Teaching abstracting in an integrated art and science curriculum

Abstracting is the process by which details are eliminated from a complex perceptual field to reveal underlying structures or properties that are not immediately obvious. Just as the abstract of an article helps an individual to focus upon the key aspects of an argument, so does abstracting help the scientist and the artist perceive the essence of the physical and perceptual worlds. Thus, abstracting is one of several tools of thought that are essential for developing the kind of understanding that is essential to creativity and inventiveness. Examples of abstracting are provided from both the arts and the sciences, demonstrating that this process has a general structure that transcends disciplinary boundaries. I argue that the skill of abstracting is therefore transferrable from one discipline to another, and provide a preliminary model exemplifying one approach to teaching tools of thought in a multidisciplinary setting.