PtL involved science students and faculty from Harvard, MIT, Duke University and Roxbury Community College, along with design students and faculty from the School of Visual Arts, New York and the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
The idea began with Principal Investigator Felice Frankel’s experiences while working with scientists to visually express their research. It was clear that when the researcher created drawings to explain to her the phenomena, the process itself seemed to clarify the science in the mind of the researcher.
A database and results of over 3000 drawings from various undergraduate science courses can be found on the website below. Students were asked to “Create a freehand drawing to explain to a high school senior…” a particular scientific phenomenon. For evaluation purposes, students and teaching assistants were also asked to respond to questionnaires.