Citizens must have a minimal level of STEM-literacy to work alongside scientists to tackle both current and future global challenges. How can general education, the one piece of the undergraduate experience every student completes, contribute to this development? And science learning is dependent on having transformative aesthetic experiences in the science classroom. These memorable experiences involve powerful connection between students and the world around them. If these types of experiences are necessary for science learning and growth, are students in introductory science courses having them? If so, what relationship might they have with students' desires to pursue further science study? This dissertation explores these questions through two manuscripts. The first, a theoretical piece published in the Journal of General Education in 2015, argues that non-STEM students must have transformative aesthetic experiences in their undergraduate general education science course to develop the level of understanding needed to engage with challenging scientific issues in the future. This claim is substantiated by bringing together the work of Dewey and Deweyan scholars on the nature and impact of aesthetic experiences in science and science education with the general education reform efforts and desired outcomes for an informed and engaged citizenry. The second manuscript, an empirical piece, explores the lived experience of non-STEM students in an introductory geosciences course. A phenomenological research methodology is deployed to capture the 'essence' of the lived experience of a STEM-philic student in general education science. In addition, Uhrmacher's CRISPA framework is used to analyze the participants' most memorable course moments for the presence or absence of aesthetic experiences. In explication of the data, it shows that students are in fact having aesthetic experiences (or connecting to prior aesthetic experiences) and these experiences are related to their desires to pursue further STEM study. / Ph. D.

Published Article / In this article the author analyzes the types of knowledge and learning involved when educationalists study works of art to further their professional development. A theoretical background of experiential learning is presented. An Interdisciplinary Model of Aesthetic Knowing (IMAK) is developed and presented, utilizing the Model of Aesthetic Understanding as Informed Experience of Richard Lachapelle, Deborah Murray and Sandy Neim. Additional kinds of knowledge and learning processes included in the IMAK are discussed. Attending a concert in South Africa by Neil Diamond, the popular singer/songwriter stimulated the author to reflect upon his own metacognitive thinking and learning, both during and after the concert, and on the application of what he learned to the IMAK and in his lecturing room.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Timothy Keane / Stormwater management within the urban context has evolved over time. This evolution has been categorized by five paradigm shifts (Novotny, Ahern, & Brown, 2010). The current paradigm of stormwater management utilizes hard conveyance and treatment infrastructure designed mainly to provide protection for people from typical 1-5 year frequency storms. Consequently, this infrastructure is sometimes unable to deal with larger sized, 50 to 100 year events which can have serious consequences. Manhattan, Kansas has suffered multiple flooding episodes of severe proportion in the past decade. The dilemma of flooding within the Wildcat Creek watershed is a direct example of the current paradigm of stormwater management. This once ecologically healthy corridor is fed by conveyance systems that do not address the hydrologic needs of the watershed; decreasing the possibility for infiltration and groundwater recharge. Vegetated stormwater management systems must be implemented to help increase infiltration and address flooding problems within the Wildcat Creek watershed. The aesthetic performance of designed landscapes has a tremendous effect on the appreciation and care given to them by the surrounding population (Gobster, Nassauer, Daniel, and Fry, 2007). Landscape architecture has the ability to aid in the visual appeal and ecological design of vegetated stormwater management systems (SMS) by utilizing existing frameworks that address aesthetic reaction of the outdoor environment (Kaplan, Kaplan, and Ryan, 1998). This document evaluates design alternatives of vegetated SMS in order to discern a set of variables that inform the relationship between each systems aesthetic and amenity performance and their ecosystem and hydrological performance. Identified variables are combined into a set of guidelines for achieving different levels, or patterns of aesthetic performance found within the Understanding and Exploration Framework et al. (Kaplan, Kaplan, and Ryan, 1998) and amenity performance listed by Echols and Pennypacker’s Amenity Goals et al. (2007) through vegetated SMS. These design guidelines illustrate how aesthetic theory can be applied through ecological systems in order to increase the coherence, legibility, complexity, and mystery (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) of existing sites. Creating spaces where ecological and socio-cultural activities can coexist addresses the local characteristics of aesthetics with the universal dilemma of stormwater management.

