How to Write a Body of a Research Paper

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The main part of your research paper is called “the body.” To write this important part of your paper, include only relevant information, or information that gets to the point. Organize your ideas in a logical order—one that makes sense—and provide enough details—facts and examples—to support the points you want to make.

Logical Order

Transition words and phrases, adding evidence, phrases for supporting topic sentences.

  • Transition Phrases for Comparisons
  • Transition Phrases for Contrast
  • Transition Phrases to Show a Process
  • Phrases to Introduce Examples
  • Transition Phrases for Presenting Evidence

How to Make Effective Transitions

Examples of effective transitions, drafting your conclusion, writing the body paragraphs.

How to Write a Body of a Research Paper

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  • The third and fourth paragraphs follow the same format as the second:
  • Transition or topic sentence.
  • Topic sentence (if not included in the first sentence).
  • Supporting sentences including a discussion, quotations, or examples that support the topic sentence.
  • Concluding sentence that transitions to the next paragraph.

The topic of each paragraph will be supported by the evidence you itemized in your outline. However, just as smooth transitions are required to connect your paragraphs, the sentences you write to present your evidence should possess transition words that connect ideas, focus attention on relevant information, and continue your discussion in a smooth and fluid manner.

You presented the main idea of your paper in the thesis statement. In the body, every single paragraph must support that main idea. If any paragraph in your paper does not, in some way, back up the main idea expressed in your thesis statement, it is not relevant, which means it doesn’t have a purpose and shouldn’t be there.

Each paragraph also has a main idea of its own. That main idea is stated in a topic sentence, either at the beginning or somewhere else in the paragraph. Just as every paragraph in your paper supports your thesis statement, every sentence in each paragraph supports the main idea of that paragraph by providing facts or examples that back up that main idea. If a sentence does not support the main idea of the paragraph, it is not relevant and should be left out.

A paper that makes claims or states ideas without backing them up with facts or clarifying them with examples won’t mean much to readers. Make sure you provide enough supporting details for all your ideas. And remember that a paragraph can’t contain just one sentence. A paragraph needs at least two or more sentences to be complete. If a paragraph has only one or two sentences, you probably haven’t provided enough support for your main idea. Or, if you have trouble finding the main idea, maybe you don’t have one. In that case, you can make the sentences part of another paragraph or leave them out.

Arrange the paragraphs in the body of your paper in an order that makes sense, so that each main idea follows logically from the previous one. Likewise, arrange the sentences in each paragraph in a logical order.

If you carefully organized your notes and made your outline, your ideas will fall into place naturally as you write your draft. The main ideas, which are building blocks of each section or each paragraph in your paper, come from the Roman-numeral headings in your outline. The supporting details under each of those main ideas come from the capital-letter headings. In a shorter paper, the capital-letter headings may become sentences that include supporting details, which come from the Arabic numerals in your outline. In a longer paper, the capital letter headings may become paragraphs of their own, which contain sentences with the supporting details, which come from the Arabic numerals in your outline.

In addition to keeping your ideas in logical order, transitions are another way to guide readers from one idea to another. Transition words and phrases are important when you are suggesting or pointing out similarities between ideas, themes, opinions, or a set of facts. As with any perfect phrase, transition words within paragraphs should not be used gratuitously. Their meaning must conform to what you are trying to point out, as shown in the examples below:

  • “Accordingly” or “in accordance with” indicates agreement. For example :Thomas Edison’s experiments with electricity accordingly followed the theories of Benjamin Franklin, J. B. Priestly, and other pioneers of the previous century.
  • “Analogous” or “analogously” contrasts different things or ideas that perform similar functions or make similar expressions. For example: A computer hard drive is analogous to a filing cabinet. Each stores important documents and data.
  • “By comparison” or “comparatively”points out differences between things that otherwise are similar. For example: Roses require an alkaline soil. Azaleas, by comparison, prefer an acidic soil.
  • “Corresponds to” or “correspondingly” indicates agreement or conformity. For example: The U.S. Constitution corresponds to England’s Magna Carta in so far as both established a framework for a parliamentary system.
  • “Equals,”“equal to,” or “equally” indicates the same degree or quality. For example:Vitamin C is equally as important as minerals in a well-balanced diet.
  • “Equivalent” or “equivalently” indicates two ideas or things of approximately the same importance, size, or volume. For example:The notions of individual liberty and the right to a fair and speedy trial hold equivalent importance in the American legal system.
  • “Common” or “in common with” indicates similar traits or qualities. For example: Darwin did not argue that humans were descended from the apes. Instead, he maintained that they shared a common ancestor.
  • “In the same way,”“in the same manner,”“in the same vein,” or “likewise,” connects comparable traits, ideas, patterns, or activities. For example: John Roebling’s suspension bridges in Brooklyn and Cincinnati were built in the same manner, with strong cables to support a metallic roadway. Example 2: Despite its delicate appearance, John Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge was built as a suspension bridge supported by strong cables. Example 3: Cincinnati’s Suspension Bridge, which Roebling also designed, was likewise supported by cables.
  • “Kindred” indicates that two ideas or things are related by quality or character. For example: Artists Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin are considered kindred spirits in the Impressionist Movement. “Like” or “as” are used to create a simile that builds reader understanding by comparing two dissimilar things. (Never use “like” as slang, as in: John Roebling was like a bridge designer.) For examples: Her eyes shone like the sun. Her eyes were as bright as the sun.
  • “Parallel” describes events, things, or ideas that occurred at the same time or that follow similar logic or patterns of behavior. For example:The original Ocktoberfests were held to occur in parallel with the autumn harvest.
  • “Obviously” emphasizes a point that should be clear from the discussion. For example: Obviously, raccoons and other wildlife will attempt to find food and shelter in suburban areas as their woodland habitats disappear.
  • “Similar” and “similarly” are used to make like comparisons. For example: Horses and ponies have similar physical characteristics although, as working farm animals, each was bred to perform different functions.
  • “There is little debate” or “there is consensus” can be used to point out agreement. For example:There is little debate that the polar ice caps are melting.The question is whether global warming results from natural or human-made causes.

Other phrases that can be used to make transitions or connect ideas within paragraphs include:

  • Use “alternately” or “alternatively” to suggest a different option.
  • Use “antithesis” to indicate a direct opposite.
  • Use “contradict” to indicate disagreement.
  • Use “on the contrary” or “conversely” to indicate that something is different from what it seems.
  • Use “dissimilar” to point out differences between two things.
  • Use “diverse” to discuss differences among many things or people.
  • Use “distinct” or “distinctly” to point out unique qualities.
  • Use “inversely” to indicate an opposite idea.
  • Use “it is debatable,” “there is debate,” or “there is disagreement” to suggest that there is more than one opinion about a subject.
  • Use “rather” or “rather than” to point out an exception.
  • Use “unique” or “uniquely” to indicate qualities that can be found nowhere else.
  • Use “unlike” to indicate dissimilarities.
  • Use “various” to indicate more than one kind.

Writing Topic Sentences

Remember, a sentence should express a complete thought, one thought per sentence—no more, no less. The longer and more convoluted your sentences become, the more likely you are to muddle the meaning, become repetitive, and bog yourself down in issues of grammar and construction. In your first draft, it is generally a good idea to keep those sentences relatively short and to the point. That way your ideas will be clearly stated.You will be able to clearly see the content that you have put down—what is there and what is missing—and add or subtract material as it is needed. The sentences will probably seem choppy and even simplistic.The purpose of a first draft is to ensure that you have recorded all the content you will need to make a convincing argument. You will work on smoothing and perfecting the language in subsequent drafts.

Transitioning from your topic sentence to the evidence that supports it can be problematic. It requires a transition, much like the transitions needed to move from one paragraph to the next. Choose phrases that connect the evidence directly to your topic sentence.

  • Consider this: (give an example or state evidence).
  • If (identify one condition or event) then (identify the condition or event that will follow).
  • It should go without saying that (point out an obvious condition).
  • Note that (provide an example or observation).
  • Take a look at (identify a condition; follow with an explanation of why you think it is important to the discussion).
  • The authors had (identify their idea) in mind when they wrote “(use a quotation from their text that illustrates the idea).”
  • The point is that (summarize the conclusion your reader should draw from your research).
  • This becomes evident when (name the author) says that (paraphrase a quote from the author’s writing).
  • We see this in the following example: (provide an example of your own).
  • (The author’s name) offers the example of (summarize an example given by the author).

If an idea is controversial, you may need to add extra evidence to your paragraphs to persuade your reader. You may also find that a logical argument, one based solely on your evidence, is not persuasive enough and that you need to appeal to the reader’s emotions. Look for ways to incorporate your research without detracting from your argument.

Writing Transition Sentences

It is often difficult to write transitions that carry a reader clearly and logically on to the next paragraph (and the next topic) in an essay. Because you are moving from one topic to another, it is easy to simply stop one and start another. Great research papers, however, include good transitions that link the ideas in an interesting discussion so that readers can move smoothly and easily through your presentation. Close each of your paragraphs with an interesting transition sentence that introduces the topic coming up in the next paragraph.

Transition sentences should show a relationship between the two topics.Your transition will perform one of the following functions to introduce the new idea:

  • Indicate that you will be expanding on information in a different way in the upcoming paragraph.
  • Indicate that a comparison, contrast, or a cause-and-effect relationship between the topics will be discussed.
  • Indicate that an example will be presented in the next paragraph.
  • Indicate that a conclusion is coming up.

Transitions make a paper flow smoothly by showing readers how ideas and facts follow one another to point logically to a conclusion. They show relationships among the ideas, help the reader to understand, and, in a persuasive paper, lead the reader to the writer’s conclusion.

Each paragraph should end with a transition sentence to conclude the discussion of the topic in the paragraph and gently introduce the reader to the topic that will be raised in the next paragraph. However, transitions also occur within paragraphs—from sentence to sentence—to add evidence, provide examples, or introduce a quotation.

The type of paper you are writing and the kinds of topics you are introducing will determine what type of transitional phrase you should use. Some useful phrases for transitions appear below. They are grouped according to the function they normally play in a paper. Transitions, however, are not simply phrases that are dropped into sentences. They are constructed to highlight meaning. Choose transitions that are appropriate to your topic and what you want the reader to do. Edit them to be sure they fit properly within the sentence to enhance the reader’s understanding.

Transition Phrases for Comparisons:

  • We also see
  • In addition to
  • Notice that
  • Beside that,
  • In comparison,
  • Once again,
  • Identically,
  • For example,
  • Comparatively, it can be seen that
  • We see this when
  • This corresponds to
  • In other words,
  • At the same time,
  • By the same token,

Transition Phrases for Contrast:

  • By contrast,
  • On the contrary,
  • Nevertheless,
  • An exception to this would be …
  • Alongside that,we find …
  • On one hand … on the other hand …
  • [New information] presents an opposite view …
  • Conversely, it could be argued …
  • Other than that,we find that …
  • We get an entirely different impression from …
  • One point of differentiation is …
  • Further investigation shows …
  • An exception can be found in the fact that …

Transition Phrases to Show a Process:

  • At the top we have … Near the bottom we have …
  • Here we have … There we have …
  • Continuing on,
  • We progress to …
  • Close up … In the distance …
  • With this in mind,
  • Moving in sequence,
  • Proceeding sequentially,
  • Moving to the next step,
  • First, Second,Third,…
  • Examining the activities in sequence,
  • Sequentially,
  • As a result,
  • The end result is …
  • To illustrate …
  • Subsequently,
  • One consequence of …
  • If … then …
  • It follows that …
  • This is chiefly due to …
  • The next step …
  • Later we find …

Phrases to Introduce Examples:

  • For instance,
  • Particularly,
  • In particular,
  • This includes,
  • Specifically,
  • To illustrate,
  • One illustration is
  • One example is
  • This is illustrated by
  • This can be seen when
  • This is especially seen in
  • This is chiefly seen when

Transition Phrases for Presenting Evidence:

  • Another point worthy of consideration is
  • At the center of the issue is the notion that
  • Before moving on, it should be pointed out that
  • Another important point is
  • Another idea worth considering is
  • Consequently,
  • Especially,
  • Even more important,
  • Getting beyond the obvious,
  • In spite of all this,
  • It follows that
  • It is clear that
  • More importantly,
  • Most importantly,

How to make effective transitions between sections of a research paper? There are two distinct issues in making strong transitions:

  • Does the upcoming section actually belong where you have placed it?
  • Have you adequately signaled the reader why you are taking this next step?

The first is the most important: Does the upcoming section actually belong in the next spot? The sections in your research paper need to add up to your big point (or thesis statement) in a sensible progression. One way of putting that is, “Does the architecture of your paper correspond to the argument you are making?” Getting this architecture right is the goal of “large-scale editing,” which focuses on the order of the sections, their relationship to each other, and ultimately their correspondence to your thesis argument.

It’s easy to craft graceful transitions when the sections are laid out in the right order. When they’re not, the transitions are bound to be rough. This difficulty, if you encounter it, is actually a valuable warning. It tells you that something is wrong and you need to change it. If the transitions are awkward and difficult to write, warning bells should ring. Something is wrong with the research paper’s overall structure.

After you’ve placed the sections in the right order, you still need to tell the reader when he is changing sections and briefly explain why. That’s an important part of line-by-line editing, which focuses on writing effective sentences and paragraphs.

Effective transition sentences and paragraphs often glance forward or backward, signaling that you are switching sections. Take this example from J. M. Roberts’s History of Europe . He is finishing a discussion of the Punic Wars between Rome and its great rival, Carthage. The last of these wars, he says, broke out in 149 B.C. and “ended with so complete a defeat for the Carthaginians that their city was destroyed . . . .” Now he turns to a new section on “Empire.” Here is the first sentence: “By then a Roman empire was in being in fact if not in name.”(J. M. Roberts, A History of Europe . London: Allen Lane, 1997, p. 48) Roberts signals the transition with just two words: “By then.” He is referring to the date (149 B.C.) given near the end of the previous section. Simple and smooth.

Michael Mandelbaum also accomplishes this transition between sections effortlessly, without bringing his narrative to a halt. In The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets , one chapter shows how countries of the North Atlantic region invented the idea of peace and made it a reality among themselves. Here is his transition from one section of that chapter discussing “the idea of warlessness” to another section dealing with the history of that idea in Europe.

The widespread aversion to war within the countries of the Western core formed the foundation for common security, which in turn expressed the spirit of warlessness. To be sure, the rise of common security in Europe did not abolish war in other parts of the world and could not guarantee its permanent abolition even on the European continent. Neither, however, was it a flukish, transient product . . . . The European common security order did have historical precedents, and its principal features began to appear in other parts of the world. Precedents for Common Security The security arrangements in Europe at the dawn of the twenty-first century incorporated features of three different periods of the modern age: the nineteenth century, the interwar period, and the ColdWar. (Michael Mandelbaum, The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets . New York: Public Affairs, 2002, p. 128)

It’s easier to make smooth transitions when neighboring sections deal with closely related subjects, as Mandelbaum’s do. Sometimes, however, you need to end one section with greater finality so you can switch to a different topic. The best way to do that is with a few summary comments at the end of the section. Your readers will understand you are drawing this topic to a close, and they won’t be blindsided by your shift to a new topic in the next section.

Here’s an example from economic historian Joel Mokyr’s book The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress . Mokyr is completing a section on social values in early industrial societies. The next section deals with a quite different aspect of technological progress: the role of property rights and institutions. So Mokyr needs to take the reader across a more abrupt change than Mandelbaum did. Mokyr does that in two ways. First, he summarizes his findings on social values, letting the reader know the section is ending. Then he says the impact of values is complicated, a point he illustrates in the final sentences, while the impact of property rights and institutions seems to be more straightforward. So he begins the new section with a nod to the old one, noting the contrast.

In commerce, war and politics, what was functional was often preferred [within Europe] to what was aesthetic or moral, and when it was not, natural selection saw to it that such pragmatism was never entirely absent in any society. . . . The contempt in which physical labor, commerce, and other economic activity were held did not disappear rapidly; much of European social history can be interpreted as a struggle between wealth and other values for a higher step in the hierarchy. The French concepts of bourgeois gentilhomme and nouveau riche still convey some contempt for people who joined the upper classes through economic success. Even in the nineteenth century, the accumulation of wealth was viewed as an admission ticket to social respectability to be abandoned as soon as a secure membership in the upper classes had been achieved. Institutions and Property Rights The institutional background of technological progress seems, on the surface, more straightforward. (Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress . New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 176)

Note the phrase, “on the surface.” Mokyr is hinting at his next point, that surface appearances are deceiving in this case. Good transitions between sections of your research paper depend on:

  • Getting the sections in the right order
  • Moving smoothly from one section to the next
  • Signaling readers that they are taking the next step in your argument
  • Explaining why this next step comes where it does

Every good paper ends with a strong concluding paragraph. To write a good conclusion, sum up the main points in your paper. To write an even better conclusion, include a sentence or two that helps the reader answer the question, “So what?” or “Why does all this matter?” If you choose to include one or more “So What?” sentences, remember that you still need to support any point you make with facts or examples. Remember, too, that this is not the place to introduce new ideas from “out of the blue.” Make sure that everything you write in your conclusion refers to what you’ve already written in the body of your paper.

Back to How To Write A Research Paper .

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How interdisciplinary is a given body of research?

Alan L Porter is an evaluation consultant with the US National Academies Keck Futures Initiative (NAKFI), and he co-directs the Technology Policy and Assessment Center (TPAC), Georgia Tech, and is Director of R&D, Search Technology, 110 Lake Top Ct, Roswell, GA 30076, USA; Email: [email protected] ). J David Roessner is the NAKFI Senior Evaluation Consultant, and also co-directs the TPAC at Georgia Tech and is Associate Director of the S&T Policy Program at SRI International, 2425 Pemberton Drive, Prescott, AZ 86305, USA. Anne Heberger is the Evaluation Research Associate with the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, 100 Academy, 2nd Floor, Irvine, CA 92627, USA.

