- [Speaker] Funding for The Secret Life of Scientists is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
(screen graphics whooshing) (gentle music playing) - I'm a biology teacher, and I like to use art to communicate my ideas of about nature and science especially living systems to students.
And I like students to be engaged with that art because I think art captures the elusive and diverse quality of life.
It connects students to the living world, and that's why I draw on class.
Was that 10 seconds I went, oh, what did I do too short?
Oh!
(laughs) (gentle music playing) (screen graphics whooshing) (gentle music playing) When I was like a teenager, I had heard of Leonardo da Vinci and I knew of his name, but, you know, it was sort of old, you know, I wasn't into it.
And then I got a hold of the book and I looked at it.
There was all this great stuff in this notebook about plants and animals and horses and optics and lenses and people and body parts.
I read through his biography, and that kind of just like made me fall in love with him.
What a unbelievable human being that would be so involved with their planet, and be so passionate about wanting to show that art was part of learning science.
A part of learning about nature.
It was a validation of what I did.
(gentle music playing) Well, I kind of wanted to just kinda get a little more feel for da Vinci.
I wanted to go to Florence, and I wanted to see what he saw.
When I was in Florence I took a drawing class.
I thought well, what I'll do is, I'll make kind of a tribute to him.
I'll copy a couple of his drawings.
I made a big horse poster of all... 'Cause he loved horses, so I did all their anatomy, just like he did.
I really felt like, wow, I know him now that I not just went there, but I drew his stuff.
(gentle music playing) You know, a lot of people say like, "Oh, you can think like Leonardo."
No you can't.
He comes from another period in time.
What you can do is you can look at the way he approached his relationships with the planet.
And if you get really close to subjects you study animals and plants, they become your teachers.
So that's the lesson I took from him.
You know, my best teachers were snails and slugs and ants and snapping turtles and robins and dirt and water.
And they all have something to teach you.
(gentle music playing) (screen graphics whooshing) When people were doing cave drawings, and they were telling a story about the wildlife of the area, they were still teaching biology.
When you move up into like the 1700s, 1800s you had what were biology sort of artist teachers who would come into the classroom, and who would put all of this stuff on the board, and you would draw it.
And so what I do seems unique now, but it's not.
(chalk scribbling) Biology is this enormity.
I think it's probably the most interesting thing in the universe.
There's nothing as complex or sophisticated as living systems.
To try and articulate that to students is really difficult.
(gentle music playing) When you're my in class you need to bring a pencil.
You need to have paper.
It's not uncommon for people to get really scared of drawing.
I always have people going, "Oh my God, we're not gonna be graded for this."
In anatomy class, I know sometimes I would draw this retrieving man and be a little overwhelming.
So I start off with Charlie Brown.
(gentle music playing) We do like the thoracic cavity.
I put the dorsal cavity in him.
I do the endocrine system on it.
I do sagittal sections and coronal sections through his head and through his body.
(Caryn chuckles) That's I think is fun to see 'cause then everybody goes, "Oh, that's a simple drawing I can do it."
And people are sitting there trying to draw Charlie Brown.
They're adding whatever detail they need to.
And they're actively engaged.
One day I'm gonna do Linus, but most likely Lucy because she probably deserves it.
(footsteps tapping) - Aah!
- When you go to an aquarium leave your camera at home, and try taking a sketchbook with you instead, and see how much more interesting it is.
(gentle music playing) The person that draws a leaf will tell you a lot more about it, than the person that just looked at it.
(gentle music playing) (screen graphics whooshing) Oh, Leonardo da Vinci, his whole life is sexy.
(screen graphics clicking) Philadelphia, just got a lot more of what my brain's used to decay, entropy that sort of thing.
(screen graphics clicking) Bela Lugosi in The Devil Bat.
He was trying to get this pheromone out of a bat.
He plays a good like mad scientist.
- Yes.
(screen graphics clicking) - 11 or 12.
I probably, I think it was a bird.
People used to bring me dead animals they'd find on the road and I would dissect them.
(screen graphics clicking) My favorite biological drawing is from Ernst Haeckel.
He did these phenomenal creatures.
It's shocking to this day to see them.
(screen graphics clicking) The Professor from Gilligan's Island, of course.
He really denotes kind of like the super scientist that you could say, that's guy that knows his stuff.
(screen graphics clicking) Blackboard, it has sort of a looking into the sky kind of feel to it.
(screen graphics clicking) I think I'm doing one right now.
(chuckles) You know, yo, yo, what do you want?
You know, that's kind of like a rocky thing.
(screen graphics clicking) Oh, I absolutely love kidneys and the urinary system.
(Caryn laughs softly) (screen graphics clicking) A whole brain I'll take the whole brain.
(gentle music playing)