This dissertation investigates aesthetics of engagement in -interaction. Aesthetic refers to the aesthetic experience, based on a phenomenological and pragmatist understanding: dynamic and personal, appealing mutually to - and formed inseparably by - our bodily, emotional, as well as intellectual faculties. Engagement signifies this experience as forming a deeply involved relationship between people and an artefact in interaction. The theoretical background upon which this work is based, asserts that we perceive the world in terms of how we can act in it. Action, through the body, is how we make sense of the world around us. To be congruent with these foundations and the topic at hand means that the research program was investigated through a constructive design research process. The research program anchors and outlines the goal of this investigation: to contribute shareable knowledge of how to design for aesthetic engagement in interaction by leveraging a first-person -perspective. The findings of this research form two contributions to the overlapping fields of Human-Computer Interaction and (Interaction) Design Research. The main contribution is methodological and is concerned with generating knowledge through design. The methodological structure of this dissertation builds on a programmatic approach that centres on the first-person perspective of the designer, who learns from experience by reflecting on design action. Such an approach is fundamental to the design tradition, but its dependency on subjectivity is also a source of epistemological conflict since design, as mode of inquiry, matures and comes in contact with more established disciplines that have their own academic traditions. For design research, to develop its own intellectual culture, alternative and bidirectional relationships between theory and practice need to be further shaped, articulated, and debated in the field. This dissertation contributes to this discussion around designerly ways of knowing by exposing how skillful coping and intuition, through mechanisms of reflection-on-action, generate a multitude of perspectives on a complex design space. These perspectives reveal parts of the complexity of designing for aesthetic engagement, while leaving it intact. Exposing and consolidating the first-person (design) knowledge embedded in these perspectives allows this knowledge to be articulated as a shareable academic knowledge contribution. This shareable knowledge forms the second contribution of this dissertation. Reflections on the process and results of eight constructive design research projects describe a design space around aesthetic engagement. Individual reflections are consolidated into themes that describe how a design may elicit aesthetic engagement in interaction. These themes are experiential qualities: conceptual values that can be leveraged for a design to appeal to both mind and body in ways that are rich, open-ended and ambiguous. The findings propose strategies for interactions with digital technologies to open up the complexity of relations in the world between artefacts and people. Designing for aesthetics of engagement proposes ways to respect people’ skills in making sense of the complexity of the lived world. In respecting the uniqueness of their body and the subjectivity of their experiences, to design for aesthetic engagement is to support the expression of personal points of view in interaction. This points to ways in which designers can open up interactions with digital technologies to be more beautiful, respectful, and liveable, as it touches what makes us human: our personal being in the world.

The purpose of the study is to show the conditions there are by working with aesthetic expressions in pre-school and how these activities are implemented. Questions that we are going to discuss are: What are the conditions for working with aesthetics in pre-school? How is the work implemented when it comes to aesthetic expressions? Our ambition has been to study what conditions it takes to use aesthetic expressions in a way that is meaningful for the children and also show the conditions and alternative methods that are present in different schools. We have used a web survey to reach a result in the study. This web survey includes questions about the different aesthetic activities and has given us the answers to the questions above.   The result shows that there are different ways of working and different views at aesthetic expressions. Conclusions that can be shown from the result are that all of the educationalists have a positive attitude to work with creative activities. Furthermore, the educationalists express that a use of aesthetic expressions bring joy and harmony to the groups of children in pre-school. It is also shown that if a learning situation is going to appear, it requires that the environment is carefully planned and inspiring. However, one negative factor of work with aesthetic expressions is that it requires a lot of time to plan, and it also requires knowledge about how these activities can be implemented in pre-schools. This knowledge is in some cases deficient. / Syftet med studien är att synliggöra vilka förutsättningar det finns att arbeta med estetiska uttrycksformer i förskolan samt hur dessa aktiviteter genomförs. Frågor som vi tar upp är: Hur ser förutsättningarna ut för att arbeta med estetik i förskolan? Hur genomförs arbetet kring estetiska uttrycksformer? Vår ambition har varit att studera vilka förutsättningar det krävs för att använda sig av estetiska uttrycksformer på ett meningsfullt sätt för barnen samt synliggöra de förutsättningar och arbetssätt som förekommer i olika verksamheter. För att komma fram till ett resultat i studien har vi använt oss av en webbenkät som innefattar frågor kring de olika estetiska aktiviteterna, dessa frågor har sedan gett oss svar på ovanstående frågeställningar.   Resultatet visar att det finns olika arbetssätt samt synsätt på estetiska uttrycksformer. Några slutsatser som kan dras utifrån resultatet är att samtliga pedagoger är positiva till att arbeta med skapande aktiviteter. Vidare uttrycker de att det skapas en glädje och harmoni i barngruppen under tillfällen då barnen använder sig av estetiska uttrycksformer. Det framkommer även att för att ett lärande skulle kunna äga rum krävs det att miljön är genomtänkt och inspirerande. Det som däremot kan ses som en negativ faktor i arbete med estetiska uttrycksformer är att det tar tid att planera. Dessutom krävs det kunskap kring hur det kan genomföras i verksamheten. Denna kunskap visar sig i vissa fall vara bristande.