We thank several colleagues who have reviewed these formulations; in particular, Kevin Boyack who suggested changes to the integration calculation.

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Alan L Porter, David J Roessner, Anne E Heberger, How interdisciplinary is a given body of research?, Research Evaluation , Volume 17, Issue 4, December 2008, Pages 273–282, https://doi.org/10.3152/095820208X364553

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This article presents results to date produced by a team charged with evaluating the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, a 15-year US$ 40 million program to facilitate interdisciplinary research in the United States. The team has developed and tested promising quantitative measures of the integration (I) and specialization (S) of research outputs, the former essential to evaluating the impact of the program. Both measures are based on Thomson-ISI Web of Knowledge subject categories. ‘I’ measures the cognitive distance (dispersion) among the subject categories of journals cited in a body of research. ‘S’ measures the spread of subject categories in which a body of research is published. Pilot results for samples from researchers drawn from 22 diverse subject categories show what appears to be a surprisingly high level of interdisciplinarity. Correlations between integration and the degree of co-authorship of selected bodies of research show a low degree of association.

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A Growing Body of Knowledge

On Four Different Senses of Embodiment in Science Education

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  • Published: 28 April 2021
  • Volume 30 , pages 1183–1210, ( 2021 )

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  • Magdalena Kersting   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3568-8397 1 ,
  • Jesper Haglund   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4997-2938 2 &
  • Rolf Steier   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9809-3169 3  

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Science deals with the world around us, and we understand, experience, and study this world through and with our bodies. While science educators have started to acknowledge the critical role of the body in science learning, approaches to conceptualising the body in science education vary greatly. Embodiment and embodied cognition serve as umbrella terms for different approaches to bodily learning processes. Unfortunately, researchers and educators often blur these different approaches and use various claims of embodiment interchangeably. Understanding and acknowledging the diversity of embodied perspectives strengthen arguments in science education research and allows realising the potential of embodied cognition in science education practice. We need a comprehensive overview of the various ways the body bears on science learning. With this paper, we wish to present such an overview by disentangling key ideas of embodiment and embodied cognition with a view towards science education. Drawing on the historical traditions of phenomenology and ecological psychology, we propose four senses of embodiment that conceptualise the body in physical , phenomenological , ecological , and interactionist terms. By illustrating the multiple senses of embodiment through examples from the recent science education literature, we show that embodied cognition bears on practical educational problems and has a variety of theoretical implications for science education. We hope that future work can recognise such different senses of embodiment and show how they might work together to strengthen the many roles of the body in science education research and practice.

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Social Learning Theory—Albert Bandura

Discovery learning—jerome bruner, multiple intelligences theory—howard gardner.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction: the Role of the Body in Science Education

What is the role of the human body in science education? Of course, the human body features as a subject of study, for example, in biology or physical education (Almqvist & Quennerstedt, 2015 ; Alsop, 2011 ). Additionally, the body is involved in producing science phenomena, for example, in laboratories (Hardahl et al., 2019 ). More generally, though, science educators seem to agree on the vital relationship between physical movement and conceptual learning in science. Researchers argue that thinking about and understanding science needs embodiment both in concrete and in more abstract learning domains (Niebert et al., 2012 ).

On the one hand, research suggests that gestures and kinaesthetic activities facilitate the learning of physics in classical mechanics (Bruun & Christiansen, 2016 ). In the concrete context of classical mechanics, gestures can provide sensorimotor information that prompt idea construction (Scherr, 2008 ). On the other hand, some learning domains in science are among the most abstract and complex areas of human thought. Entropy, the greenhouse effect, or the theory of relativity present students with abstract concepts that are far removed from our sensory capabilities (Amin, Jeppsson, & Haglund, 2012 ; Niebert & Gropengießer, 2014 ; Steier & Kersting, 2019 ). To make sense of these concepts, we project patterns of sensorimotor experiences onto more abstract domains, and everyday language reflects these projections (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003 ). For example, we conceptualise the atmosphere as a “container to describe the flow of radiation between the inside and the outside” to make sense of the greenhouse effect (Niebert & Gropengießer, 2014 , p. 283). Here, the human body and our experience of physical containment bear on the form and use of instructional metaphors of the greenhouse effect (Niebert & Gropengießer, 2014 ).

Despite the many merits of looking at embodied ways of learning, there is no one best way to think about the role of the body in science education (Alsop, 2011 ). What we usually view as a simple notion, the body, opens to a multitude of theoretical perspectives that build on different traditions and premises about science learning (e.g. Amin et al., 2015 ; Euler et al., 2019 ; Hardahl et al., 2019 ; Kersting & Steier, 2018 ; Niebert et al., 2012 ). Often, science education researchers use relevant concepts of embodiment and embodied cognition interchangeably or do not address the complexity of these concepts at all.

The terms “embodiment” and “embodied cognition” are used differently within different perspectives and traditions. While we refine possible meanings of these terms below, broadly, we understand “embodiment” as being concerned with the experiences that arise from having living bodies in our interactions with the material and sociocultural world. Embodiment is a fundamental aspect of lived experience, and the study of embodiment builds on the basic view that “our knowledge of the world is inseparable from our experiences of the bodies that we are” (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 , p. 3). We use the term “embodied cognition” broadly to refer to the processes of thinking, knowing and communicating that rely in some way on embodiment. Embodied cognition describes cognitive processes that deeply rely on features of the physical body beyond the brain (Wilson & Foglia, 2017 ). As a loosely knit family of research programmes, the study of embodied cognition builds on the assumption that we can improve our understanding of the mind by characterising the role of the body in cognition Footnote 1 (Wilson & Foglia, 2017 ).

Within these broad concepts are quite different premises. Observing that embodied perspectives operate on multiple abstraction levels, from the nature of physical phenomena to more abstract concepts, we argue that it is necessary to bring clarity to the diverse approaches towards embodiment in science education. As researchers, we need to disentangle the complex experience of “having a physical body in a physical world” (Roth & Lawless, 2002 , p. 336) to fully realise the theoretical and practical benefits of embodied perspectives.

Consequently, this paper aims to clarify and contextualise different perspectives of embodiment and examine the implications of these perspectives in science education research and practice. In line with Merleau-Ponty ( 1962 ) and the phenomenological tradition, we conceptualise the body in a double sense: first, as the context of cognitive mechanisms and second, as a lived, experiential structure. Building on ecological and interactionist traditions, we extend and complement this double sense of embodiment by adding two more senses: the ecological and interactionist senses of embodiment describe the relationship between the body and its material and sociocultural environment. Together, these four senses provide distinct perspectives on embodiment, and they become our organising principles to study the role of the body in science education.

To examine how different claims of embodiment and embodied cognition bear on science education research and practice, we present a series of recent examples taken from empirical studies in science education. The four senses of embodiment act as lenses to bring the use of embodied perspectives into sharper focus. We show how each sense of embodiment supports very different analytic approaches to researching science learning and prompts unique considerations for designing science education activities. Our goal is not to advocate for one sense over the other but to show that there are significant implications for adopting a particular sense even implicitly. By distinguishing these senses, we are advocating for more nuanced language around embodied cognition in science education.

2 Philosophical and Psychological Traditions of Embodiment and Embodied Cognition

Ever since Descartes famously introduced the Cartesian divide between mind and body, Western philosophers have had a keen interest in the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body. Similarly, psychologists and cognitive scientists have historically treated “the skin as the boundary of their territory and thereby embraced an organism-environment dualism (…) [where] things inside the skin constitute one domain and things outside the skin another, and the two domains are approached independently” (Michaels & Palatinus, 2014 , p. 20).

However, there is a growing commitment among philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists that we should understand our knowledge and our means of arriving at knowledge in terms of the relationships between mind, body, and environment (Anderson, 2003 ; Hutto & McGivern, 2015 ; Jensen & Greve, 2019 ; Varela et al., 2016 ; Wilson, 2002 ). Rejecting a Cartesian divide between body and mind, proponents of embodied cognition understand the mind and the world not as two pre-given entities but as mutually constituted in dynamic relationships (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ).

At the most basic level, the study of embodiment entails the view that our knowledge of the world is inseparable from our experiences of and through the bodies that we are (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ). This focus on embodied being and acting in the world promises a more holistic approach to knowledge, experience, and learning than what has traditionally been the case within cognitive science, philosophy, and psychology. Still, there remain significant differences in how embodied cognition is understood. There are a wide variety of interpretations of embodiment and embodied cognition and claims emerging from them, some of which are controversial or even contradictory (Anderson, 2003 ; Hutto & McGivern, 2015 ; Wilson, 2002 ).

To put our investigations onto firm grounding and to be able to unpack and contextualise the multiple senses of embodiment, we now turn to philosophical and psychological traditions of embodiment and embodied cognition. We focus on the 20th century philosophy and psychology with a particular emphasis on phenomenology and the ecological theory of perception since these two precursors of embodied cognition bear most directly on the issues in science education that we wish to explore. Footnote 2

2.1 Embodied Experiences in Phenomenology

Within our Western tradition, phenomenology has been the philosophy of human experience (Bengtsson, 2013 ; F. J. Varela et al., 2016 ). At its core, phenomenology is the direct study of our lived experiences that are guided by intentionality: all acts of consciousness, be it perceptions, feelings, moods, decisions, memories, or imaginations, are experiences of something (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ).

Phenomenologists acknowledge the first-person point of view and the central role of subjectivity in our relationship with the world. Motivated by the wish to return to the “things themselves”, Edmund Husserl ( 1965 ) promoted a direct examination of experience and sought to reflect systematically on how phenomena are manifest in the convergence of “things themselves” with the consciousness of the experiencer: “We cannot be conscious of an object (a tasted lemon, a smelled rose, a seen table, a touched piece of silk) unless we are aware of the experience through which this object is made to appear (the tasting, smelling, seeing, touching)” (Zahavi, 2005 , p. 121).

For Husserl, the lived body is involved in intentional acts and as a subject that is reflectively aware of itself (Husserl, 1965 ). Although Husserl’s work can be considered a first phenomenology of embodiment, the role of the body remains mostly implicit (Moran, 2017 ; Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ).

Martin Heidegger (Heidegger, 1962 ) extended Husserl’s phenomenology by introducing the notion of “Being-in-the-World”. Heidegger observed that there could not be a divide between subject, object, and the world. According to Heidegger, phenomenology rejects dichotomies between mind and world, subject and object, language and reality. Although Heidegger considered thinking beings first and foremost as acting beings in the world, he largely ignored the body’s active role in his account of being.

Building on Husserl and Heidegger’s phenomenological tradition, Maurice Merleau-Ponty ( 1962 ) was the first to stress the embodied context of human experience explicitly. Acknowledging that bodies are the mediators of our reality, Merleau-Ponty articulated the view that perception always occurs in the context of (and is therefore structured by) the embodied agent in the course of their ongoing purposeful engagement with the world. According to Merleau-Ponty, “my body is the fabric into which all objects are woven, and it is, at least in relation to the perceived world, the general instrument of my comprehension” (1962, p. 273). In other words, bodily movement and bodily experiences are a way of accessing the world.

For Merleau-Ponty, embodiment has an inherent double sense: it encompasses both the physical body as the context of cognitive mechanisms and the phenomenological body as a lived experiential structure. The perspective of being doubly embodied “provides a way to escape dualism in the description of embodied experience and evens a way of reconciling a more scientific third-person stance and a first-person phenomenological one” (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 , p. 4).

2.2 Embodied Experiences in Ecological Psychology

The assumption that there are divides between mind and body and subjects, objects, and the world has had a profound impact on psychology, as well. Traditionally, psychology has separated the organism and environment: for contact to be had with the environment, it had to be represented in the mind (Michaels & Palatinus, 2014 ). As one of the original fields of embodied cognition, ecological psychology has challenged this dualist assumption.

Ecological psychology has developed from James J. Gibson’s theory of perception ( 1966 , 1979 ) which attempted to reconceptualise the relation between organism and environment. By taking the organism and its environment as the minimal unit of analysis, the ecological view respects the integrity of the system under investigation. Gallagher ( 2017 ) illustrates the ecological view through an analogy:

Saying that cognition is just in the brain is like saying that flight is inside the wings of a bird. Just as flight doesn’t exist if there is only a wing, without the rest of the bird, and without an atmosphere to support the process, and without the precise mode of organism-environment coupling to make it possible (indeed, who would disagree with this?), so cognition doesn’t exist if there is just a brain without bodily and worldly factors. The mind is relational. It’s a way of being in relation to the world. (Gallagher, 2017 , p. 12)

An ecological conception of cognition offers a reconfiguration of the relationship between the inner and outer because it relates the mind to bodily functions and environmental features (Jensen & Greve, 2019 ). A critical ecological concept that describes this relationship is that of affordances as possibilities for action. Introduced by Gibson ( 1979 ) in his pioneering work on visual perception, affordances capture the idea that features of the organism shape properties of the environment. Ultimately, there is no divide between perception and action:

The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment. (…) An affordance cuts across the dichotomy of subjective-objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. It is equally a fact of the environment and a fact of behaviour. It is both physical and psychical, yet neither. An affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the observer. (Gibson, 1979 , p. 127)

In ecological psychology, embodied experiences and the embodied nature of cognition stem from an understanding of cognition as being for a body’s action. The active body shapes perceptual categories, and ultimately, activity serves as the starting point for cognition (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ). Thus, in the ecological view, cognition emerges in and through an organism’s actions in its environment. Relations between mind, body, and environment become conditions of existence because the environment enables and restricts cognition.

2.3 Embodied Experiences in Social Interaction

When adopting an ecological stance towards embodiment, we have to specify how we understand the environment that enables and restricts cognition, because the environment comprises both material and sociocultural aspects. In much of Gibson’s work, the focus lies on the naturally occurring features of the environment instead of the environment as produced by humans. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that affordances in the human world can look different compared with those of a general “organism”: “The richest and most elaborate affordances of the environment are provided by other animals and, for us, other people” (Gibson, 1979 , p. 135).

Gibson was aware that humans are created by the world in which they live. Still, it seems that Gibson’s approach to persons was similar to his approach to objects (Pedersen & Bang, 2016 ). Although ecological perspectives acknowledge the mutuality among humans, they tend to neglect humans’ essential sociocultural character: humans create, construct, and live their lives in relation to their societies, cultures, and historical constraints. By reducing sociocultural objects to their natural and perceivable functional properties, much of the Gibsonian tradition has neglected the person’s subjectivity and the person as a sociocultural object (Pedersen & Bang, 2016 ). A notable exception is Reed’s work ( 1996 ) that extends Gibson’s ideas to aspects of human experience beyond perception. For example, Reed notes that “becoming a person is something one cannot do all on one’s own; it is an inherently social process. (…) the human environment itself is the result of collective efforts and activities” (1996, p. 126).

The phenomenological tradition has met similar criticism. Varela ( 1994 ) argued that Merleau-Ponty’s conception of embodiment with a focus on the lived body lacks an explicit acknowledgement of the body as a social and cultural entity:

After all, bodies don’t intend, people do; and certainly minds don’t intend either, only people. People are personal agents, and, while they are enabled by their natural being, they are empowered by their social being to engage in the conversational practices of their local culture. What is missing then in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical perspective is the person. (Varela, 1994 , p. 171)

In summary, the main focus in the above theories of embodied cognition has been on the relation between the individual body and its cognitive processes in interaction with the material environment (Lindblom, 2007 ). However, for humans, “being-in-the-world” is not an individual enterprise because the world comprises social and cultural contexts (Lindblom, 2007 ). Actions have social meaning, and agency takes place within a web of cultural structures (Anderson, 2003 ). As such, researchers have made calls to move beyond the traditional emphasis on interactions between the individual and the physical environment to encompass embodied interactions between embodied agents in their social environments (e.g. Anderson, 2003 ; Johnson & Rohrer, 2007 ; Lindblom, 2007 ; Still & Costall, 1991 ). Sociointeractional aspects of embodied cognition highlight semiotic activities such as communication, dialogue, feedback, intersubjectivity, coordination, and collaboration. Such interactions between people thus reveal a layer of complexity beyond the individual that can be crucial for science learning and meaning-making.

A natural starting point to approach the role of embodiment in social interaction is Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development ( 1962 , 1978 ). Vygotsky stressed the centrality of situatedness for the development of higher mental functions. In the Vygotskian tradition, human cognition is the consequence of the intertwining of sociocultural and biological factors: cognition emerges in the developmental process of human bodies interacting with the material as well as the sociocultural world: “Every function in the child’s development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level” (Vygotsky, 1978 , p. 56). In his work, Vygotsky did not explicitly address the body or embodiment. Still, his ideas on the relationship between cognition and our social situatedness can complement the (primarily) individual perspectives of the phenomenological and ecological traditions (Lindblom, 2020 ).

With his approach of “cognition in the wild”, Hutchins ( 1995 ) brought such sociocultural considerations specifically into the field of embodied cognition. Hutchins identified the complex task of navigating a large naval vessel to be a culturally constituted activity in which cognitive systems at different levels simultaneously manifest. “In describing the ongoing conduct of navigation tasks, it is possible to identify a number of cognitive systems, some subsuming others. One may focus on the processes internal to a single individual, on an individual in coordination with a set of tools (…), or on a group of individuals in interaction with one another and with a set of tools (…)” (Hutchins, 1995 , p. 373). In his analyses, Hutchins showed how tasks were performed by (sub)system composed of people and material and symbolic artefacts in interaction. In the context of science education, Vosniadou ( 2007 ) sees Hutchins’ analysis as a promising approach to “put cognition back in the social and cultural world” (p. 61) and thereby bridge the divide in educational research that has formed between cognitive and situative perspectives.

2.4 Summary: Historical Roots of Embodiment and Embodied Cognition in Philosophy and Psychology

In this section, we have presented the historical origins of embodiment in line with the phenomenological tradition in philosophy and the ecological tradition in psychology.

