in behavior.Significance statementUnder laboratory conditions, we found that lower feeding rates sharply decreased the repeatability of aggressiveness and boldness in two spider species. In doing so, we provide the second body of evidence suggesting that a highly prevalent and ecologically relevant state variable, higher body condition, can increase the repeatability of foraging-related behavioral traits. Additionally, under some feeding regimes, we found that hunger levels could alter the average individual aggressiveness and boldness but not correlations between these traits. This work highlights the importance of state variables such as hunger in eroding behavioral repeatability, the defining trait of personality.

Approaching Art Education as an Ecology: Exploring the Role of Museums.

In this article, we use two studies conducted in art museum settings as a means to discuss some of the opportunities and challenges for the field of informal art education. The first study explores artmaking processes that take place in a children’s museum, highlighting the need to consider the social nature of learning in informal environments. Second, a study with families in an art museum explores art appreciation and interpretation. Taken together—the creating and the responding—these two studies are used to point out how we might trace disciplinary processes in art beyond schools into the informal learning environments of museums. By looking across settings, applying disciplinary content as a lens, we suggest an ecology of learning opportunities for the pursuit of an education in art. Further study and documentation of informal art education experiences is needed to better understand and support the needs and opportunities for art learners in non-school environments.

Museum Learning Colloborative Redux

nearly six years ago in this journal, we imagined that through the research that we planned we might come to understand learning in informal environments with the tools of socio cultural theory.1 The opportunity to write this follow-up essay allows us to describe some of what we have learned specifically about learning in museums. More extended accounts of our findings and framework are reported in several other places.2 Here we review some of the main findings from our work and reflect on the process of our own application of sociocultural theory to museum learning.

Cuticular bacteria appear detrimental to social spiders in mixed but not monoculture exposure

Abstract Much of an animal’s health status, life history, and behavior are dictated by interactions with its endogenous and exogenous bacterial communities. Unfortunately, interactions between hosts and members of their resident bacterial community are often ignored in animal behavior and behavioral ecology. Here, we aim to identify the nature of host–microbe interactions in a nonmodel organism, the African social spider Stegodyphus dumicola. We collected and identified bacteria from the cuticles of spiders in situ and then exposed spiders to bacterial monocultures cultures via topical application or injection. We also topically inoculated spiders with a concomitant “cocktail” of bacteria and measured the behavior of spiders daily for 24 days after inoculation. Lastly, we collected and identified bacteria from the cuticles of prey items in the capture webs of spiders, and then fed spiders domestic crickets which had been injected with these bacteria. We also injected 1 species of prey-borne bacteria into the hemolymph of spiders. Only Bacillus thuringiensis caused increased mortality when injected into the hemolymph of spiders, whereas no bacterial monocultures caused increased mortality when applied topically, relative to control solutions. However, a bacterial cocktail of cuticular bacteria caused weight loss and mortality when applied topically, yet did not detectibly alter spider behavior. Consuming prey injected with prey-borne bacteria was associated with an elongated lifespan in spiders. Thus, indirect evidence from multiple experiments suggests that the effects of these bacteria on spider survivorship appear contingent on their mode of colonization and whether they are applied in monoculture or within a mixed cocktail. We urge that follow-up studies should test these host–microbe interactions across different social contexts to determine the role that microbes play in colony performance.