Can Comics Teach Science? Part One

Can comics teach science? Teachers have already recognized the role that comics can play in Language Arts and Social Studies: honing reading skills, drawing in reluctant readers, and telling compelling stories about U.S. and world history, from Maus to Persepolis. Websites like The Graphic Classroom and No Flying, No Tights help teachers and school librarians discover and share comic books and graphic novels for use in the classroom.

But science? Can the complexity of science be squeezed into a speech bubble? And can comics help spark a love of science to last a lifetime and inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and citizen-scientists? Teachers, authors, artists, and publishers are coming together to voice a resounding:

In this first in a series of posts, I'm going to highlight some of the developments coming out of the exciting collision of science and comics. And I mean "collision" in the best possible, supercollidor kind of way: smashing things together at high speed, releasing lots of energy--maybe even bringing entirely new fundamental particles into being. Or at least some fog zombies and stalk-eyed fly pirates.

First up is Sequential SmArt. Coming up May 18 and 19 at Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA, this conference and workshop will explore the use of comics and graphic novels across the curriculum, from kindergarten through college. The final day will explore the use of comics to teach science, and will feature Kevin Kinney of DePauw on using the X-Men to teach about mutation and conference organizer Jay Hosler (Biology, Juniata) on teaching, testing, and creating science comics.

Hosler has created some of the best: Clan Apis about the lives of honey bees, The Sandwalk Adventures (in which Charles Darwin schools some creationist mites living in his eyebrows on evolution), and Optical Allusions (in which Wrinkles the Wonder Brain meets some stalk-eyed fly pirates on his quest to retrieve his employer's missing eyeball).

Funded by an NSF grant, Hosler wrote Optical Allusions (2007) as an experimental biology text for non-majors. He undertook the project in an effort to reverse the downward trend in science literacy. In hilarious fashion, Optical Allusions takes an example frequently cited by creationists in support of intelligent design--the supposedly irreducible complexity of the human eye--and reduces it. Since then, science comics have really begun to come into their own with such acclaimed titles as Nick Abaszis's Laika, about the Cold War canine cosmonaut, also from 2007, and Mark Schultz's The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA, with art by Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon (2009).

So the writers, artists, and publishers are embracing science comics. And they are even making their way onto syllabi and into classrooms. But what about the readers? Do science comics work as comics and as science? Stay tuned for the next exciting installment...

In the meantime, please share your own science comic favorites here, or on the Elefolio Facebook page, or via twitter @elefolio.

(Full disclosure: Hosler and I worked together on May Berenbaum's book The Earwig's Tail. I was the book's editor and Jay was the illustrator. And I'm a fan. Does it show?)

Superhero Scientists with Tentacles? Bring 'em on.

Great article and slide show up on the New York Times website from this past Monday about the considerable body of work comic art genius Jack Kirby left behind on the drawing board when he died in 1994. Dave Itzkoff's article, "Jack Kirby's Heroes in Waiting," details how the talented and prolific Kirby moved from New York to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, working first for Hanna-Barbera and then for Ruby-Spears, creating character designs for their Conan-lite Saturday morning serial, Thundarr the Barbarian.

Clicking through the slideshow, my attention was immediately caught by the slide for a presentation board for a show called the Gargoids, "scientists who gain superpowers after becoming infected with an alien virus."

It would be great if the producers now looking to bring some of these concepts to the big and small screens took the opportunity to learn something about the amazing superpowers of viruses themselves. Stop someone on the street and ask them what a virus is and you'll find that, despite decades of media noise about HIV and West Nile and H1N1, we don't really know. A project in the Omaha, Nebraska, public schools is empowering kids with the knowledge and journalism skills to create videos for use in classrooms to educate their peers about viruses--not just what they are and how they make us sick, but how viruses in all their amazing diversity are a vital part of life on Earth. It's an inspiring example of students learning to use storytelling to first make sense of science and then share their new expertise with others.

The World of Viruses project is spreading that message through other media as well--including Kirby's chosen medium. Bringing together comic book vets Martin Powell, Brent Schoonover, and Thomas Floyd, the World of Viruses project is creating graphic novels that bring viruses to life through traditional superhero graphics and story lines.

The science content is vetted by virologists through the Nebraska Virology Center and story lines and art alike go through several drafts to pass scientific muster.  The comics that result are bound together with nonfiction essays by award-winning science writer Carl Zimmer. The first three issues tell the stories of the human papiloma virus, influenza, and an ocean virus called EhV.

Printed and bound copies of the comics are being distributed to teachers and students through schools and libraries, but if you want your own copy you can download it for free through iTunes, as an iPhone app or in full-sized glory on the iPad.

Full disclosure: Elefolio provides some editing support for the World of Viruses project. (My paying clients are always listed on the front page of this blog.) I'm a huge fan of the graphic format, and especially interested in the possibility of the graphic novel form in furthering the public understanding of science, so it's been a special treat to be involved with the project in even a small way.