The phenomenologists’ preoccupation with the bodily world of experience aims to describe the human experience as it is lived, that is, in practical terms of the actions and movements that having a body allows (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ). Merleau-Ponty moved away from “I think that” towards “I can” and put agency and interactivity at the centre of his explorations (Anderson, 2003 ). The body is not any other object in the world or merely a physical body; rather, the body is experienced by a particular first-person perspective (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ). Consequently, Merleau-Ponty introduced the double sense of embodiment that encompasses both the physical body as the context of cognitive mechanisms and the lived body as an experiential structure (Varela et al., 2016 ).

In parallel to philosophers, psychologists put forward an ecological framework that explains cognition as a quality of an organism-environment system. In this framework, cognition emerges from internal and external processes that are distributed across the brain, body, and environment. Thus, cognition is not restricted to our brain but an expression of our bodily agency in the world (Thompson, 2014 ). Agency in ecological psychology is usually understood in the context of a pragmatic sense of embodiment, in relation to undertaken action. Bodily actions shape and drive cognitive processes, and perception provides rich relational information that guides behaviour (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ).

Phenomenology and ecological psychology share common themes while also, and importantly, providing complementary perspectives. The relational nature of the subject-world connection through bodily mediation is a dominant feature in phenomenology and ecological psychology. In fact, to “the extent that the lived body is seen as complicit in the act of perception and action in the world, the theory of affordances bears certain similarity to a phenomenological understanding of the body” (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 , p. 9).

However, by and large, ecological psychology has not considered the lived and felt quality of experiences. Ecological perspectives broaden the scope of phenomenology by carefully unpacking the rich relations between organisms and their environments. However, these perspectives lack the subjectivity so prevalent in phenomenology.

While neither phenomenology nor ecological psychology denies the relevance of sociocultural aspects of embodied experiences, they do not further explore the embodied nature of social interaction either. Building on a Vygotskian approach, we can shed light on the role and relevance of embodied experiences in social interaction. By drawing on different and complementary traditions of embodied experiences in philosophy and psychology, we hope to capture the multifaceted nature of embodiment and embodied cognition better for our purposes in science education.

3 Multiple Senses of Embodiment in Science Education

Common to the various claims of embodied cognition is the understanding that cognitive processes are deeply linked to the dynamic ways in which people use their bodies to engage with the world (Anderson, 2003 ; Hutto & McGivern, 2015 ; Wilson, 2002 ). Still, significant differences between different such perspectives remain. Often, these differences are not adequately acknowledged, or different perspectives become blurred. Thus, we have to be careful to explicate the meaning of embodied cognition in the context of science education.

Building on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception ( 1962 ), we introduce the first two senses of embodiment: the physical sense of embodiment describes the body as the basis of cognitive structures; the phenomenological sense of embodiment describes the body as lived experiential structure. In line with the Gibsonian and Vygotskian traditions, we add two more senses of embodiment, the ecological and interactionist senses of embodiment, which take the material and sociocultural affordances of the environment into account. In the following sections, we develop and unpack these four senses.

Of course, the various senses of embodiment are not opposed or mutually exclusive (Varela et al., 2016 ). In fact, the same pedagogical activity could be analysed or designed by drawing on multiple senses. However, we think it is useful to disentangle these four senses as organising principles to explicate key differences and premises so they may be applied intentionally. These perspectives operate on multiple levels of abstraction, and they have different implications for what embodied cognition can look like in the context of science education. We give illustrative examples from science education research and practice to show how each sense of embodiment rests on very different premises yet contributes in essential ways to science education. For each sense, we have chosen two examples: one example to illustrate the relevance of the embodied perspective as an analytical approach in science education research and one example to illustrate the practical implications of this perspective in the context of instructional activities.

3.1 The Physical Sense of Embodiment: Embodiment as Basis of Cognitive Structures

The physical sense describes embodiment as a basis of cognitive structures. This sense builds on a physical view of the body: The body is a physical structure, and abstract cognitive states are either grounded in states of the body, or cognition can be influenced and biased by such states of the body. Our physical sense of embodiment captures the aspect of physiology that Anderson ( 2003 ) presents as one key aspect of embodied cognition. The mind is embodied not just because all its processes must be biologically instantiated but also because the structures of our perceptual and motor systems play a fundamental role in cognitive functions such as concept definition and rational inferences. Our physical sense of embodiment also aligns with the claim that cognitive processes rely on knowledge structures that emerge from body-based experiences (Wilson, 2002 ).

The body as the basis and context of cognitive mechanisms aligns well with the classical account of conceptual metaphors of Lakoff and Johnson ( 1999 , 2003 ). Lakoff and Johnson argued that our conceptual system, to a large extent, develops from embodied experiences through interaction with the surrounding world. We form so-called image schemas as phenomenological building blocks of cognition with characteristic inference patterns that stem from repeated patterns of sensorimotor experiences (Johnson, 1987 ). For example, we form a container schema from the manipulation of objects, where we conceptualise a container in which objects can be located. With the image schema, we can infer that we can place objects in the container and take them out of it and that it is harder to extract objects when they are deeper in the container.

We can project the structure of image schemas onto more abstract domains through conceptual metaphor, which is reflected in conventionalised ways in everyday language. With expressions such as “I am in trouble” or “I am getting into trouble”, the inferential structure of the container schema is transferred from the domain of physical objects to that of an emotional state: the deeper you are in trouble, the harder it is to get out of it. Another type of inference that follows from the container schema is the transitivity property: if an object is in container A and A is in container B, then the object must be in B, too. Here, the image schematic logic of containment maps onto set theory. Image-based reasoning is so prevalent in human thought that one can speculate whether all abstract human reasoning is a metaphorical version of image-based reasoning (Lakoff, 1990 ).

Lakoff and Núñez ( 2000 ) argue that even mathematics, one of the most abstract areas of human thinking, is grounded metaphorically in our embodied experiences. For example, our ability to count develops from the experience of manipulation of physical objects, and we get to understand the notion of an equation from physical balancing. More generally, the recent years have seen an active and ongoing conversation about the metaphorical basis of scientific knowledge that builds on the assumption that embodied understandings can be extended to more abstract cognitive structures (e.g. Amin, 2009 ; Beger & Smith, 2020 ).

The physical sense of embodiment is relevant in science education because of the inherently abstract nature of science and scientific knowledge. Many scientific concepts are intangible and far from our natural sensory capabilities. It is the transfer of inferential structure from image schemas to abstract concepts that accounts for the importance of embodiment in abstract scientific understanding. Suppose understanding of abstract concepts is grounded in our bodies. In that case, we can tailor instructional activities to students’ embodied needs by grounding instructional activities and instructional metaphors in embodied sources. The following example of conceptual metaphors illustrates how the physical sense of embodiment can inform analytical approaches in science education research. Kinaesthetic activities in physics instruction serve as an illustration of practical activities informed by the physical sense.

3.1.1 Analytical Example: Conceptual Metaphor as an Analytical Approach in Science Education Research

The use of conceptual metaphor analysis in science education is an example of a theoretical approach that builds on the physical sense of embodiment. Conceptual metaphor analysis can identify features that make instructional metaphors fruitful in science education. The underlying motivation of this analytical approach is the insight that the transfer of inferential structures from image schemas to abstract domains is a key mechanism for learning science.

Amin ( 2009 ) analysed the use of language related to the notion of energy in the Feynman lectures (Feynman et al., 1963 ). He showed that this language involved heavy use of conceptual metaphors. In particular, energy is often explained as an object-like entity that can be stored in, moved to or taken away from a physical object or system, for example, using the container schema. Alternatively, we can interpret energy states as locations on a vertical scale. This implicit use of metaphorical language about energy stands in contrast to Feynman’s clear introduction of the law of conservation of energy as an abstract idea. Amin argued that his analysis shows how we can use experiential, embodied resources to understand abstract concepts. Subsequently, Amin and colleagues have found further evidence of extensive use of conceptual metaphors in relation to entropy, yet another abstract science concept, in university textbooks (Amin, Jeppsson, Haglund, et al., 2012 ) and in students’ dialogues during problem-solving (Jeppsson et al., 2013 ).

Daane et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the potential usefulness of adopting conceptual metaphor perspectives in teaching science. When the researchers introduced conceptual metaphor theory in teacher professional development activities, one of the teachers started to wonder: “Is it possible, I mean, is it just impossible to talk about energy without using metaphors?” (p. 1066). Daane et al. ( 2018 ) argue that teachers who are aware that thinking and talking about the concept of energy requires metaphorical language can make explicit choices about which metaphor to choose to support their students in learning about specific aspects of energy.

Niebert et al. ( 2012 ) used conceptual metaphor analysis to identify factors that make instructional analogies and metaphors effective in teaching science. By analysing metaphors that failed to convey an adequate scientific understanding, the authors identified necessary conditions for metaphors to work during instruction. One such condition is that the analogies and metaphors are grounded in embodied sources based on students’ embodied experiences. For example, Niebert et al. reanalysed why a metaphor between chemical equilibrium and a school dance event, described by Harrison and De Jong ( 2005 ), did not lead to students’ learning of equilibrium. In the study, the teacher compared chemical reactions to students at a dance event where pairs of students dance or break up to form new couples. Niebert et al. concluded that part of the failure is that the metaphor is very complex, building on many different elements and concepts in the target and source domains of the analogy. However, the main reason for failure is students’ lack of experience of large-scale school dance events: “The intelligence with which the metaphor is constructed reveals the problem—it is constructed and not embodied. Students do not have an embodied experience with the metaphor’s source domain but need imaginative skills to understand it” (Niebert et al., 2012 , p. 857).

3.1.2 Practical Example: Kinaesthetic Activities in Physics Instruction

Bruun and Christiansen ( 2016 ) drew on the physical sense of embodiment to motivate and justify an instructional approach that uses kinaesthetic learning activities for teaching classical mechanics at the secondary and tertiary level. Noting that students’ conceptions of basic physical phenomena (e.g. linear motion) are rooted in fundamental kinaesthetic experiences (e.g. image schemas), Bruun and Christiansen argued that this idea could fruitfully frame physics activities in the classroom.

Towards that end, the authors developed a series of instructional activities where students directly felt physical concepts of classical mechanics such as force, resistance, and motion. For example, students were sitting on a plastic piece and holding a rope while another student pulled the rope. Students then discussed and filled out a worksheet in which they described their kinaesthetic experiences and the physics concepts they believed were relevant to their experience. The worksheet also asked students to explain how their experiences linked to the physics concepts.

In developing these classroom activities, Bruun and Christiansen used the image schema of “effort-resistance-flow” that captures our bodily experience of exerting effort and experiencing resistance. Bruun and Christiansen argued that this image schema lies at the heart of physics since the central physical variables in many physics domains drive or describe motion. To facilitate the instructional use of image schemas, the authors distinguished between the kinaesthetic activity (that students perform in the classroom) and the kinaesthetic model (which is an idealisation of the activity useful for planning). Bruun and Christiansen introduced the notion of the “phenomenological gap between everyday experiences and the abstractions of formal physics” ( 2016 , p. 66) to describe how kinaesthetic activities grounded in our bodies allow students to bridge this gap.

Having students link their kinaesthetic experiences to physics laws illustrates how the physical sense of embodiment can provide a useful entry point for students’ learning of physics concepts. A central aim of this instructional activity was to make students aware of “how their intuitive experience of effort-resistance-flow situations may be conceptualised and used to work with and explain physics phenomena” (Bruun & Christiansen, 2016 , p. 69). In other words, the physical sense of embodiment suggests instructional designs that target image schemas explicitly.

3.2 The Phenomenological Sense of Embodiment: Embodiment as Lived Experience

The phenomenological sense describes embodiment as lived experience. This sense builds on a phenomenological view of the body that emphasises the centrality of the first-person point of view. The body is not a mere physical structure, but it is also a lived experiential structure and part of the lived world of human experience.

The commitment to subjective experiences in the constitution of everything we do includes science, as well. Much scientific knowledge derives from experiments and observations in and of the natural world. Although scientists might think of themselves as disembodied spectators of scientific phenomena, they cannot step out of their lived bodies. Instead of being mere observers of reality, scientists are very much involved in the perception and production of phenomena through their bodily experiences:

[I]t is, therefore, quite true that any perception of a thing, a shape or a size as real, any perceptual constancy refers back to the positing of a world and of a system of experience in which my body is inescapably linked with phenomena. But the system of experience is not arrayed before me as if I were God, it is lived by me from a certain point of view; I am not the spectator, I am involved (...). (Merleau-Ponty, 1962 , p. 353)

Merleau-Ponty replaced the prevailing view of the mind as “I think” with the body’s “I can”. Thus, the body is not only a centre of experience but also a centre of agency in the world (Popova & Rączaszek-Leonardi, 2020 ).

The phenomenological sense of embodiment is relevant in science education because science is very much a practical subject. Hardahl et al. suggested that science educators often neglect the explicit education of students’ bodies and their bodily practices in the science classroom. Shedding light on bodily practices in the lab could be a way to prompt reflection that may deepen students’ awareness of what scientific knowledge entails. This conclusion is similar to the one reached by Almqvist and Quennerstedt ( 2015 ) who observed that “knowledge is very much embodied in habits, bodily reactions, actions and our being and becoming embodied” (p. 442) and that science learning is “embodied in practical, emotional and physical aspects” (p. 440).

As emphasised by Hacking ( 1983 ), science is not primarily a matter of scientists passively representing the physical world in their theories. Rather, science entails interfering in the physical world through experimentation, often enabling or creating phenomena that have never occurred spontaneously by themselves. Experiments and observations involve many activities, among them looking, checking, choosing, inferring, imaging, and imagining. Through these actions and by creating natural phenomena, scientists reason their way through experiments (Gooding, 1990 ). Gooding ( 1990 ) recognised that thought and act are mutually implicated. It is the mutual implicatedness of conceptual and material activities that put human agency at the centre of scientific knowledge creation in laboratory settings.

Moreover, case studies in the history and philosophy of science suggest that the first-person perspective is central to scientific activities. For example, the sketches and visualisations of physicist Michael Faraday “represent his mental imaging of embodied, multimodal perceptual interaction with objects and forces, but later these become objects of deliberative thought about their physical meaning” (Gooding, 2004 , p. 584). Thus, scientific visualisations can convey natural features of human experiences, and making and manipulating images may help generate scientific knowledge (Gooding, 2006 ).

Therefore, the body in science education is an inquiring and researching body (Almqvist & Quennerstedt, 2015 ), and we can locate agency in experimental setups in the lab (Gooding, 1990 ). Students cannot fully understand science without developing practical knowledge and experiencing science with and through their lived bodies. Without these bodies, there are no experiences upon which science education could be based (Bengtsson, 2013 ). Consequently, the phenomenological sense of embodiment can improve instructional practices by acknowledging that authentic, bodily experiences are essential in science learning.

We now turn to the production of physics phenomena in the lab to illustrate how the phenomenological sense of embodiment can foreground students’ lived experience. A workshop that brings particle physics to a dance studio illustrates a practical activity that invites students to identify with science concepts, thereby drawing on students’ first-person perspective.

3.2.1 Analytical Example: the Body and the Production of Phenomena in the Science Laboratory

The following example illustrates how students’ lived experience can guide the analysis of video data in science education research to shed light onto neglected aspects of students’ learning processes that become relevant in embodied classroom activities.

Hardahl et al. ( 2019 ) took lower secondary physics laboratory classes in Denmark as a context to study how students’ bodies are involved and intertwined with the production of physics phenomena. Here, producing a phenomenon meant both the making and the observation of the phenomenon. Building on the observation that we often take the purposeful functioning of the body for granted (Leder, 1990 ), Hardahl et al. analysed situations in which students produced physics phenomena of light and sound. The authors analysed these activities from a perspective towards embodiment that highlights the phenomenological sense.

Emphasising practical activities, Hardahl et al. chose “actions as situated in activities and institutions” as their unit of analysis. This choice allowed them “to see how not just talk but also the embodied ways of producing the phenomena are transformed through students’ laboratory work” (Hardahl et al., 2019 , p. 878). The researchers selected video segments for closer examination where bodily actions played an essential part in producing a physical phenomenon.

One such example was a group of students who used lab equipment to refract light and make various objects “invisible”. This activity is a regular part of the physics curriculum in lower secondary physics education in Denmark. Students used their bodies to produce and sense the optical phenomenon of invisibility. The main task consisted in positioning their bodies towards the experimental setup (a beaker filled with water) and aligning the angle of test tubes in such a way as to make the objects in the tubes invisible. Through tinkering, students changed the relative position of bodies and materials. The different alignments between body and material were temporarily filling a gap in the students’ inexperience of how to produce the phenomenon. Through bodily positioning, the lived body became part of the physics content to be learned.

Hardahl et al. demonstrated that the embodied production of scientific phenomena is an inescapable part of learning scientific inquiry. The lived bodies of students are just as much part of science as conceptual knowledge. “Producing the phenomena entails not just learning to conceptually distinguish what is there, or following a manual for a ready-made equipment, but demands bit-by-bit embodied tinkering on the part of the students, which may be more or less successful” (Hardahl et al., 2019 , p. 866). To illustrate this point, Hardahl et al. presented a detailed analysis of how students “fine-tuned” their bodies to produce the optical phenomenon of invisibility in the lab.

Thus, this study illustrates how embodiment in science education can denote an experiential body in line with the phenomenological sense of embodiment. Hardahl et al. conceptualised learning as a faculty of the mind and as learning how to engage and coordinate with the environment physically: Learning to produce science phenomena is learning science content. Such a view has consequences on how we conceptualise knowledge in science education. In line with the phenomenological tradition, knowledge is not limited to the head but can be an integrated part of practice (Heidegger, 1962 ).

3.2.2 Practical Example: Particle Physics in the Dance Studio

A recent example of teaching particle physics to middle school students in the UK presented an instructional approach that built deliberately on students’ lived embodied experience. Nikolopoulos and Pardalaki ( 2020 ) developed the “Particle Dance” workshop to let students approach particle physics through the experiential and expressive means of dance. “Particle Dance” is part of CREATIONS, Footnote 3 a Horizon-2020 project that supports and coordinates European actions to develop art-based creative approaches towards a more engaging science classroom. In the workshop, dance became the means to embody and identify with elementary particles and express scientific ideas. Here, the phenomenological sense of embodiment sheds light on science learning through imaginary identification with science concepts.

