Summer Career Connections at SAVY 2018: Session 6, Day 4 – Science of Emotion (Rising 7th)
Hi SAVY Parents,
We can’t believe the week is almost over!
We started the morning learning about scientific literacy, going over some of the basic rules for reading about science. As you all know, the internet is filled with pseudoscientific articles, articles with eye-catching titles claiming to have bizarre cures for various diseases and disorders. Because of this, it is very important to be able to discern “clickbait” from reputable and reliable articles. Within this discussion, we talked about the limitations of science; although science offers us an abundance of knowledge, it cannot make moral or aesthetic judgements on our behalves.
Next, we examined The Cognitive Triangle, a diagram that displays how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors influence one another. Using example scenarios found in everyday life, we then discussed the mechanisms we can use to healthily change one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The class participated in a “Headspace” mindfulness exercise as an example of a way to calm and improve one’s feelings about a situation.
After lunch, we used blank human body diagrams to chart where we physically felt 4 common emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, and contempt. Using different colors to represent activation and deactivation, we compared our drawings to accepted population averages. After this activity, we watched two TED talks. The first was of a Vanderbilt graduate student explaining schizophrenia, and the social ramifications of this psychological disorder. The second TED talk discussed the possibility of robots being able to detect and respond to human emotions. What would be the pros and cons of this technological development? Would you consider this feat an invasion of privacy? Should robots dabble in a realm that is so uniquely human?
To conclude the day, students continued developing their research questions, using both online resources and their How Emotions are Made texts to further solidify the questions, hypotheses, and procedures they began at the beginning of the week.
Tomorrow, we will be having our parent Open House from 3:15 to 3:45 PM. Open House will be held in our classroom (Sutherland House, 4th floor). Parents, this is a great opportunity for you to see what we’ve been up to this week, and to hear some of our students present their research questions!
We hope to see you Friday!
-Kelly, Marcus, and Maya (TA)
Learning About Tactics to Change Behaviors
Where Do We Feel Emotions in Our Bodies
