Connections Assignment                                                                                                             

Take to apparently unrelated things and find a common connection. This was the task asked upon us. Having no prior knowledge of cicadas or diatoms I had no idea where to begin. The only logical starting place was to research. With research I learned what both subjects were, one (the cicada is an insect) and the other (the diatom) is a unicellular life form that exists in nature perfectly symmetrical. Thus I began to expand my knowledge on both and grow connections jotting them down as an illustration as I went the result is my collage of sketches that I have handed in on the attached sheet.

-The top left and bottom right portions of the diagram consist of a sketch of the main subject in both topics. The top left is made up of a cicada nymph perched on a branch waiting to break free into the adult form, tangled amongst the branches is the original haiku written by Basho. The final word in the haiku “death” bleeds into the bottom right portion which is you typical biology lab complete with the stereotypical vandalism one would expect in a high school lab, including an original haiku written about the minuscule organisms that are diatoms.

-The number 17 and the word symmetry represent the perfection of nature in two completely different ways that both represent the exactness of life. The 17 represents the periodical emergence of the cicada species. 17 is a prime number therefore it doesn’t interfere with any other periodic growths of a species that would possibly negatively affect the cicada. The word symmetry represents the perfectness of every diatom, they are 100% symmetrical again showing how perfect nature can be without artificial aid.

-In the bottom left and top right are the men behind the subjects. In the bottom left is Ernst Haeckel the man credited with the picture of the diatoms. He was a man of discovery and nature. Greatly influenced by Charles Darwin’s novel He spent his time documenting nature and trying to explain it scientifically.  In the top right is Basho the Chinese poet and author of the cicada haiku. He spent his time wandering the vast landscape of china using literature (mainly poems) to explain what he witnessed.

-The footsteps from both men represent their journey into the unknown and the fact that both went out and explored our world on foot in order to bring light to the mysteries of nature.

-The light bulb represents their goal of shedding light on the mysteries of nature.

-The common thread amongst the two men is there need to explain the unknown namely nature, although one uses words and one uses science (demonstrated in the jumble of nature related words on Basho’s corner and the magnifying glass on Haeckel’s) they both look to explain in way we can connect.

-The transformation from top left to bottom right represents the theme of nature and how things in the natural world are related. While the metamorphosis from bottom left to top right connects the themes of explanation and discovery.

Bibliography

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/haeckel.html

http://www.indiana.edu/~diatom/diatom.html

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i2/haeckel.asp

http://biology.clc.uc.edu/steincarter/cicadas.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuo_Bash%C5%8D

Connections Assignment

By Kelly

Due Date: Sept 23 2008

Submitted to: Linda Carson