This thesis aims to explore the role and significance of the aesthetic experience in Kant&rsquo / s philosophy. To accomplish this aim / firstly, the role of aesthetic power of judgment is discovered in subject&rsquo / s production of truths about the sensible world which is attributed to the cognitive power of understanding. Secondly, the role of aesthetic power of judgment in subject&rsquo / s representation of the good and in formation of moral judgments is demonstrated. Aesthetic power of judgment which enables both the reception and production of the beauty as a necessary harmony and unity brings an aesthetic and intuitive determinability to the acknowledged transcendent field for knowledge. The thesis is concluded by the affirmation that aesthetic power of judgment as an orienting interpretative power is a necessary condition for the subject, who is limited in knowledge and sensibly conditioned in the realization of moral purposes, in order to know and to have a moral life.

Title: Aesthetic judgement from philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific perspectives Author: Tereza Hadravová Department: Aesthetics Department Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Vlastimil Zuska, CSc. Abstract: How does science relate to aesthetics? This question usually reads as a question concerning scientific contribution to aesthetics. Philosophers are most- ly skeptical about the application of scientific results in their domain, wheras psychologists and, in recent years, neuroscientists are optimistic. In the thesis, I argue that both of these positions, in their extreme versions, impede the mutual enrichment of science and aesthetics. The starting-point of the thesis is George Dickie's radical claim that no scientific information has ever been relevant for aesthetics. The claim, I argue, is firmly embedded in the aftermath of logical positivism: it is related to the e↵ort to "rescue" aesthetics from progressive eli- mination. As a consequence, most of analytic aesthetics discourse has ignored psychologically informed conception of aesthetic judgement, including some fine distinctions that such a conception enables, e.g. the di↵erence between judgements about pleasure and aesthetic judgements. The distinctions are further elaborated and, in the last part of the thesis, the results of this elaboration are...

Pour un artiste, prendre la voie de ce qu’on nomme communément « représentation », de la figuration et de la narration, conduit finalement à méconnaître et même manquer l’enjeu véritable de la démarche à laquelle il aspire. C’est choisir la reproduction du monde au détriment de l’invention. L’œuvre esthétique ne précède pas sa concrétisation : son sens tend vers l’indétermination par absence d’une signification prévisible qui est comme retardée, déjouée par l’opacité formelle de l’œuvre.Cet engagement s’exprime de multiples façons dans le projet d’avant-garde. C’est pourquoi le parti pris esthétique et le désir d’avant-garde doivent être clairement définis. S’ils se traduisent par une suspension du contenu (sémantique, idéologique, critique), c’est qu’ils proposent, par le détour de la forme, d’interroger les principes mêmes qui organisent les modes de représentation du monde. L’œuvre d’art devient la scène d’un dispositif à la fois sémantique, biographique et socio-fonctionnel. Ce dispositif est qualifié d’esthétique, plutôt que seulement artistique, parce que ses ramifications et ses enjeux s’étendent bien au delà de ce qu’on appelle « art », jusque dans ce qu’on appelle « philosophie ». Cette étude se situe dans les dispositifs paradigmatiques post-XIXe siècle. Elle prend la forme d’une anthologie sélective de dispositifs esthétiques. Elle en expose les problématiques principales. Comment appréhender une œuvre dont le sens se soustrait activement aux systèmes sémantiques établis ? Pourquoi et par quels procédés la composante formelle peut-elle endosser la légitimité d’une création pertinente ? De quoi ces nouvelles pratiques sont-elles les symptômes du point de vue de notre conception actuelle du monde ? Autrement dit, quelle est la fonction de l’art aujourd’hui ? / As an artist, to choose what is commonly called “representation”, figuration and narration eventually leads to a misconception of the real stake to which he aspires. This means choosing to reproduce rather than creating. The aesthetic work of art does not precede its construction because its meaning tends toward indetermination caused by the lack of a predictable signification which is suspended, obstructed by the formal characteristic of the work of art. This posture is visible in the avant-garde project. It also explains why the aesthetic committed position and the avant-garde desire must be clearly defined. If they don’t suspend the content it is linked to the fact that they suggest the formal characteristics of the work of art, to question the principles which organize our representations. Hence, the work of art becomes at the same time a semantic, biographical and socio-fonctionnal device. It is qualified as aesthetic rather than just artistic because its ramifications and its stake go way beyond what we usually call “art” and reaches what we call “philosophy”. This survey stands in the context of the post-19th century paradigms. It intends to be a selective anthology of aesthetic devices. It exposes their main problematic : how to apprehend a piece of art which meaning escapes an established semantic system? Why and by which processes, the formal characteristics of a work of art can be endowed with the legitimacy of a relevant creation? What can these new practices teach us about our current conceptions of the world? In other words, what function does art serve today?

