with John Erickson
An in-person program
May 16-18, 2025
How is the search for understanding of our natural world similar to Quaker practice? What does scientific investigation have in common with spiritual seeking?
We’ll explore these questions and more through a weekend of science activities, reflection and sharing, nature walks, stargazing, fellowship and fun. Kids welcome – childcare will be provided and the weekend will have something for learners and seekers of all ages.
What is truth and how can we seek it? To what extent can we even know truth? Each religion has its strategies for addressing these questions. So does each academic discipline. When science educators gather to share ideas and research about teaching science and learning science, a lot of what you hear sounds like it could have come from the mouths of Quakers.
In order to explore the similarities and differences between Quaker practice and the practices of learning, teaching, and doing science, we will engage in hands-on science activities pulled from John Erickson’s long experience at the Lawrence Hall of Science at U.C. Be rkeley. The activities are chosen to highlight the nature of science and ideas about how people learn science. They are also chosen to be fun and interesting, and to build community among us. During and after activities, we’ll reflect on what we are doing and thinking, and how that may apply beyond science to spiritual seeking.
The science activities will be suitable for elementary-age through adulthood. In fact having participants at different stages of their lives may give us more to reflect upon. All participants will be welcome to join in the reflections that follow the science activities, but there will be childcare with other activities for the younger participants. Besides the main sessions of the weekend, there will be other fun science-related activities such as stargazing, a nature walk, and more.
About the program leader
After graduating from Haverford College, John Erickson decided to do something fun before grad school. He took a job at his favorite science museum, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. When he moved to Berkeley he began a long career at The Lawrence Hall of Science where he had a variety of roles: developing workshops, writing curricula for schools, leading workshops for teachers, and teaching science education methods to university students. His last and favorite role before retirement was director of the planetarium. He is a member of Berkeley Friends Meeting, and he still has not made it to grad school.