Caryn Babaian: The Art of Science

(logo whooshing) (upbeat music) - 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 to 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.

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.

When you're in my 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 Vitruvian man and be a little overwhelming.

So I start off with Charlie Brown.

(upbeat music) 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.

(chuckles) That, I think it's 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 a Linus, but most likely Lucy because she probably deserves it.

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.

(soft upbeat music) The person that draws a leaf will tell you a lot more about it than the person that just looked at it.

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