Scientists routinely use imagination and identification strategies to facilitate their understanding of science concepts that are not directly accessible by perception (e.g. Ochs et al., 1994 ; Steier & Kersting, 2019 ; Stinner, 2003 ). Such acts of imaginary identification entail placing oneself into a scientific representation, embodying a scientific scenario, and empathising with aspects of natural phenomena. Examples include Albert Einstein who “imagined what it would be like to ride on a ray of light” when working on his theory of relativity (Kind & Kind, 2007 ) or virologist Jonas Salk who described that “I would picture myself as a virus or a cancer cell, for example, and try to sense what it was like to be either and how the immune system would respond” (Salk, 1983 , p. 7). Ochs and colleagues observed that physicists assumed the perspective of physical entities to think through physics problems (Ochs et al., 1994 , 1996 ). Embodied “interpretive journeys” allow scientists to “transport themselves by means of talk and gesture into constructed visual representations through which they journey with their words and their bodies” (Ochs et al., 1994 , p. 8).

The example of “Particle Dance” illustrates how the phenomenological sense of embodiment can inform instructional activities that invite students to experience and express subjective involvement with science concepts. The workshop invited students to empathise with elementary particles and to perform a choreography of particle interactions. The activity highlights the centrality of each student’s first-person point of view. Inspired by the names and properties of elementary particles, each student proposed a simple move to embody one particle, and then, students worked in small groups to turn their moves into a choreography of particle interactions. Nikolopoulos and Pardalaki ( 2020 ) observed that students assumed ownership of the science content by drawing on their lived bodily experiences and creating their own choreography. This observation aligns with a broader tradition in science education that uses the immediate and lived nature of drama and theatre activities to enhance learning in science education by creating a significant learning situation in the lives of students (Jackson & Vine, 2013 ; Ødegaard, 2003 ).

“Particle Dance” also illustrates that there is no strict separation between the proposed senses of embodiment: viewing science learning through the lens of different senses points to different aspects of the learning activity. For example, we can draw on the physical sense of embodiment to understand how dance movements can make science content more accessible and enrich science learning. However, we need the phenomenological sense to illuminate learning in which students “humanise the inanimate particles” (Nikolopoulos & Pardalaki, 2020 , p. 4). Viewed through this sense, we can recognise the imaginary identification with a science concept as an essential tool for science learning. In the case of “Particle Dance”, imagining what it was like to be a particle and acting upon this first-person identification allowed students to create and expand the “imaginative space (…) between science, dance, and music” (p. 3) which, in turn, facilitated their science learning.

3.3 The Ecological Sense of Embodiment: Embodiment as Relational Co-dependence Between Body, Mind, and World

The ecological sense describes embodiment from the ecological perspective in line with the Gibsonian tradition of viewing the body in relation to its environment: “Just as a motion for the physicist can be specified only in relation to a chosen coordinate system, so is a phenomenal motion relative to a phenomenal framework” (Gibson, 1954 , p. 310). In the ecological perspective, the brain is not the sole cognitive resource we have available to solve problems, and the brain does not bound the mind. Instead, the mind and cognition can extend into the world. The body becomes an integrated part of an extended cognitive system assembled from a broad array of resources.

Viewing the body from an ecological perspective aligns with various claims of the study of embodied cognition, namely, that we offload cognitive work onto the environment, that the environment is part of the cognitive system, and that cognition guides and is for action (Wilson, 2002 ). The ecological sense also comprises the dynamic agent-world interactions that Anderson ( 2003 ) describes as characteristic features of practical activities. According to Anderson, practical activities of agents relate to thinking and problem-solving strategies, and these strategies involve intensive interaction with the environment.

One common type of cognitive offloading uses the environment as long-term memory, for example, in the form of reference books or electronic calendars. However, many other cases illustrate how we interact with the environment to save cognitive work in more dynamic ways. For example, Kirsh and Maglio ( 1995 ) found that skilful players of the computer game Tetris tended to use an actual rotation of the blocks to find the best solutions rather than mentally computing the best solution and then executing it. Cognitive offloading is not limited to such spatial problems but can extend to more abstract and symbolic offloading, such as counting on one’s fingers or paper-and-pencil problem-solving in mathematics. With the introduction of the notion of “the extended mind”, Clark and Chalmers ( 1998 ) investigated where to draw the border between the individual and the environment. By showing the similarity between cognitive processes performed with or without external tools like calendars or calculators, they argued that the engagement with the tools is part of thought itself.

The ecological sense of embodiment is relevant in science education because it allows reframing science learning in terms of affordances. The concept of affordance is vital to relate the body to its environment via action and perception. This new vocabulary brings processes of student-environment interactions into sharper focus. With the rise of new educational technology, the role of situated tools and digital affordances is likely to become even more relevant in the future. To illustrate the analytical implications of the ecological sense of embodiment, we present a mixed-reality environment that invites students to enact astronomy metaphors. The offloading of cognitive work onto the environment serves as an illustration of practical activities in physics and engineering education that the ecological sense may inform to promote conceptual understanding.

3.3.1 Analytical Example: Metaphoricity in an Ecological Perspective

To illustrate the analytical implications of the first sense of embodiment, we have looked at how bodily experiences give rise to more sophisticated aspects of cognition in the form of image schemas and conceptual metaphors. We now return to metaphors but view them from an ecological perspective to show how the ecological sense of embodiment can inform new and complementary approaches to metaphoricity in science education. From an analytical point of view, the difference between the physical and ecological sense of embodiment points to the distinction between the linguistic and material mediation that metaphors can afford.

Gallagher and Lindgren ( 2015 ) argued that failing to acknowledge the differences between the use of metaphors in linguistic and action-oriented practices (in other words, differences in understanding metaphors according to the physical and ecological sense of embodiment) can impede how we put metaphors to work in actual learning situations. There seems to be a subtle but significant difference in the way linguistic and material affordances can mediate learning in educational contexts. Therefore, Gallagher and Lindgren ( 2015 ) extended the traditional cognitive linguistic view of conceptual metaphors by defining enactive metaphors. The concept of enactive metaphors builds on the idea that actions “shape the way the perceiver-thinker-learner experiences and comes to understand the world” (p.401). In this context, the term enactive does not necessarily describe a different kind of metaphor but a different kind of engagement with metaphor.

This ecological stance towards metaphors informed project MEteor (Metaphor-Based Learning of Physics Concepts Through Whole-Body Interaction in a Mixed Reality Science Center Program) that explored the implications of enactive metaphors for learning science (Lindgren et al., 2016 ). Lindgren et al. designed a room-sized simulation of the solar system that used floor and wall projections with a laser-based motion tracking system to create an immersive and realistic learning environment. The MEteor simulation prompted students to interact with the mixed-reality environment by using their bodies to launch an asteroid with a certain velocity. The task was to predict the trajectory of the asteroid based on planets and gravitational forces. Real-time feedback about the accuracy of their predictions cued students to adjust their movements in agreement with the law of gravity.

MEteor used a fairly literal embodied metaphor (“I am an asteroid”) where the motion of one’s body corresponded to the motion of the asteroid. The material and experiential affordances of the wall- and floor-projected dynamic imagery provided real-time body cues that helped students participate in the activity and learn about gravity principles. Students had to recognise these affordances and identify possibilities for action and interaction with the mixed-reality environment to perform the task. Thus, acting out the asteroid movement and predicting its trajectory was not the student’s individual accomplishment. Instead, the metaphorical performance was embedded in the environmental structure of the activity. In other words, the enactive metaphor was a product of the student-environment-system: it did not solely rest in students’ minds (or bodies) but was given life through the movement of the students in an interactive and responsive mixed-reality environment.

While the physical sense of embodiment helps us understand how embodied actions can scale up to more sophisticated aspects of cognition through conceptual metaphors and image schemas, the ecological sense of embodiment demonstrates the relevance of action-based enacting metaphors for learning. MEteor presents an example of how we can put enactive metaphors to work in actual learning situations. First, the enactive metaphor (“I am an asteroid”) introduces students to an activity, namely, to move through the solar system in a prescribed way. This activity provides specific affordances in the form of real-time bodily cues from floor and wall projections. Second, learners are prompted to act out their understanding by metaphorically transforming these affordances. The mixed-reality simulator augments students’ physical activity with digital displays of planetary movements and thereby reinforces the metaphor. The interplay between the students’ embodied actions and the material affordances of the environment opens up new ways of learning physics (Gallagher & Lindgren, 2015 ).

In summary, the ecological sense of embodiment can inform an action-oriented view towards metaphors neither as figures of speech nor as figures of thought but as figures of action (Jensen & Greve, 2019 ). By adopting this analytical stance, science education researchers can understand metaphorical meaning as emerging from human actions and as being closely intertwined with and embedded in the environment. Learning environments that are designed for enactive participation can “reinforce what enactive theory claims to be our natural embodied stance toward the world—a stance in which perception is for-action and in which agents pragmatically exploit worldly affordances” (Gallagher & Lindgren, 2015 , p. 402).

3.3.2 Practical Example: Offloading Cognitive Work onto the Environment in Physics and Engineering Education

When designing instructional activities, the ecological sense of embodiment can guide designs that allow students to offload cognitive work onto their environments. For example, a conceptual lab is an instructional approach that uses probeware in engineering and physics labs (Bernhard, 2010 , 2018 ). Probeware systems consist of a sensor connected to a computer that collects and analyses data in real time. As an example of interactive technology in physics education, probeware has “cognitive value” because it can be used as a “cognitive tool” or a tool of knowing (Bernhard, 2018 ). Students can perform experiments using a range of different sensors in the lab to gather data on variables such as force, motion, temperature, light, or sound. The probeware transforms experimental data directly into a graph on the computer screen.

For example, in one of the conceptual labs, students try to follow kinematic graphs, such as velocity–time graphs, with the motion of their own bodies as they approach or move away from a motion detector (Thornton & Sokoloff, 1990 ). The probeware records the motion of the students and generates kinematic graphs on a screen instantaneously. Students can view the graphs in real time as they are moving. This way, the student, in interaction with the probeware, solves task about basic concepts of classical mechanics. For example, what does it mean that the velocity or acceleration is zero at a certain point in time, and how can students represent this scenario by moving their bodies? Rather than spending time on typical lab activities such as making measurements, writing data in a table, or generating a graph by hand, students can focus on interpreting the graphs that the probeware generates in real time. In other words, students can offload some of the tasks involved in generating data onto the probeware of the computer.

Bernhard ( 2010 ) pointed to the instructional potential of such exercises which focus specifically on developing students’ conceptual understanding. Bernhard ( 2018 ) further emphasises that different experimental equipment provides different affordances for learning about a particular phenomenon. For example, in the study of the accelerated motion of a cart on an inclined plane, a setup with motion detectors and probeware allowed students to investigate movement both up and down the plane, and the point in time when a cart going upwards stops and starts moving downwards. In contrast, ticker tape measurements with a tape attached to the cart could only be used for motion downwards. Thus, instructional technology used in labs constrains and enables what students can discern and, ultimately, learn (Bernhard, 2018 ). The ecological sense of embodiment allows educators to become aware of these different instructional affordances in the learning environments.

3.4 The Interactionist Sense of Embodiment: Embodiment as Sociocultural Interaction

The interactionist sense emphasises the socially situated nature of embodied interaction (Azevedo & Mann, 2018 ; Hall & Stevens, 2016 ; Steier et al., 2019 ; Streeck et al., 2011 ). While the body as a site for thinking and the body as a site for living and experiencing constitute the first two senses of embodiment, the ecological sense emphasises the co-dependence between mind and world. However, the interactionist sense transcends the co-dependence between mind and material world by emphasising the sociocultural world of people working together. This sense considers the kinds of situations that occur when people are coordinating and interacting with each other and how we might experience the world through the bodies of other people. We may refer to this view as a sociocultural or interactionist sense of embodiment. Its value is in recognising the unique understanding of embodiment that occurs through embodied coordination of many people interacting with each other; typically, interactional resources are at work to bridge different levels of cognitive processes.

The interactionist sense of embodiment is relevant in science education because it emphasises the collaborative, communicative, and socially situated nature of embodied cognition. Just as we can view a body and the environment as an extension of that individual’s cognitive structures, we can also think about how such structures extend across multiple individuals. From this view, thinking occurs across multiple embodied “minds”, for example, through gesture and language. The point is not that such actions are externalised translations of individual cognition, but that “thinking” (and science education practices like problem-solving, decision-making) develops in the interaction between these individuals.

Researchers adopting this perspective on embodiment tend to be rooted in the Vygotskian tradition of sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1962 , 1978 ). As Anderson ( 2003 ) notes, such social interaction between bodies is not restricted to the cognitive or the physical but occurs in particular social and cultural contexts; that “actions themselves can have not just immediate environmental effects, but social or cultural ones” (p. 109). Analytically, this perspective emphasises attending to the social interaction of embodied actors and how meanings and abstract social and cultural structures develop.

Of course, there can be a role for social interaction in the previous three senses of embodiment. One can view embodied cognition through the lens of one’s individual cognitive structures or lived experiences and still recognise the individual as being informed by social contexts. Similarly, in the ecological sense of embodiment above, the environment and even other social actors may function as part of the cognitive system. However, this interactionist sense of embodiment recognises embodied cognition as not merely grounded or informed by social contexts but as actually being constituted in social interaction. In the context of science education, interactionist views of embodiment invite us to design learning activities that require collaboration, coordination, and communication between students and their material and semiotic resources. To illustrate the analytical and practical implications of the interactionist sense of embodiment, we look at two collective embodied phenomena in physics education, the formation of matter and the transfer of energy, where students need to coordinate their actions to understand the physics concepts.

3.4.1 Analytical Example: Collective Embodied Phenomena and Group Cognition in Science Education

In an attempt to understand how the body can support cognition and learning in science education, Danish et al. ( 2020 ) combined frameworks of embodied cognition with a focus on the individual learner with frameworks for collective activity. Therefore, this analytical approach is a great example of how the interactionist sense of embodiment can inform science education research.

The Science through Technology Enhanced Play (STEP) project involved first- and second-grade students using an embodied, mixed-reality simulation to learn about the particulate nature of matter. The students acted as particles in different states of matter. Since this is a collective physics phenomenon where coordination between and across students is vital to their learning, Danish et al. argued that students’ embodied actions served as a resource in understanding the embodied activity individually and collectively.

Danish et al. chose the collective activity as their unit of analysis to argue, first, that individuals move continually between an awareness of their own individual goals and actions and an awareness of their collective embodied activity system organised around a shared object. Second, the authors argued that the students’ ongoing individual actions constructed the system as a collective unit. For example, one student in the study gestured if throwing a ball to another student who then started to walk more quickly. The two students had discussed this gesture previously, and it meant the gesturing student was giving energy to the second student, who would then move more quickly. The individual actions were shaped by the shared agreement that a throwing gesture implies the giving of energy.

In summary, the interactionist sense of embodiment implies that not all behaviour patterns in science education can be explored meaningfully at the individual level. When learning about complex scientific phenomena such as the movement of particles in different states of matter, students’ coordinated embodied explorations play a crucial role in learning. Embodied cognition is both influenced by and helps shape the relationship between individuals and their social contexts. By acknowledging that the individual and the collective embodied dimensions operate separately while also being mutually constitutive, science educators can create resources and opportunities for group cognition to emerge in the classroom.

3.4.2 Practical Example: Students Choreograph their Actions in Energy Theatre

Rachael Scherr and colleagues have developed Energy Theatre as an instructional activity in which students express and develop their understanding of energy in collaborative, embodied interaction (Close & Scherr, 2015 ; Scherr et al., 2012 ). Through Energy Theatre, students enact energy transfers and transformations in different physical scenarios. Each participant represents a unit of energy of a unique energy form, shown by an agreed-upon gesture. Objects in the scenario correspond to areas on the floor, delimited by loops of rope. As energy is transferred and transformed, the students change location on the floor from object to object and change gestures between the energy forms.

Energy Theatre is a highly collaborative and communicative effort. The students negotiate and decide what sign to use to represent a particular energy form, which energy forms to involve, and how to transfer and transform energy. As opposed to other approaches of representing physical phenomena through dramatisation, where a teacher typically provides a script and acts as a director, students direct and choreograph themselves against the background of a few given rules of the game. When students have different interpretations of what energy form is involved in a phenomenon – for example, whether they should consider warm gas in a container as thermal energy or kinetic energy – the students have to resolve this conflict before performing the scenario together. Based on their analyses of teacher professional development courses, Scherr and Robertson consider learners’ confrontation with their different interpretations of energy as a productive resource for reconciling their ideas (Scherr & Robertson, 2015 ).

The example of Energy Theatre provides another opportunity to unpack the same learning activity from different perspectives and examine how different senses offer valuable and complementary insights. On the one hand, the interactionist sense guides our attention to the different ways students negotiate their performance of a physical scenario. For the scenario to make sense, the students depend on all other students playing their part in an intended way. On the other hand, the physical sense provides a different and complementary perspective on science learning. When designing Energy Theatre, Scherr et al. ( 2013 ) drew explicitly on conceptual metaphor theory and the substance metaphor for energy. This metaphor represents energy as being conserved, located in objects, flowing among objects, and accumulating in objects, using the inferential structure of the container image schema. In particular, with the constraint that participants cannot be introduced or removed during a scenario, energy conservation is built into the rules of Energy Theatre. These features promote a model of energy transfer and transformation in real-world processes that students can enact in a performance of Energy Theatre.

4 Discussion

Although the human body is ubiquitous in doing and learning science, approaches to conceptualise the body in science education vary greatly. In the previous section, we have disentangled the various senses of embodiment with a view towards science education research and practice. By illustrating the physical , phenomenological , ecological , and interactionist sense of embodiment through recent examples from the science education literature, we have argued that the role of the body bears not only on practical educational problems but has a variety of theoretical implications in science education, as well. Table 1 summarises our presentation of the four senses and their relevance in science education research and practice.