The topic of this diploma thesis is the matter of the role of imagination in aesthetic appreciation of nature. Starting points of the inquiry are the concepts of Ronald W. Hepburn, Emily Brady, Marcia Muelder Eaton and others. This work tries to show, in spite of the divergencies of views that the philosophers hold, not only the differences but also similarities of their apprehensions of the role of imagination in aesthetic appreciation of nature. The aim of the thesis is among others to answer the following questions: What are the modes of imaginative activity relating to aesthetic object? What is the difference between execution of imagination in aesthetic experiencing of nature and in experiencing works of art? What is the role of exercise of imagination in developing and preserving sustainable environments? Is the cooperation of imaginative model and science- based model of aesthetic appreciation of nature possible? The first part of the work concerns the presentation of relevant approaches. The second part compares different understandings of the role of imagination in aesthetic appreciation of nature and it answers the question of how imagination relates to the discussed aesthetic object. The following parts of the work focus on answering above-mentioned questions.

Orientador: Ana Maria Falcão de Aragão / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T15:39:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ferreira_LucianaHaddad_D.pdf: 9088647 bytes, checksum: 211fe3e534c4d70eeff591e2aabcdf89 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Ao dialogar com presente texto, o leitor irá se deparar com uma investigação desenvolvida a partir das experiências de um grupo de formação continuada, para o qual foram convidados abertamente professores de Educação Básica que manifestassem interesse em participar de atividades em Educação Estética. A pesquisa analisa o impacto das experiências estéticas vivenciadas pelos participantes a partir das situações cotidianas e das reflexões ocasionadas pela própria prática profissional, colocadas em relação às propostas desenvolvidas nos encontros de formação. Foram produzidos e avaliados dados referentes às percepções das professoras diante das experiências que participam. Para tanto, diversas estratégias de criação e fruição em Arte foram contempladas no processo formativo das docentes, contribuindo também para o estabelecimento de diálogo e a ampliação de seu repertório cultural. Contando com referencial teórico pautado na abordagem Histórico-Cultural, articulo tais pressupostos com contribuições do campo da Filosofia da Educação e de autores que abordam temas referentes à Formação Docente, Reflexividade e Educação Estética. Com o intuito de fazer o entrelaçamento entre tais conceitos e as experiências vividas nos grupos de formação, pautei-me na abordagem qualitativa com utilização de diferentes instrumentos metodológicos, que oferecem múltiplas imagens dos saberes e das experiências dos docentes. Os eixos de análise dos dados dialogam entre si e mostram-se interdependentes, ainda que carreguem características distintas das descobertas e avanços das professoras ao longo da trajetória vivida. Foram analisados especificamente os aspectos referentes aos conhecimentos sensíveis, às construções narrativas, à experiência artística e aos processos reflexivos suscitados, elementos ressaltados pelas próprias professoras como potencialmente formativos. Finalizo o trabalho com as lições perceptíveis no recorte feito, transferindo para o chão da escola as principais constatações observadas ao longo da pesquisa. Sinalizo, assim, ser indispensável o exercício formativo de sensibilização que permitirá ao professor perceber sua potencialidade de atuação cotidiana, produzindo contextos que propiciem a criação e a formação sensível dos alunos. / Abstracr: To fully understand the context of this work, the reader is going to come across a research developed from the experiences of a group of continuing education, to which were invited openly Basic Education teachers who manifest an interest in participating in activities in Aesthetic Education. The research analyzes the impact of aesthetic experiences experienced by participants from daily situations and reflections caused by their professional practice, placed on the proposals developed in training meetings. We've produced and evaluated data regarding the perceptions of teachers on the experiences involved. In order to accomplish my objectives, various strategies of creation and enjoyment in art were covered in the training process of teachers, also contributing to the establishment of dialogue and the expansion of their cultural repertoire. Relying on theoretical framework grounded in a historical-cultural approach, articulate these assumptions with contributions from the field of philosophy of education and authors covering topics related to Teacher Training, Reflexivity and Aesthetic Education. In order to make the entanglement between these concepts and experiences in training groups I guided my work in the qualitative approach using different methodological tools, which provide multiple images of knowledge and experience of teachers. The parameters of analysis are related to each other and are also interdependent, even though they have distinct characteristics of discoveries and advances of the teachers along the trajectory. Specific aspects relating to sensitive knowledge, the narrative constructions, artistic experience and raised reflective processes, elements highlighted by teachers themselves as potentially formative were analyzed. I finish the work with the lessons in noticeable clipping done, by transferring to the school context the main findings observed during the research. I emphasize thus be indispensable formative exercise of awareness that enable the teacher to realize its potential for daily performance, producing contexts conducive to the creation and sensitive training of students / Doutorado / Psicologia Educacional / Doutora em Educação