Film Shows Why Creativity Is an Essential Tool of Science

Eighth educational video in Rutgers-led series tracks science in action to illustrate how imagination fuels discovery

Creativity is essential in every step of the scientific process, asserts a team of Rutgers researchers.

To illustrate their point, they have put together a short film showing how biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians and engineers converge and brainstorm at every stage of the scientific effort to better understand the carbon cycle in the ocean.

The film, Tools of Science: Creativity, includes scenes shot at the Rutgers Marine Field Station in Tuckerton, N.J., and at sea on oceanographic research vessels.

“We want to show the critical linkage between creativity, the generation of ideas and the scientific process,” said Kay Bidle, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS). “They are all integral. If you remove creativity, science doesn’t blossom, and you can’t address or answer questions, especially complex, grand challenge questions about how the world works.”

The educational video is the eighth in the Rutgers-produced  Tools of Science series, aimed at middle school, high school and early college students. Bidle uses these videos and accompanying exercises with Rutgers undergraduate students in his Introduction to Oceanography class.

Full article at Rutgers Today