This section discusses the usefulness and limitations of choosing four senses of embodiment as our organising principles to characterise different perspectives of embodied cognition. First, we recognise that different conceptual stances could be chosen to describe embodied cognition in science education in different terms. There is no obvious choice of a framework in a field with such rich historical roots and in which philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and linguistics (among many other disciplines!) repeatedly have cross-fertilised educational theories and practices. Besides, embodied perspectives operate on multiple abstraction levels, from the nature of physical phenomena to more abstract concepts. Cognitive activities in science education may be actual, projected, or even imagined, as when we sit still with our eyes closed (Abrahamson & Bakker, 2016 ). Thus, we can expect a diverse range of analytical approaches that conceptualise embodied learning processes.

For example, it is worth noting that the embodiment assumed in conceptual metaphor analysis and many other approaches within the physical sense of embodiment is of an offline nature (Wilson, 2002 ). The development of image schemas from physical experiences typically happens at a very young age (Johnson, 1987 ). These schemas get recruited in formal education many years later but can still be regarded as necessary embodied resources in science education. In contrast, however, the other three senses of embodiment mostly depend on students’ engagement of their bodies here and now in a more direct way.

Second, it is crucial to recognise that there can be overlap between the different senses of embodiment and that any particular science education activity can touch on multiple senses. Commenting on Merleau-Ponty’s double sense of embodiment, Varela et al. ( 2016 ) observed that “these two sides of embodiment are obviously not opposed. Instead, we continuously circulate back and forth between them.” We can find a similar circulation of all four senses around the common axis of embodied experience. As participants, students may focus on coordinating and communicating with each other (interactionist) in some moments, while at other times, representational tools and environmental infrastructure become more salient (ecological). As noted above, pedagogical designs like “Particle Dance” or “Energy Theatre” can productively support engagement across these different senses. As learning researchers, we may also analyse the same activity from multiple senses.

For example, the physical and the phenomenological senses of embodiment point towards and overlap with the ecological sense. While the physical sense of embodiment emphasises the body specifically as a basis of the cognitive mechanisms, the ecological sense extends this perspective from the mind and body out into the environment, for example, through the concept of distributed cognition (e.g. Hutchins, 1995 ). Likewise, the phenomenological sense foreshadows the ecological sense. The body’s existence as “being-toward-the-world”, as a projection towards lived goals, puts the phenomenological sense of embodiment into focus and points towards action and how cognition guides action. Again, we see that the different senses of embodiment are intertwined. The analytical distinction of the four senses allows researchers to move between multiple perspectives when studying embodied agents engaged in embodied (learning) activities.

As embodied agents, students act and interact in the rich environment of the science classroom. While there is probably one core sense that best describes an activity or analytical approach, researchers may wish to adopt a different sense as their analytical lens at different stages in the learning activity. Therefore, our senses serve as signposts that point us to specific views of embodiment and embodied cognition that inform a particular instructional activity. For example, while any science education activity might include social interaction or conversation, not every instructional activity is informed by an interactionist view of embodiment. Similarly, not every instructional activity that includes the production of scientific phenomena wishes to emphasise students’ lived experience, which the phenomenological sense highlights. In our role as science education researchers or teachers, we need to decide if we want to foreground or background different senses of embodiment when designing, employing, or studying instructional tasks.

5 Conclusion

In conclusion, the contribution of this paper is, first, a clarification and contextualisation of the various perspectives on embodiment and embodied cognition and, second, an examination of the implications of these perspectives in science education. As illustrated by our examples, we have shown that researchers and educators may be referring to entirely different analytic and practice-oriented approaches within broader perspectives of embodiment. By disentangling and illustrating these differences with the help of our four senses of embodiment, we hope to provide a basis for applying embodied perspectives to advance science education research and improve learning in science classrooms.

As illustrated in Table 1 , embodiment can refer to learning activities as diverse as language use, sensory and phenomena-oriented experiences, situated tool use and representational infrastructure, and social interaction. We must recognise that these are very different kinds of activities, and referring to each under the broader notion of embodiment loses quite a bit of nuance. It might be tempting for educators to reduce the findings from embodied cognition research to some version of “give students opportunities to use their bodies in science classrooms” or “students need to recognise conceptual metaphors”. However, we hope to show the opposite – that there are very different ways of adapting such perspectives in research practices in the classroom.

We agree with Hayes and Kraemer ( 2017 ) that the domain of science learning provides an important proving ground for embodied theories of cognition. By proposing the physical , phenomenological , ecological , and interactionist senses of embodiment, we aim to contribute to a more productive discourse around embodied cognition in science education. The four senses of embodiment help us explicate the relative usefulness and potential integration of different perspectives of embodied cognition in science education. Notably, the different senses of embodiment are not mutually exclusive, and there are not necessarily clear boundaries between them.

Rather than aiming for an all-encompassing (and possibly elusive) framework of embodied cognition in science education, we shift our focus to the perspectives of researchers and educators. By asking how students can do their thinking and learning in embodied ways and how researchers can use these insights to understand science learning in new ways, we hope to establish the four senses as guiding principles that can inform science education research and practice. Greater awareness of the different embodiment perspectives and the vocabulary of the four senses allow us to sharpen our arguments and realise the full potential of embodiment and embodied cognition.

We hope that future work can recognise the different senses of embodiment and show how they might work together to inform science education research and practice. Specifically, we hope to see pedagogical designs in science education that are precise and intentional when applying these different senses of embodiment. We also believe that a reasonable next step would be to show how these different senses of embodiment can be applied analytically in new empirical contexts.

In this paper, we use the terms “mind” and “cognition” in the ordinary sense without taking a specific conceptual stance. However, we do acknowledge that there are controversies regarding different definitions of “mind” and “cognition” and that these definitions may vary quite a bit between traditions of mainstream psychology, cognitive science, and embodied cognition.

We recognise, though, that other traditions have provided crucial perspectives on how we navigate, experience, and understand the world as embodied beings. Notably, in philosophy, William James’ radical empiricism ( 1890 ) and John Dewey’s pragmatism ( 1949 ) share a commitment to the lived experience and recognise that the world and our experiences are inseparably interlinked. In psychology, the early enactivism of Varela et al. (Varela et al., 2016 ) has paved the way for modern perspectives of embodied cognition that draw on the study of self-organisation.

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We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions that have helped us improve the quality of the paper and that have deepened our understanding of embodiment in science and science education.

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11 The Body of the Research Proposal

Drawing on guidelines developed in the UBC graduate guide to writing proposals (Petrina, 2009), we highlight eight steps for constructing an effective research proposal:

  • Presenting the topic
  • Literature Review
  • Identifying the Gap
  • Research Questions that addresses the Gap
  • Methods to address the research questions

Data Analysis

  • Summary, Limitations and Implications

In addition to those eight sections, research proposals frequently include a research timeline. We discuss each of these eight sections as well as producing a research timeline below.

Presenting The Topic (Statement of Research Problem)

The research proposal should begin with a hook to entice your readers. Like a steaming fresh pie on a windowsill, you want to allure your reader by presenting your topic (the pie on the sill) and then alluding to its importance (the delicious scent and taste of the cooling cherry pie). This can be done in many ways, so long as you are able to entice your reader to the core themes of your research. Some suggestions include:

Highlighting a paradox that your work will attempt to resolve e.g., “Why is it that social research has been shown to bring about higher net-positive outcomes than natural scientific research, but is funded less?” or “Why is it that women earn less than men in meritocratic societies even though they have more qualifications?” Paradoxes are popular because they draw on problematics (see Chapter 1) and indicate an obstacle in the thinking of fellow researchers that you may offer hope in resolving.

  • Presenting a narrative introduction (often used in ethnographic papers) to the problem at hand. The following opening statement from Bowen, Elliott & Brenton (2014, p. 20) illustrates:
It’s a hot, sticky Fourth of July in North Carolina, and Leanne, a married working-class black mother of three, is in her cramped kitchen. She’s been cooking for several hours, lovingly preparing potato salad, beef ribs, chicken legs, and collards for her family. Abruptly, her mother decides to leave before eating anything. “But you haven’t eaten,” Leanne says. “You know I prefer my own potato salad,” says her mom. She takes a plateful to go anyway,
  • Provide an historical overview of the problem, discussing its significance in history and indicating how that interrelates to the present: “On January 23rd, 2020, tears were shed as cabbies heard the news of Uber’s approval to operate in the city of Vancouver.”
  • Introduce your positionality to the problem: How did it come of concern? How are you personally related to the social problem in question? The following introduction by Germon (1999, p.687) illustrates:
Throughout the paper I locate myself as part of the disabled peoples movement, and write from a position of a shared value base and analyses of a collective experience. In doing so, I make no apology for flouting academic pretentions of objectivity and neutrality. Rather, I believe I am giving essential information which clarifies my motivation and political position
  • Begin with a quotation : Because this is an overused technique, if you use it, make sure that it addresses your research question and that you can explicitly relate to it in the body of your introduction. Do not start with a quotation for the sake of.
  • Begin with a concession : Start with a statement recognizing an opinion or approach different from the one you plan to take in your thesis. You can acknowledge the merits in a previous approach but show how you will improve it or make a different argument, e.g., “Although critical theory and antiracism explain oppression and exploitation in contemporary society, they do not fully address the experiences of Indigenous peoples”.
  • Start with an interesting fact or statistics : This is a sure way to draw attention to the topic and its significance e.g. “Canada is the fourth most popular destination country in the world for international students in 2018, with close to half a million international students” (CBIE, 2018)
  • A definition : You may start by defining a key term in your research topic. This is useful if it distinguishes how you plan to use a term or concept in your thesis.

The above strategies are not exhaustive nor are they only applicable to the introduction of your research proposal. They can be used to introduce any section of your thesis or any paper. Regardless of the strategy that you use to introduce your topic, remember that the key objective is to convince your reader that the issue is problematic and is worth investigating. A well developed statement of research problem will do the following:

  • Contextualize the problem . This means highlighting what is already known and how it is problematic to the specific context in which you wish to study it. By highlighting what is already known, you can build on key facts (such as the prevalence and whether it has received attention in the past). Please note that this is not the literature review; you are simply fleshing out a few pertinent details to introduce the topic in a few sentences or a paragraph.
  • Specify the problem by describing precisely what you plan to address. In other words, elaborate on what we need to know. For example, building on your contextualization of the problem, you can specify the problem with a statement such as: “There is an abundance of literature on international migration. In fact, the IOM (2018) estimates that there are close to 258 million international migrants globally, who contribute billions to the global economy. However, not much is known about the extent of intra-regional migration in the global south such as within the African continent. There is, hence, a pressing need to study this phenomenon in greater detail.”
  • Highlight the relevance of the problem . This means explaining to the readers why we need to know this information, who will be affected, who will benefit?
  • Outline the goal and objectives of the research.
  • The goal of your research is what you hope to achieve by answering the research question. To write the goal of your research, go back to your research question and state the results you intend to obtain. For example, if your research question is “What effect does extended social media use have on female body images?”, the goal of your research could be stated as “The goal of this study is to identity the point at which social media use negatively impact female body images so that they can be informed about how to use it responsibly.
  • The objectives of your study is a further elaboration on your goals i.e., details about the steps that you will take to achieve the goal. Based on the goal above, you probably will study incidents of depression among female social media users, changes in self-esteem and incidents of eating disorders. These could translate into objectives such as to: (1) compare the incidents of depression among female social media users based on length of use (2) assess changes in female social media users’ self esteem (3) determine if there are differences in the incidents of eating disorder among female social media users based on extent of use. Notice that in achieving those objectives, you will be able to reach the goal of answering your research question.

In summary, you should strive to have one goal for each research question. If your project has only one research question, one goal is sufficient. Your objectives are the pathways (or steps) that will get you to achieve the goal i.e., what will you need to do in order to answer the research question. Summarize the steps in no more than two or three objectives per goal.

Brief Literature Review

After the problem and rationale are introduced, the next step is to frame the problem within the academic discourse. This involves conducting a preliminary literature review covering, inter alia, the history of the phenomena itself and the scholarly theories and investigations that have attempted to understand it (Petrina, 2009). In elaborating on the history of the concepts and theories, you should also attempt to draw attention to the theories which will guide your own research (or which will be contested by your research). By foregrounding the major ways of perceiving the problem, you will then set the stage for your own methodology: the major concepts and tools you will use to investigate/interpret the problem.

While in graduate research proposals the literature review often composes a section of its own (Petrina, 2009), in undergraduate research this step can be incorporated into the introduction. However, you should avoid, as Wong (n.d.) writes, framing your research question “in the context of a general, rambling literature review,” where your research question “may appear trivial and uninteresting.” Try to respond to seminal papers in the literature and to identify clearly for your reader the key concepts in the literature that you will be discussing. Part of outlining the scholarly discussion should also focus on clarifying the boundaries of your topic. While making the significance concrete, try to hone in on select themes that your research will evaluate. This way, when you go to outline the methods you will use, the topic will have clearly defined boundaries and concerns. See chapter 5 for more guidance on how to construct an extended literature review.

Box 2. 1 – Tips for the Literature Review

  • Summarize : The literature in your literature review is not going to be exhaustive but it should demonstrate that you have a good grasp on key debates and trends in the field
  • Quality not quantity : Despite the fact that this is non-exhaustive, there is no magic number of sources that you need. Do not think in terms of how many sources are sufficient. Think about presenting a decent representation of key themes in the literature.
  • Highlight theory and methodology of your sources (if they are significant). Doing so could help justify your theoretical and methodological decisions, whether you are departing from previous approaches or whether you are adopting them.
  • Synthesize your results. Do not simply state “According to Robinson (2021)….According to Wilson (2021)… etc”. Instead, find common grounds between sources and summarize the point e.g., “Researchers argue that we should not list our literature (Bartolic, 2021; Robinson, 2020; Wilson 2021).
  • Justify methodological choice
  • Assess and Evaluate: After assessing the literature in your field, you should be able to answer the following questions: Why should we study (further) this research topic/problem?
  • Contribution : At the end of the literature, you should be able to determine contributions will my study make to the existing literature?

As you briefly discuss the key literature concerning your topic of interest, it is important that you allude to gaps. Gaps are ambiguities, faults, and missing aspects of previous studies. Think about questions that you have which are not answered by existing literature. Specifically, think about how the literature might insufficiently address the following, and locate your research as filling those gaps (see UNE, 2021):

  • Population or sample : size, type, location, demography etc. [Are there specific populations that are understudied e.g., Indigenous people, female youth, BIPOC, the elderly etc.]
  • Research methods : qualitative, quantitative, or mixed [Has the research in the area been limited to just a few methods e.g., all surveys? How is yours different?]
  • Data analysis [Are you using a different method of analysis than those used in the literature?]
  • Variables or conditions [Are you examining a new or different set of variables than those previously studied? Are the conditions under which your study is being conducted unique e.g., under pandemic conditions]
  • Theory [Are you employing a theory in a new way?]

Refer to Chapter 6 (Literature Review) for more detail about this process and for a discussion on common types of gaps in social research.

Box 2. 2 – Identifying a Gap

To indicate the usefulness and originality of your research, you should be conscious of how your research is both unique from previous studies in the field and how its findings will be useful. When you write your thesis or research report, you will expound on these gaps some more. However, in the body of your proposal, it is important that you explicitly highlight the insufficiency of existing literature (i.e. gaps). Below are some phrases that you can use to indicate gaps:

  • …has not been clarified, studied, reported, or elucidated
  • further research is required or needed
  • …is not well reported
  • key question(s) remains unanswered
  • it is important to address …
  • …poorly understood or known
  • Few studies have (UNE, 2021)

Research Questions & Research Questions that Address the Gap

The gaps and literature you outline should set the context for your research questions. In outlining the major issues concerning your topic, you should have raised key concepts and actors (Wong, n.d.). Your research question should attempt to engage or investigate the key concepts previously stated, showing to your reader that you have developed a line of inquiry that directly touches upon gaps in the previous literature that can be concretely investigated (ie. concepts that are operationalized). After indicating what your research intends to study, formulate this gap into a set of research questions which make investigating this gap tangible. Refer to the previous chapter for more advice about devising a solid research question. Remember, as McCombes (2021) notes, a good research question is:

  • Focused on a single problem or issue
  • Researchable using primary and/or secondary sources
  • Feasible to answer within the timeframe and practical constraints
  • Specific enough to answer thoroughly
  • Complex enough to develop the answer over the space of a paper or thesis (i.e., not answerable with a simple yes/no)
  • Provide scope for debate Original (not one that is answered already)
  • Relevant to your field of study and/or society more broadly.

Methods to Address Research Questions

By the time you begin writing your methodology section, you would have already introduced your topic and its significance, and have provided a brief account of its scholarly history (literature review) and the gaps you will be filling. The methods section allows you to discuss how you intend to fulfill said gap. In the methods section, you also indicate what data you intend to investigate (content: including the time, place, and variables) and how you intend to find it (the methods you will use to reveal content e.g., qualitative interviewing, discourse analysis, experimental research, and comparative research). Your ability to outline these steps clearly and plausibly will indicate whether your research is repeatable, possible, and effective. Repeatable research allows other researchers to repeat your methods and find the same results (Bhattacherjee, 2012), thereby proving that your findings were not invented but are discoverable by all. Your descriptions must be specific enough so that other researchers can repeat them and arrive at the same results. It is important in this section that you also justify why you believe this specific methodology is the most effective for answering the research question. This does not need to be extensive, but you should at least briefly note why you think, for instance, qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods (and your specific proposed approach) are appropriate for answering your research question. For more details about writing an immaculate methodology, refer to Chapter 7.

