CAIRO: An international group of scientists, educators, and social scientists convened in Cairo last week to share ideas about the topic of "Building the Scientific Mind. The conference took place in the Friends of Environment and Development Association in Cairo and was organized by the Learning Development Institute (LDI) in collaboration with Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) of the Egyptian Cabinet, the UNESCO, Universe Awareness, and Fundación Cultura de Paz. LDI is a transdisciplinary learning community devoted to excellence in the development and study of learning. "We are a networking institute working to inspire, mobilize, and bring people together to overcome the underdevelopment of learning, Jan Visser, president of LDI, told Daily News Egypt. In its third international colloquium, the focus was on promoting scientific/critical thinking. Visser noted that the human mind is directed towards exploration, and that we can see this clearly in children's curiosity but unfortunately this practice doesn't continue throughout life. "It is suppressed and it disappears. It shouldn't. This is what we want to change, Visser added. The institute doesn't turn these initiatives into projects itself. It makes their research results and ideas available for educational organizations, like ministries of education or UNESCO, to implement according to their own philosophies and capabilities. "It is fair to say that we need to dramatically re-think the way we think, especially when it comes to learning, said Tarek Shawki, director of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science in Arab States, in the conference's opening ceremonies. He mainly criticized educational systems which teach students what to think rather than how to think, surely the most pronounced problem current education systems face. "We look with great anticipation to your [LDI's] future recommendations to serve as the foundation for a UNESCO initiative towards building the Arab scientific minds, Shawki added. The final summing-up session of the conference showcased the wealth of novel ideas discussed and formulated in its few days. The various fascinating topics of dialogue included mobilizing science to achieve sustainability, using the inherent entanglement between religion and science to promote scientific thinking, and how art can serve to foster curiosity and critical thinking skills. As Visser admits, the scientific mind can't be seen or studied in isolation. "You have to look at the human mind as a whole, and science simply allows this one human mind to interact with the world in a more intelligent way, he concluded. The diversity of the conference's participants is one factor that leads to this holistic mode of investigation. This is why Gary Hampson, an Australian doing his doctorate degree in Southern Cross University on the topic of education and the global world view, described this conference as being "fertile. He said that having the conference in Cairo helped him think about how Islamic civilization in its golden age have played a major role in building the world's scientific mind. Another participant, Carolina Odman, capitalized on the fact that the conference was taking place in a Gamaleya community center and attracted 22 of the area's children to one of her astronomy workshops. Odman is the international project manager of Universe Awareness, an international program that exposes very young children in underprivileged environments to the scale and beauty of the Universe. "Astronomy gives perspective, said Odman explaining that a journey through astronomical delights compels children to view their world and themselves differently. She notices that in Cairo, it's difficult for kids to feel close to the stars because they simply can't see them, referring to Cairo's polluted sky. At the end of her workshop, she engaged the children's critical thinking by showing them photos which they have to decide whether they could be astronomically correct or not. This resonates with the conference's goal of building a critical mind, as Visser puts it: "We want people to stop and say 'Let me think. Is this correct?'
