Reading this wonderful book and I’m struck by how many academic disciplines had to cooperate in order for photosynthesis to be understood.

The text makes me want to study biology, chemistry, physics, as well as some of the practical elements of each (how do you build the right machine for the right experiment). My question is this, though: can you do interdisciplinary work without having any basic background knowledge? In other words, I can read this book having taken good bio, chem, and physics classes thirty years ago. I know what an atom is, I know that there are different components to an atom; I know that different elements can combine and I know that carbon forms different sorts of links; I have a basic understanding of photosynthesis.

What if I didn’t have that basic information? Would I still be able to understand this text? How motivated would I have to be to keep reading it? What kind of support would I need to really come to terms with all of the different information contained in a book like this?

It’s a larger philosophical issue of doing interdisciplinary, project-based work, I think: how much can we ask of kids who may have minimal academic background? How much academic background is necessary?

1. Oliver Morton, Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet (New York, NY: Harper, 2008).