This short section requires you to discuss how you intend to interpret your findings. You will need to ask yourself five critical questions before you write this section: (1) will theory guide the interpretation of the results? (2) Will I use a matrix with pre-established codes to categorize results? (3) Will I use an inductive approach such as grounded theory that does not go into an investigation with strict codes? (4) Will I use statistics to explain trends in numerical data? (5) Will I be using a combination of these or another strategy to interpret my findings?This section should also include some discussion of the theories that you intend to use to possibly explain or understand your data. Be sure to outline key notions and explain how they will be operationalized to extrapolate the data you may receive. Again, this section also does not have to be extensive. At this point, you are demonstrating that you have given thought to what you intend to do with the data once you have collected it. This may change later on, but make sure that the proposed analytical strategy is appropriate to the data collected, for example, if you are evaluating newspaper discourse on the coronavirus pandemic, unless you intend to code the data quantitatively, you would not be expected to use statistics. Content, thematic or discourse analysis might be more intuitive. See the Data Analysis (Chapters  9 and 10 ) for more details.

Summarize, Engage with Limitations, and Implicate

After you have outlined the literature, the gaps in the literature, how you intend to investigate that gap, and how you intend to analyze what you have found, it is important to again reiterate the significance of your study. Allude to what your study could find and what this would mean . This requires returning to the significant territory that began your proposal and linking it to how your study could help to explain/change this understanding or circumstance. Report on the possible beneficial outcomes of your study. For instance, say you study the impact of welfare checks on homelessness. Then you could respond to the following question: How could my findings improve our responses to homelessness? How could it make welfare policies more effective? Remember you must explain the usefulness or benefits of the study to both the outside world and the research community. In addition to noting your strengths, also reflect on the weaknesses. All research has limitations but you need to demonstrate that you have taken steps to mitigate those that can be mitigated and that the research is valuable despite the weaknesses. Be straightforward about the things your study will not be able to find, and the potential obstacles that will be presented to you in conducting your study (in research that is conducted with a population, be sure to note harms/benefits that might come to them). With this in mind, try to address these obstacles to the best of your ability and to prove the value of your study despite inevitable tradeoffs. However, do not finish with a long list of inadequacies. End with a magnanimous crescendo –with the impression that despite the trials and limitations of research, you are prepared for the challenge and the challenge is well worth overcoming. This means reiterating the significance, potential uses and implications of the findings.

Box 2.3 – Seven Tips for Getting Started with Your Proposed Methodology

  • Introduce the overall methodological approach (e.g., qualitative, quantitative, mixed)
  • Indicate how the approach fits the overall research design (e.g., setting, participants, data collection process)
  • Describe the specific methods of data collection (e.g., interviews, surveys, ethnography, secondary data etc.)
  • Explain how you intend to analyze and interpret your results (i.e. statistical analysis, grounded theory; outline any theoretical framework that will guide the analysis; see below ).
  • If necessary, provide background and rationale for unfamiliar methodologies.
  • Highlight the ethical process including whether institutional ethics review was done
  • Address potential limitations ( see below )

Bhattacherjee, Anol. (2012). Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices Textbooks Collection. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1002&context=oa_textbooks

Bowen, S., Elliott, S., & Brenton, J. (2014). The joy of cooking? Contexts , 13(3), 20-25.

CBIE [Canadian Bureau for International Education] (2018, August). International students in Canada . https://cbie.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/International-Students-in-CanadaENG.pdf

Germon, P. (1999). Purely academic? Exploring the relationship between theory and political activism. Disability & Society, 14(5), 687-692.

International Organization on Migration. (2018). “Global Migration Indicators.” global_migration_indicators_2018.pdf (iom.int)

McCombes, S. (2021, March 22). Developing Strong Research Questions: Criteria and Examples. Scribbr . https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/research-questions/

UNE (2021). Gaps in the literature. UNE Library services. https://library.une.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Gaps-in-the-Literature.pdf

Petrina, Stephen. (2009). “Thesis Dissertation and Proposal Guide For Graduate Students.”

https://edcp-educ.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2013/08/researchproposal1.pdf

What one hopes to achieve by answering the research question.

A further elaboration on goals i.e., details about the steps that will be taken to achieve the goal.

The ambiguities, faults, and missing aspects of the established literature.

The notion that another researcher should be able to repeat your methods and find the same results (see replicable).

Practicing and Presenting Social Research Copyright © 2022 by Oral Robinson and Alexander Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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May 14, 2024

Understanding how exercise affects the body

At a glance.

  • A study of endurance training in rats found molecular changes throughout the body that could help explain the beneficial effects of exercise on health.
  • Large differences were seen between male and female rats, highlighting the need to include both women and men in exercise studies.

Woman tying her running shoe laces.

Exercise is one of the most beneficial activities that people can engage in. Regular exercise reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other health problems. It can even help people with many mental health conditions feel better.

But exactly how exercise exerts its positive effects hasn’t been well understood. And different people’s bodies can respond very differently to certain types of exercise, such as aerobic exercise or strength training.

Understanding how exercise impacts different organs at the molecular level could help health care providers better personalize exercise recommendations. It might also lead to drug therapies that could stimulate some of the beneficial effects of a workout for people who are physically unable to exercise.

To this end, researchers in the large, NIH-funded Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) have been studying how endurance exercise and strength training affect both people and animals. The team is examining gene activity, protein alterations, immune cell function, metabolite levels, and numerous other measures of cell and tissue function. The first results, from rat studies of endurance exercise, were published on May 2, 2024, in Nature and several related journals.

Both male and female rats underwent progressive exercise training on a treadmill over an 8-week period. By the end of training, male rats had increased their aerobic capacity by 18%, and females by 16%. Tissue samples were collected from 18 different organs, plus the blood, during the training period and two days after the final bout of exercise. This let the researchers study the longer-term adaptations of the body to exercise.

Changes in gene activity, immune cell function, metabolism, and other cellular processes were seen in all the tissues studied, including those not previously known to be affected by exercise. The types of changes differed from tissue to tissue.

Many of the observed changes hinted at how exercise might protect certain organs against disease. For example, in the small intestines, exercise decreased the activity of certain genes associated with inflammatory bowel disease and reduced signs of inflammation in the gut. In the liver, exercise boosted molecular changes associated with improved tissue health and regeneration.

Some of the effects differed substantially between male and female rats. For example, in male rats, the eight weeks of endurance training reduced the amount of a type of body fat called subcutaneous white adipose tissue (scWAT). The same amount of exercise didn’t reduce the amount of scWAT in female rats. Instead, endurance exercise caused scWAT in female rats to alter its energy usage in ways that are beneficial to health. These and other results highlight the importance of including both women and men in exercise studies.

The researchers also compared gene activity changes in the rat studies with those from human samples taken from previous studies and found substantial overlap. They identified thousands of genes tied to human disease that were affected by endurance exercise. These analyses show how the MoTrPAC results from rats can be used to help guide future research in people.

“This is the first whole-organism map looking at the effects of training in multiple different organs,” says Dr. Steve Carr, a MoTrPAC investigator from the Broad Institute. “The resource produced will be enormously valuable, and has already produced many potentially novel biological insights for further exploration.”

Human trials are expected in the next few years. Information on participating can be found here .

—by Sharon Reynolds

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  • Personalized Exercise? How Biology Influences Fitness
  • Maintain Your Muscle: Strength Training at Any Age
  • Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC)
  • Participating in MoTrPAC

References:  Temporal dynamics of the multi-omic response to endurance exercise training. MoTrPAC Study Group; Lead Analysts; MoTrPAC Study Group. Nature . 2024 May;629(8010):174-183. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06877-w. Epub 2024 May 1. PMID: 38693412. Sexual dimorphism and the multi-omic response to exercise training in rat subcutaneous white adipose tissue. Many GM, Sanford JA, Sagendorf TJ, Hou Z, Nigro P, Whytock KL, Amar D, Caputo T, Gay NR, Gaul DA, Hirshman MF, Jimenez-Morales D, Lindholm ME, Muehlbauer MJ, Vamvini M, Bergman BC, Fernández FM, Goodyear LJ, Hevener AL, Ortlund EA, Sparks LM, Xia A, Adkins JN, Bodine SC, Newgard CB, Schenk S; MoTrPAC Study Group. Nat Metab . 2024 May 1. doi: 10.1038/s42255-023-00959-9. Online ahead of print. PMID: 38693320. The impact of exercise on gene regulation in association with complex trait genetics. Vetr NG, Gay NR; MoTrPAC Study Group; Montgomery SB. Nat Commun . 2024 May 1;15(1):3346. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45966-w. PMID: 38693125.

Funding:  NIH’s Office of the Director (OD), National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and National Library of Medicine (NLM); Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF).

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Google Releases A.I. That Can Predict How the Human Body’s Molecules Behave, Boosting Drug Discovery Research

Called AlphaFold 3, the latest update of the software models the interactions of proteins with DNA, RNA and other molecules for the first time

Christian Thorsberg

Christian Thorsberg

Daily Correspondent

An image of a protein-DNA interaction, modeled by AlphaFold 3

Last week, Google released a much-anticipated upgrade for its AlphaFold software, which harnesses artificial intelligence to predict the shape and structure of molecules within the human body.

Any given molecule’s shape is indicative of its function and behavior, so biologists have long researched how chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, fold into various shapes.  The A.I. tool can accelerate and streamline this process, opening new avenues for breakthroughs—notably in vaccine and drug development.

AlphaFold 3, the newest update from Google DeepMind described last week in the journal Nature , builds on its previous two iterations. The software’s initial tease in 2018 offered potential for accurately predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins, while its 2020 update, AlphaFold 2, came with significant improvements. In 2021, Google released an open-source version of AlphaFold, along with the predicted 3D structures of nearly all known proteins in the human body. The next year, two million predicted protein structures were shared.

But despite these leaps forward—which helped researchers map the human heart and better understand extinct birds’ eggs —AlphaFold 2 was limited in scope to modeling proteins.

“The AlphaFold 2 system only knew about amino acids, so it was of very limited utility for biopharma,” Mohammed AlQuraishi , a systems biologist at Columbia University who is not affiliated with Google DeepMind, tells MIT Technology Review ’s James O’Donnell.

AlphaFold 3's structural prediction of the common cold virus and its interaction with antibodies and sugars.

The newest version of the software can predict not only the shape of proteins, but also the structures of DNA, RNA and other molecules, such as ligands. Crucially, this update will allow researchers to better predict and study how different molecules in the human body geometrically interact with each other—and anticipate where a drug might bind to a protein.

This ability can “save months of experimental work and enable research that was previously impossible,” Deniz Kavi , a co-founder and chief executive of Tamarind Bio, a drug discovery start-up, tells the New York Times ’ Cade Metz. “This represents tremendous promise.”

Researchers could use the software update to probe some initial questions, including how proteins respond to DNA damage within the human body.

“It tells us a lot more about how the machines of the cell interact,” John Jumper , the director of Google DeepMind, tells the New York Times . “It tells us how this should work and what happens when we get sick.”

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AlphaFold 3 offers researchers a level of confidence, often ranging from 40 percent to 80 percent, with each prediction it models, according to MIT Technology Review . Parts of a structure modeled with high confidence appear in blue, while the more uncertain regions appear in red. In some areas, its inaccuracy is a limitation—for modeling RNA-protein interactions, for example, the system isn’t yet highly exact.

Another potential drawback is the model’s ability to “hallucinate,” or produce false information. The team behind AlphaFold 3, in order to build its molecular library and function, borrowed methods from other A.I. models, such as OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 and Sora, that generate images and video. This improved AlphaFold 3’s capacity to produce large 3D images of molecular shapes, but leaves it liable to hallucinate. The team hopes to alleviate this issue with more training data, and in the paper, they note that hallucinated structures would typically be marked as low confidence.

Unlike its predecessor, the code for AlphaFold 3 will not be made open-source, and only a limited version, the AlphaFold Server , will be released publicly.

“This is a big advance for us,” Demis Hassabis , the CEO of Google DeepMind, tells WIRED ’s Will Knight. “This is exactly what you need for drug discovery: You need to see how a small molecule is going to bind to a drug, how strongly and also what else it might bind to.”

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Christian Thorsberg

Christian Thorsberg | READ MORE

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue , Sierra  magazine, Discover  magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal .

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

At michigan state university, international research team uses wavefunction matching to solve quantum many-body problems, new approach makes calculations with realistic interactions possible.

FRIB researchers are part of an international research team solving challenging computational problems in quantum physics using a new method called wavefunction matching. The new approach has applications to fields such as nuclear physics, where it is enabling theoretical calculations of atomic nuclei that were previously not possible. The details are published in Nature (“Wavefunction matching for solving quantum many-body problems”) .

Ab initio methods and their computational challenges

An ab initio method describes a complex system by starting from a description of its elementary components and their interactions. For the case of nuclear physics, the elementary components are protons and neutrons. Some key questions that ab initio calculations can help address are the binding energies and properties of atomic nuclei not yet observed and linking nuclear structure to the underlying interactions among protons and neutrons.

Yet, some ab initio methods struggle to produce reliable calculations for systems with complex interactions. One such method is quantum Monte Carlo simulations. In quantum Monte Carlo simulations, quantities are computed using random or stochastic processes. While quantum Monte Carlo simulations can be efficient and powerful, they have a significant weakness: the sign problem. The sign problem develops when positive and negative weight contributions cancel each other out. This cancellation results in inaccurate final predictions. It is often the case that quantum Monte Carlo simulations can be performed for an approximate or simplified interaction, but the corresponding simulations for realistic interactions produce severe sign problems and are therefore not possible.

Using ‘plastic surgery’ to make calculations possible

The new wavefunction-matching approach is designed to solve such computational problems. The research team—from Gaziantep Islam Science and Technology University in Turkey; University of Bonn, Ruhr University Bochum, and Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany; Institute for Basic Science in South Korea; South China Normal University, Sun Yat-Sen University, and Graduate School of China Academy of Engineering Physics in China; Tbilisi State University in Georgia; CEA Paris-Saclay and Université Paris-Saclay in France; and Mississippi State University and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU)—includes  Dean Lee , professor of physics at FRIB and in MSU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and head of the Theoretical Nuclear Science department at FRIB, and  Yuan-Zhuo Ma , postdoctoral research associate at FRIB.

“We are often faced with the situation that we can perform calculations using a simple approximate interaction, but realistic high-fidelity interactions cause severe computational problems,” said Lee. “Wavefunction matching solves this problem by doing plastic surgery. It removes the short-distance part of the high-fidelity interaction, and replaces it with the short-distance part of an easily computable interaction.”

This transformation is done in a way that preserves all of the important properties of the original realistic interaction. Since the new wavefunctions look similar to that of the easily computable interaction, researchers can now perform calculations using the easily computable interaction and apply a standard procedure for handling small corrections called perturbation theory.  A team effort

The research team applied this new method to lattice quantum Monte Carlo simulations for light nuclei, medium-mass nuclei, neutron matter, and nuclear matter. Using precise ab initio calculations, the results closely matched real-world data on nuclear properties such as size, structure, and binding energies. Calculations that were once impossible due to the sign problem can now be performed using wavefunction matching.

“It is a fantastic project and an excellent opportunity to work with the brightest nuclear scientist s in FRIB and around the globe,” said Ma. “As a theorist , I'm also very excited about programming and conducting research on the world's most powerful exascale supercomputers, such as Frontier , which allows us to implement wavefunction matching to explore the mysteries of nuclear physics.”

While the research team focused solely on quantum Monte Carlo simulations, wavefunction matching should be useful for many different ab initio approaches, including both classical and  quantum computing calculations. The researchers at FRIB worked with collaborators at institutions in China, France, Germany, South Korea, Turkey, and United States.

“The work is the culmination of effort over many years to handle the computational problems associated with realistic high-fidelity nuclear interactions,” said Lee. “It is very satisfying to see that the computational problems are cleanly resolved with this new approach. We are grateful to all of the collaboration members who contributed to this project, in particular, the lead author, Serdar Elhatisari.”

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the German Research Foundation, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship Initiative, Volkswagen Stiftung, the European Research Council, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Security Academic Fund, the Rare Isotope Science Project of the Institute for Basic Science, the National Research Foundation of Korea, the Institute for Basic Science, and the Espace de Structure et de réactions Nucléaires Théorique.

Michigan State University operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. Hosting what is designed to be the most powerful heavy-ion accelerator, FRIB enables scientists to make discoveries about the properties of rare isotopes in order to better understand the physics of nuclei, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions, and applications for society, including in medicine, homeland security, and industry.

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of today’s most pressing challenges. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.

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Preserving breast tissue outside of body will aid cancer research – study

Experts say they have paved the way for the development of new drugs to treat and prevent breast cancer.

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Researchers say they have managed to keep breast cancer tissue viable for at least a week outside of the human body, paving the way for enhanced cancer treatments.

A new study, funded by the Prevent Breast Cancer charity, found breast tissue could be preserved in a special gel solution, enabling scientists to examine it in great detail.

Experts found the preserved breast tissue maintained its structure, cell types and ability to respond to a series of drugs in the same way as normal breast tissue.

The study, published in the Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia, could boost the development of new drugs to treat and prevent breast cancer, without the need for testing on animals.

Lester Barr, consultant breast surgeon and founder of Prevent Breast Cancer, said: “Breast cancer mortality is decreasing in the UK thanks to improved screening and treatment options, but incidences continue to rise and breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK.

“It’s therefore really important that we develop new prevention and risk-reduction options for women, especially for those with a high risk due to their family history or genetics.

“This breakthrough means that researchers will be able to test new drugs in the lab with far greater accuracy, which should mean fewer drugs failing at clinical trials and ultimately better results for women affected by this terrible disease.

“It’s a hugely exciting development in animal-free research which puts us in a really strong place to find new drugs to prevent breast cancer.”

Researcher Hannah Harrison, from the University of Manchester, said: “There are various risk-reducing options for women at high risk of developing breast cancer – for example, those with a significant family history or who have mutations in the BRCA genes.

“However, not all drugs work for all women. This new approach means that we can start to determine which drugs will work for which women by measuring their impact on living tissue.

“Ultimately, this means that women can take the most effective drug for their particular genetic make up.

“By testing different hydrogel formulas we were able to find a solution that preserves human breast tissue for at least a week and often even longer.

“This is a real game-changer for breast cancer research in many ways.

“We can better test drugs for both the prevention and treatment of cancer, and can examine how factors like breast density – which we know is a risk factor for breast cancer – react to particular hormones or chemicals to see if this has an impact on cancer development.”

Scientists used the gel solution VitroGel to preserve the tissue.

In their work, they said the identification of new drugs has been previously “hampered by a lack of good pre-clinical models”.

What has been available until now cannot “fully recapitulate the complexities of the human tissue, lacking human extracellular matrix, stroma, and immune cells, all of which are known to influence therapy response”, they said.

It comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed a new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered medical trial which “promises to improve the accuracy and speed” of breast cancer diagnosis.

A partnership between the NHS and South Korean firm Lunit uses the Korean company’s image-reading AI technology to help human radiologists in the process of analysing and assessing mammograms.

Writing for the i alongside South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Mr Sunak said the trial was an example of how AI can be used to “transform the world for the better”.

The leaders said: “We all know how vital early detection is – so just imagine what improvements here could mean for millions of women and their families.”

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Associations between Nature Exposure and Health: A Review of the Evidence

Marcia p. jimenez.

1 Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02215, USA

2 Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA; ude.dravrah.hpsh@semajp

Nicole V. DeVille

3 Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA; ude.dravrah.hpsh@ttoillee (E.G.E.); ude.dravrah.gninnahc@hcjer (J.E.H.)

Elise G. Elliott

4 Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02215, USA; ude.dravrah.hpsh@ffihcsj (J.E.S.); ude.dravrah.g@tliwg (G.E.W.)

Jessica E. Schiff

Grete e. wilt, jaime e. hart, peter james.

There is extensive empirical literature on the association between exposure to nature and health. In this narrative review, we discuss the strength of evidence from recent (i.e., the last decade) experimental and observational studies on nature exposure and health, highlighting research on children and youth where possible. We found evidence for associations between nature exposure and improved cognitive function, brain activity, blood pressure, mental health, physical activity, and sleep. Results from experimental studies provide evidence of protective effects of exposure to natural environments on mental health outcomes and cognitive function. Cross-sectional observational studies provide evidence of positive associations between nature exposure and increased levels of physical activity and decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, and longitudinal observational studies are beginning to assess long-term effects of nature exposure on depression, anxiety, cognitive function, and chronic disease. Limitations of current knowledge include inconsistent measures of exposure to nature, the impacts of the type and quality of green space, and health effects of duration and frequency of exposure. Future directions include incorporation of more rigorous study designs, investigation of the underlying mechanisms of the association between green space and health, advancement of exposure assessment, and evaluation of sensitive periods in the early life-course.

1. Introduction

The “biophilia hypothesis” posits that humans have evolved with nature to have an affinity for nature [ 1 ]. Building on this concept, two major theories—Attention Restoration Theory and Stress Reduction Theory—have provided insight into the mechanisms through which spending time in nature might affect human health. Attention Restoration Theory (ART) posits that the mental fatigue associated with modern life is associated with a depleted capacity to direct attention [ 2 ]. According to this theory, spending time in natural environments enables people to overcome this mental fatigue and to restore the capacity to direct attention [ 3 ]. The Stress Reduction Theory (SRT) describes how spending time in nature might influence feelings or emotions by activating the parasympathetic nervous system to reduce stress and autonomic arousal because of people’s innate connection to the natural world [ 4 , 5 ]. Further, proponents of the biophilia hypothesis postulate that green spaces provide children with opportunities such as discovery, creativity, risk taking, mastery, and control, which positively influence different aspects of brain development [ 6 ]. Beyond the biophilia hypothesis, there are a number of other pathways through which nature may affect health, including but not limited to increasing opportunities for social engagement and space for physical activity, while mitigating harmful environmental exposures (e.g., air pollution, noise, heat) [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Though evidence is inconsistent, physical activity may serve as an important mechanistic pathway to beneficial health outcomes by providing increased opportunities for outdoor exercise (e.g., walking) and play [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Facilitation of social contact is a promising mechanism emerging from recent literature, where natural environments and green space provide an avenue for increased contact with others and a greater sense of community [ 9 , 10 ]. The mechanism’s underlying associations between nature exposure and health outcomes are many, not completely understood, and could act in isolation or synergistically [ 11 ].

While the study of exposure to nature and health outcomes has expanded substantially over recent years, there remain many understudied relationships, mechanisms, and populations. For instance, there is a much more expansive evidence base for associations between nature and health, particularly with experimental studies, in adults than in children. This narrative review synthesizes recent scientific literature on associations between nature and health, highlighting studies conducted among children and youth where possible, published throughout August 2020 and based on: (1) randomized experimental studies of short-term exposure to nature and acute responses; and (2) observational studies of exposure to nature.

A narrative review synthesizes the results of quantitative studies that employ diverse methodologies and/or theoretical frameworks without a focus on the statistical significance of the studies’ results [ 12 , 13 ]. We conducted a keyword search-based review using PubMed Advanced Search on 31 August 2020 for studies published in the last ten years with titles or abstracts containing “greenness”, “green space” or “NDVI” (i.e., normalized difference vegetation index) as the exposure, and “health, “children’s health” or “youth health” as the outcome (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA). Using World Health Organization definitions, we categorized a child as a person younger than 10 years and youth from 10 to 24 years inclusive [ 14 ]. We limited this narrative review to research on human subjects only and included English-language-based, international peer-reviewed articles (e.g., primary research, reviews), online reports, electronic books, and press releases. We included both experimental and observational studies and applied snowballing search methodology using the references cited in the articles identified in the literature search. Each identified item was assessed for relevance by a member of the study team. This review is not comprehensive but is intended to summarize recent literature on nature exposure and health.

In retrieving literature on associations of nature and health, we reviewed a range of research from multiple health-related disciplines, geographic regions, and study populations. Evidence from the experimental and observational studies presented below represents more recent literature (e.g., the last decade) on nature exposure and health, primarily from Western countries.

3.1. Experimental Studies

We found a substantial body of research on natural environment interventions to evaluate the effects of nature on health from an experimental approach. The interventions consisted of active engagement in the natural environment (e.g., walking, running, or other activities), passive engagement (e.g., resting outside or living with a view), or virtual exposure (e.g., watching videos or viewing images of nature) [ 15 , 16 ]. The majority of experimental studies assessed mental health and neurologic outcomes. Results from experimental studies suggested a protective effect of exposure to natural environments on mental health outcomes and cognitive function.

3.1.1. Stress

Several experimental studies have examined perceived stress and other subjective measures of stress, such as sleep quality. A recent systematic review of more than 40 experimental studies indicates that measures of heart rate, blood pressure, and perceived stress provide the most convincing evidence that exposure to nature or outdoor environments may reduce the negative effects of stress [ 17 ]. The results from perceived or reported stress after exposure to natural environments were more consistent than findings from studies using physiological stress measurements (e.g., cortisol levels) among adults. A recent meta-analysis found evidence suggesting that exposure to natural environments may reduce cortisol levels, one of the most frequently studied biological markers of stress. Song et al. [ 18 ] reviewed 52 articles from Japan that examined the physiological effects of nature therapy. There was overwhelming evidence that cortisol levels decreased when participants were exposed to a natural environment. In numerous studies, salivary cortisol levels decreased after mild to moderate exercise in a natural environment compared with an urban environment [ 18 ].

Although many studies have observed significant decreases in measured salivary cortisol levels after exposure to natural environments, others have not observed any significant differences in salivary cortisol levels before and after exposure to natural environments [ 17 , 19 ]. However, a key limitation of using cortisol as a biomarker of stress in experimental studies is the fluctuation of cortisol over a 24-h period. Diurnal cortisol levels need to be taken into account in order to make a fair comparison, and most of the literature on exposure to nature and stress have only studied cortisol levels before and after exposure [ 17 ].

Experimental studies focusing on children or youth are sparse [ 20 , 21 ]. One quasi-experimental study conducted in 10–12 year-olds in a school setting examined the influence of natural environments on stress response [ 22 ]. The researchers observed higher tonic vagal tone, a measure of heart rate variability, in natural environments but found no associations with event or phasic vagal tone.

3.1.2. Affective State

Exposure to natural environments has also been studied in relation to the self-reported affective state, or the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood. Although study measures vary, studies among adults have generally observed relationships between exposure to natural environments and affective state, with positive associations with positive emotions and negative associations with negative emotions [ 16 , 22 , 23 ]. A study randomly assigned sixty adults to a 50-min walk in either a natural or an urban environment in Palo Alto, California, and found that compared to urban experience, nature experience led to affective benefits (decreased anxiety, rumination, and negative affect, and preservation of positive affect) as well as cognitive benefits (increased working memory performance) [ 23 ]. In a study investigating forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, researchers found that time spent in forests was associated with a reduction in reported feelings of hostility, depression, and anxiety among adults with acute and chronic stress [ 24 ]. Another study examining walking in different environments observed the largest and most consistent improvements in psychological states associated with forest walks [ 25 ]. Forest bathing may play an important role in health promotion and disease prevention. However, the lack of studies focused on children or youth limits the generalizability of these findings across a wide age range [ 26 ].

3.1.3. Anxiety and Depressive Mood

Exposure to natural environments has been linked with decreases in anxiety and rumination, which are associated with negative mental health outcomes, such as depression and anxiety [ 23 , 27 ]. Nature-based health interventions (NBI) are interventions that aim to engage people in nature-based experiences with the goal of improving health and wellness outcomes [ 28 ]. One study evaluated a wetland NBI in Gloucestershire, UK, that was designed to facilitate engagement with nature as a treatment for individuals diagnosed with anxiety and/or depression. The study found that the wetland site provided a sense of escape from participants’ everyday environments, facilitating relaxation and reductions in stress [ 27 ]. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis found a reduction in depressive mood following short-term exposure to natural environments [ 21 ]. However, the authors noted that the reviewed studies were generally of low quality due to a lack of blinding of study participants and a lack of information on randomization quality among randomized trials.

3.1.4. Cognitive Function

Experimental studies have examined the impact of brief nature experiences and cognition among adults, investigating cognitive function related to exposure to natural environments, and are consistent with the results from studies among school-aged children. A growing number of studies have found that exposure to natural environments compared with urban environments is associated with improved attention, executive function, and perceived restorativeness [ 16 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ]. These studies have found statistically significant associations with positive cognitive outcomes, even after short periods of time spent in natural environments. Additionally, an emerging area of research is virtual reality (VR), using eye-tracking and wearable biomonitoring sensors to measure short-term physiological and cognitive responses to different biophilic indoor environments. These studies have found consistent physiological and cognitive benefits in indoor environments with diverse biophilic design features [ 38 , 39 ].

3.1.5. Brain Activity

Exposure to nature has been associated with alterations in brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that plays an important role in emotional regulation [ 18 , 19 ]. One experimental study among female university students in Japan investigated physiological and psychological responses to looking at real plants compared with images of the same plants [ 40 ]. Although participants reported feelings of comfort and relaxation after seeing either real plants or images of the same plants, a physiological response was observed only after seeing real plants. Seeing real plants was associated with increased oxy-hemoglobin concentrations in the prefrontal cortex, suggesting that real plants may have physiological benefits for brain activity not replicated by images of plants.

3.1.6. Blood Pressure

Two meta-analyses [ 18 , 41 ] found evidence suggesting that exposure to a natural environment reduced blood pressure. Song et al. [ 18 ] reviewed the research in Japan from 52 studies on the physiological effects of nature therapy and found overwhelming evidence that blood pressure levels decreased when participants were exposed to a natural environment. Decreases in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels were observed across young healthy populations, as well as populations with hypertension. This suggests that forest walking may lead to a state of physiological relaxation [ 18 ]. Ideno et al. [ 41 ] conducted another systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize the effects of forest bathing on blood pressure, including 20 trials involving 732 participants including high-school and college-aged youth. The authors found that both systolic and diastolic blood pressure taken in the forest environment were significantly lower than in non-forest environments [ 41 ].

3.1.7. Immune Function

In Japan, forest bathing has been positively associated with human immune function [ 42 ]. A study was conducted in which subjects experienced a 3-day/2-night bathing trip to forest areas, and blood and urine were sampled on days 2 and 3 of the trip. On days 7 and 30 after the trip, it was found that the mean values of natural killer (NK) cells (which play a major role in the immune system) and NK activity were higher on forest bathing days compared with control days [ 43 ]. This effect persisted for 30 days after the trip. A potential pathway for improved immune function is exposure to phytoncides (a substance emitted by plants and trees to protect themselves from harmful insects and germs), which could decrease stress hormones in the human body and increase NK cell activity. Additionally, the findings indicated that a day trip to a forest park also increased the levels of intracellular anti-cancer proteins [ 43 ].

3.1.8. Postoperative Recovery

While there is limited research on the effect of nature on postoperative recovery, a seminal study by Ulrich [ 4 ] investigated recovery after a cholecystectomy on patients with and without a room with a window view of a natural setting. Patients with a view of a natural setting had shorter hospital stays, received fewer negative evaluative comments in the nurse’s notes section of their charts, and took fewer potent analgesics (e.g., opiates) than those patients whose windows faced a brick building wall [ 4 ]. More recent research has successfully replicated the concept that plants and foliage in the hospital environment may have beneficial impacts on surgical recovery in randomized trials [ 44 , 45 ].

3.2. Observational Studies

Cross-sectional observational studies have shown evidence of positive associations between exposure to nature, higher levels of physical activity, and lower levels of cardiovascular disease. Increasingly, longitudinal observational studies have started to examine the long-term effects of exposure to nature on depression, anxiety, cognitive function, and chronic disease. Below, we summarize the key findings on mental health, physical activity, obesity, sleep, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, mortality, birth outcomes, asthma and allergies, and immune function.

3.2.1. Mental Health

A recent systematic review found limited evidence suggesting a beneficial association with mental well-being in children and depressive symptoms in adolescents and young adults [ 21 ]. However, access to green space has been linked with improved mental well-being, overall health, cognitive development in children [ 46 ], and lower psychological distress in teens [ 47 ]. A study that examined the restorative benefits associated with frequency of use of different types of green space among US-based students found that students who engaged with green spaces in active ways ≥15 min four or more times per week reported a higher quality of life, better overall mood, and lower perceived stress [ 48 ]. Research in the U.S.-based Growing Up Today Study (GUTS) found that increased exposure to greenness measured around the home was associated with a lower risk of high depressive symptoms cross-sectionally (as measured with the McKnight Risk Factor Survey) and a lower incidence of depression longitudinally [ 49 ]. The investigators observed stronger associations in more densely populated areas and among younger adolescents [ 49 ]. Similarly, a study in four European cities (Barcelona, Spain; Doetinchem, The Netherlands; Kaunas, Lithuania; and Stoke-on-Trent, UK) that evaluated childhood nature exposure and mental health in adulthood showed that adults with low levels of childhood nature exposure had, when compared with adults with high levels of childhood nature exposure, significantly worse mental health, assessed through self-reports of nervousness or depression [ 50 ]. Another study of approximately one million Danes over 28 years of follow-up found that high levels of continuous green space presence during childhood were associated with lower risk of a wide spectrum of psychiatric disorders later in life [ 51 ]. A study based in the UK tracked individuals’ residential trajectories for five consecutive years and showed that individuals who moved to greener areas had better mental health than before moving [ 52 ]. Collectively, these studies suggest that implementation of environmental policies to increase urban green space may have sustainable public health benefits.

Novel research has examined green outdoor settings as potential treatment for mental and behavioral disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). One study demonstrated associations between green space exposure and improvement in behaviors and symptoms of ADHD and higher standardized test scores [ 46 ]. A recent systematic review found significant evidence for an inverse relationship between green space exposure and emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents [ 21 ]. Research has also shown that more and better quality residential green spaces are favorable for children’s well-being [ 53 ] and health-related quality of life [ 54 ]. Furthermore, the quality of green space appears to be more important as children age, as associations between green space quality and well-being are stronger in 12–13 year-olds compared with 4–5 year-olds [ 53 ]. In addition, natural features near schools, including forests, grasslands, and tree canopies, are associated with early childhood development, preschoolers’ improvement in socio-emotional competencies [ 55 ], and a decrease in autism prevalence [ 56 ].

Exposure to nature during adulthood also appears to be important for mental health. A study of 94,879 UK adults indicated a consistent protective effect of greenness on depression risk that was more pronounced among women, participants younger than 60 years, and participants residing in areas with low neighborhood socioeconomic status or high urbanicity [ 57 ]. Other innovative studies are starting to examine quantifiable time of exposure to evaluate the duration of time spent in nature that is associated with mental health benefits. For example, using a nationally representative sample of American adults, Beyer et al. [ 58 ] found that individuals who spent 5–6 or 6–8 h outdoors during weekends had lower odds of being at least mildly depressed, compared with individuals who spent less than 30 min outdoors on weekends. Another study from the UK suggested that lower levels of depression were associated with spending five hours or more weekly in a private garden [ 59 ]. Other studies are focused on uncovering which characteristics of green space are the determinants of mental health benefits. A UK study examined neighborhood bird abundance during the day and found inverse associations with prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress [ 60 ].

The collective results from these studies suggest that nearby nature is associated with quantifiable mental health benefits, with the potential for lowering the physical and financial costs related to poor mental health. Most of these studies are cross-sectional, and reverse causation is possible. However, researchers are employing novel designs to examine the relationship between green space and mental health. For example, in a study of twins enrolled in the University of Washington Twin Registry, increased greenness was associated with decreased risk of self-reported depression, stress, or anxiety; however, only the results for depression were robust in within-twin pair analyses, suggesting the effect of green space on depression cannot be explained by genetics alone [ 61 ]. Finally, it is important to note that technological advancements have yielded improvements in assessments of exposure to nature and mental health. For instance, one study among adults 18–75 years of age used smartphones equipped with ecological momentary assessment applications to track location, physical activity, and mood for consecutive days, and found positive associations with feeling happy and restored or relaxed within 10 min of exposure to natural outdoor environments [ 62 ]. More novel studies such as these will bolster the evidence behind exposure to nature and mental health among children and/or youth.

3.2.2. Physical Activity

An extensive body of literature documents the impacts of access to green spaces or surrounding greenness on physical activity in children and adults. Proximity to green spaces may promote physical activity by providing a space for walking, running, cycling, and other activities. Although the bulk of the literature is cross-sectional, most studies (in both children and adults) have observed higher levels of physical activity in areas with more access to green space. For example, a study in Bristol, UK, evaluated associations between accessibility to green space and the odds of respondents achieving a recommended 30 min or more of moderate activity five times a week; respondents who lived closest to the type of green space classified as a formal park were more likely to achieve the physical activity recommendation [ 63 ]. Another study of adults in the UK found that people living in greenest compared with least-green areas were more likely to meet recommended daily physical activity guidelines [ 64 ]. However, another UK-based study did not find associations between road distance to nearest green space, number of green spaces, area of green space within a 2-km radius of residence, or green space quality and physical activity [ 65 ].

Almanza et al. [ 66 ] used GPS and accelerometry data among 208 children in California and found that greenness was associated with higher odds of moderate to vigorous physical activity, when comparing those in the 90th and 10th percentiles of greenness. Additionally, they found that children with >20 min daily green space exposure had nearly 5 times the daily rate of moderate to vigorous physical activity compared with those with nearly zero daily exposure [ 66 ]. Another study of Australian children illustrated that time spent outdoors at baseline positively predicted the amount of physical activity three years later [ 67 ]. In a review of youth health outcomes related to exercising in nature (i.e., “green exercise”), the results of fourteen studies (5 in the UK, 5 in the U.S., 2 in Australia, and 1 in Japan) indicated little evidence that green exercise is more beneficial than physical activity conducted in other locations, although any physical activity was beneficial across settings [ 68 ].

More recent studies have employed more sophisticated study designs to determine whether exposure to greenness increases physical activity. In studies that objectively assessed physical activity via accelerometers, individuals exposed to more greenness tended to be more physically active. For example, in a study of 15-year-olds in Germany, increases in greenness around the home address were associated with increased moderate-to-vigorous physical activity among youth in rural, but not urban, areas [ 69 ]. Another study of children in the UK evaluated momentary green space exposure based on GPS-derived location and contemporaneous physical activity measured by an accelerometer and found higher odds of physical activity in green space (versus outdoor non-green space) for boys but not girls [ 70 ].

3.2.3. Obesity

Green space may influence overweight or obesity through a physical activity pathway [ 71 ]. Some studies have shown that exposure to green space is associated with lower rates of obesity in children [ 67 ] and adults [ 72 ]; however, the results are conflicting. As with physical activity, many early studies were cross-sectional, and findings were more mixed for children than for adults. Some studies reported U-shaped associations with obesity [ 73 ], while other studies reported no association after adjustment for respondent characteristics [ 63 ] or neighborhood socioeconomic status [ 74 ]. Some studies demonstrate effect modification by gender [ 72 ]. Further, one cross-sectional UK-based study found that living in the greenest areas was associated with an increase in risk of being overweight and obese [ 75 ].

In one study of U.S. children, increasing greenness was associated with lower BMI z-scores and lower odds of increasing BMI z-scores between two follow-up times [ 76 ]. Another study of schoolchildren in Spain found that greenness and forest proximity were associated with lower prevalence of being overweight or obese [ 77 ]. One study found that street tree density was associated with lower obesity prevalence in New York City (U.S.) children; however, no association was found with park areas [ 78 ]. In an Australian study, the prevalence of being overweight was 27–41% lower in girls and boys who spent more time outdoors at the study baseline than those who spent less time outdoors [ 67 ]. Another study found that greenness was associated with decreased risk of being overweight but only among those in areas with a greater population density [ 79 ].

3.2.4. Sleep

Exposure to green space may influence sleep duration and quality. For instance, surrounding greenness may serve as a buffer for noise, which would disturb sleep. To date, only a handful of studies have examined these associations, and to our knowledge, even fewer have explored this association in children. A recent systematic review provided evidence of an association between green space exposure and improved sleep quality among adults [ 80 ]. A study of Australian adults who lived in areas with greater than 80% green space demonstrated lower risk of short sleep duration, even after adjustment for other predictors of sleep [ 81 ]. Among U.S. adults participating in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey, natural amenities (e.g., green space, lakes, and oceans) were associated with lower reporting of insufficient sleep, and greenness was especially protective among men and individuals over 65 years of age [ 82 ]. In the Survey of Health in Wisconsin Study, increased tree canopy at the Census block group level was associated with lower odds of short sleep duration on weekdays and suggestive of an association with lower odds of short sleep duration on weekends, although there was no association between tree canopy and self-reported sleep quality [ 83 ]. A nationally representative study of Australian and German children and adolescents found no evidence of significant associations between residential green space and insufficient sleep or poor sleep quality [ 84 ].

3.2.5. Cardiovascular Disease

Exposure to green space may affect levels of physical activity, stress, and high blood pressure that drive cardiovascular disease risk. Recent reviews have found consistent evidence that exposure to residential green space is associated with decreased cardiovascular disease incidence [ 85 , 86 ]. Participants living in areas with lower greenness have higher levels of mortality following a stroke [ 87 ], higher cardiovascular disease mortality [ 88 , 89 ], and higher coronary heart disease [ 90 ]. A study from the UK found that associations between exposure to nature and cardiovascular outcomes differed by gender, where male cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease mortality rates decreased with increasing green space, and no associations were found for women [ 88 ]. Furthermore, the relationships between exposure to greenspace and cardiovascular outcomes may be modified by urbanicity. A recent Australian study showed significantly lower odds of high blood pressure among adults in an urban population when reported green space visits were an average of 30 min or more [ 91 ].

3.2.6. Diabetes

Although limited, evidence regarding the association between green space and type 2 diabetes highlights green space as a possible route for diabetes prevention. There are a few cross-sectional studies that have reported that green space is inversely related to type 2 diabetes among adults [ 92 , 93 ]. Few studies have examined the relationship between green space and diabetes in children. Cross-sectional studies of children found inverse associations between time spent in green spaces and fasting blood glucose levels [ 77 ] and insulin resistance [ 94 ]. A recent longitudinal study conducted on US children found no associations between residential exposure to green space and insulin resistance [ 95 ].

3.2.7. Cancer

Research on the link between green space and cancer is limited and may vary depending on the type of cancer. A recent case-control study examined whether residential green space exposure was related to prostate cancer incidence and found that higher residential greenness was associated with lower risk of prostate cancer [ 96 ], and a separate study of U.S. men demonstrated inverse associations between neighborhood greenness and lethal prostate cancer [ 97 ]. Another study examined the association between green space and several cancer types and found that green space was protective for mouth, throat, and non-melanoma skin cancers but was not associated with colorectal cancer [ 98 ]. A U.S.-based nationwide study of nurses found that residential greenness was inversely associated with breast cancer mortality [ 99 ]. Conversely, another systematic review that evaluated evidence on the association between residential green spaces and lung cancer mortality found no benefits of residential greenness [ 85 ].

3.2.8. Mortality

Many early mortality studies relied on cross-sectional data and could not estimate nature exposure over time [ 100 ], whereas others could not account for important potential confounding by race/ethnicity, individual-level smoking, and area-level socioeconomic factors, such as median home value [ 101 , 102 ]. A UK-wide ecological study found that all-cause mortality was higher in greener cities [ 89 ]. An analysis of greenness and mortality in male and female stroke survivors living in Boston (U.S.) found that greater exposure to greenness was associated with higher survival rates [ 87 ]. Another U.S.-based nationwide study of nurses found a consistent protective relationship between residential greenness and non-accidental mortality [ 103 ]. The greenness–mortality relationship was explained primarily by a mental health pathway, and the relationship was strongest among those who had high levels of physical activity [ 103 ]. A study of 4.2 million adults in the Swiss National Cohort assessed the relationship between residential greenness and mortality, while mutually considering socioeconomic status, air pollution, and transportation noise exposure, and found that higher exposure to green space was associated with lower rates of death from natural causes, respiratory disease, and cardiovascular disease [ 104 ]. Protective effects were stronger in younger individuals and in women and, for most outcomes, in urban (versus rural) and in the highest (versus lowest) socioeconomic quartile. Effect estimates did not change after adjustment for air pollution and transportation noise, suggesting that the protective effect of exposure to nature persists in the absence of pollution sources. Finally, a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies on green space and mortality assessed findings from nine studies, comprising 8.3 million individuals from seven countries across the globe [ 105 ]. Seven of the nine studies demonstrated an inverse relationship between green space exposure and mortality, and the authors recommended wide-scale interventions to increase and manage green spaces in order to improve public health outcomes.

3.2.9. Birth Outcomes

The relationship between exposure to nature and birth outcomes has been studied extensively in analyses across multiple countries. Findings of positive associations between greenness and birth weight and decreased risk of low birth weight are consistent, with stronger associations observed among those of a lower socioeconomic status [ 106 ]. Banay et al. [ 107 ] reviewed studies that examined the association between greenness and maternal or infant health. While the majority of studies were cross-sectional, many studies found evidence for positive associations between greenness and birth weight. Fewer studies demonstrated consistent evidence for an association between greenness and gestational age, preeclampsia, or gestational diabetes. These studies also found that effects were stronger among those of a lower socioeconomic status. A more recent review highlighted the evolving literature showing that higher levels of residential greenness were associated with lower risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and small gestational-age babies [ 108 ]. Akaraci et al. [ 109 ] conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 37 studies on residential green and blue spaces and pregnancy outcomes. Increases in residential greenness were associated with higher birthweight and lower odds of being small for gestational age; however, no significant associations between residential blue spaces and birth outcomes were found.

3.2.10. Asthma/Allergies

Several studies have examined the relationship between greenspace and atopic outcomes, including asthma and allergies. Mechanistically, trees and plants are a source of allergens and respiratory irritants [ 110 ]. However, the biodiversity created by green space could be protective against inflammatory conditions [ 111 , 112 ]. The literature reflects these contrasting hypotheses with mixed findings. Some studies have shown no association between the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) or tree canopy cover and asthma [ 113 ], while other studies have shown that living close to forests and parks was positively associated with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis and asthma [ 77 ]. Another study of greenspace and allergies in Germany demonstrated positive associations in urban areas and negative associations in rural areas [ 114 ]. The same investigators examined data from seven birth cohorts across Sweden, Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, and Germany and found that the relationship between residential NDVI and allergic disease was positive in some countries and negative in others [ 115 ]. A study in Spain found proximity to residential greenness to be protective of bronchitis in the Mediterranean region of Spain and protective of wheezing for children in the Euro-Siberian region of Spain [ 116 ]. One study conducted in China examined the relationship between exposure to greenness and parks and asthma and allergies among middle-school-aged children [ 117 ]. The researchers observed no associations between residential greenness exposure and self-reported doctor-diagnosed asthma, pneumonia, rhinitis, and eczema; however, living farther away from a park was associated with decreased odds of currently or ever having asthma. In sum, the relationship between exposure to nature and asthma and allergies is inconsistent, with associations varying in magnitude and direction by geography. One review of fourteen studies suggested an association between early life exposure to urban greenness and allergic respiratory diseases (e.g., asthma, bronchitis, allergic symptoms) in childhood; however, there were inconsistencies among study results, likely due to variability in study design, exposure assessment, outcome ascertainment, and geographic region [ 118 ].

3.3. Natural Experiments/Randomized Controlled Trials of Chronic Outcomes

Beyond smaller experimental studies of short-term outcomes and observational epidemiologic studies of chronic outcomes, there are a few natural experiments and randomized controlled trials that add substantial evidence to the relationship between exposure to nature and health. These quasi-experimental and randomized trials have lower potential for confounding bias to explain observed associations between nature and health. One important study capitalized on a natural experiment when an invasive tree pest, the emerald ash borer, killed over 100 million ash trees in the Midwestern United States [ 119 ]. The investigators found that living in a county infested with the emerald ash borer was associated with a 41% increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and these results were only consistent when looking in metropolitan areas where they could adjust for socioeconomic status. Another innovative study examined the greening of vacant lots in Philadelphia [ 120 ]. This citywide study used a three-arm randomized trial approach to randomize 110 vacant lots to either no intervention, cleaning but no greening, or cleaning and greening. The study found that those living around lots that were greened had substantial decreases in reports of depression, poor mental health, and feelings of worthlessness compared with lots that had no intervention. Those living around lots that were cleaned but not greened showed no difference compared with no intervention. Another ongoing longitudinal study in Sydney, Australia, is evaluating the effects of large-scale investment in green space (e.g., public access points, advertising billboards, walking and cycle tracks, BBQ stations, and children’s playgrounds) on physical activity, mental health, and cardiometabolic outcomes [ 121 ]. This natural experiment utilizes proximity to different areas of the Western Sydney Parklands to define treatment and control groups.

Looking to the future, there are a few randomized trials in progress that will provide fundamental evidence to understand whether adding green pace to cities benefits health. The Green Heart Project in Louisville, Kentucky, will assess risk of diabetes and heart disease, stress levels, and the strength of social ties in 700 participants [ 122 ]. The team will take baseline measurements of air pollution levels and will plant as many as 8000 trees, plants, and shrubs throughout Louisville neighborhoods to create an urban ecosystem that promotes physical activity while simultaneously decreasing noise, stress, and air pollution. During five years of follow-up, participants will receive annual check-ups to evaluate how the increasing greenery has affected their physical and mental health and social ties. A second randomized trial is the ‘Productive Green Infrastructure for Post-industrial Urban Regeneration’ or ProGIreg, a multi-city study examining the potential effects of green infrastructure [ 123 ]. This project is based in Dortmund (Germany), Turin (Italy), Zagreb (Croatia) and Ningbo (China) where Living Labs are hosted and nature-based solutions are developed, tested, and implemented. Although health is not the main focus of this study, researchers are hoping to incorporate health metrics into the study design to examine pre- and post-intervention outcome data. Collectively, these randomized trials, natural experiments, and pre-post study designs will establish crucial data on whether interventions to incorporate nature into cities can measurably improve health.

3.4. Effect Modification/Susceptible Populations

Inequitable distribution of green spaces could exacerbate health inequalities if people who are already at greater health risks (e.g., people with lower socioeconomic status) have limited access. Many studies have indicated that disadvantaged populations have decreased access to nature and greenspace [ 124 , 125 , 126 , 127 , 128 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 ]. At the same time, evidence suggests that exposure to nature disproportionately benefits disadvantaged populations, a phenomenon known as the equigenic effect of green space, which upends the expected association between lower socioeconomic status and greater risk of poor health outcomes [ 133 ]. Based on the theory of equigenic environments, one study showed that populations exposed to the greenest environments also had the lowest levels of health inequality related to income deprivation, suggesting that green space might be an important factor in reducing socioeconomic health disparities [ 89 ]. A review of 90 studies on green space and health outcomes demonstrated that individuals of lower socioeconomic status showed more beneficial effects than those of higher socioeconomic status; the authors found no significant differences in the protective effects of green space on health outcomes among different racial/ethnic groups [ 134 ]. The evidence is inconsistent, and more work is needed to elucidate potential mechanisms.

Conversely, improvements in access to green space may lead to “green gentrification,” an increase in property values that displaces low-income residents from their neighborhoods [ 129 , 135 , 136 , 137 ]. This process needs to be studied and understood so that its adverse effects can be prevented. Other cultural and contextual factors may affect nature preferences and experience of nature. For instance, there is evidence that the legacy of forced labor, lynching, and other violence may evoke deeply disturbing associations with trees, fields, and forests among some African Americans [ 138 , 139 ]. Similarly, some people may prefer open fields for sports, while others prefer picnic facilities for socializing.

4. Discussion

The purpose of this narrative review was to summarize recent experimental and observational literature on associations between nature exposure and health in adults and children/youth. While some associations between nature and health outcomes are well-studied, our review highlights the lack of studies, particularly experimental, among child/youth and other susceptible populations. We found evidence for associations between exposure to nature and improved cognitive function, brain activity, blood pressure, mental health, physical activity, and sleep. Results from experimental studies indicated protective effects of nature exposure on mental health and cognitive function. Cross-sectional observational studies provide evidence of positive associations between nature exposure, higher levels of physical activity and lower levels of cardiovascular disease. Observational studies, natural experiments, and randomized controlled trials are starting to assess the longitudinal effects of exposure to nature on depression, anxiety, cognitive function, chronic disease, and other health outcomes. Our review synthesizes recent literature, primarily from Western countries; thus, a limitation of this review is that we may not have captured all relevant literature from outside our publication range or across all geographic regions.

4.1. Data Gaps and Limitations

There are several limitations in the literature on exposure to nature and health. First, definitions of nature are inconsistent across studies. Further, the impacts of the quality of green space, duration of exposure to nature, frequency of exposure, or type of nature exposure on health outcomes are not well understood. Second, methods for measuring exposure to nature (e.g., percentage of residential greenness versus distance to the closest park) or defining the relevant geographic area of exposure (e.g., 500 m away from our home versus 1 km or 10 km) are inconsistent [ 140 , 141 ]. We must also develop methods to elucidate thresholds for dose and duration of nature exposure to achieve a given health effect. Although some studies have determined potential estimates of relevant doses [ 142 ], this area of research is nascent. In addition, standard approaches towards nature exposure assessment do not capture the variations in how people experience nature differentially (e.g., smell, touch, etc.) and have low reproducibility across studies (e.g., inconsistent land-use measures). Third, critical time windows of exposure during the life course that might have the greatest impact on health are also understudied (e.g., early life exposure, childhood exposure). Fourth, mechanistic pathways are understudied. Further, the dynamic relationship between green space, air pollution, noise, temperature, and neighborhood walkability also warrant further exploration, as these factors could be both mediators or moderators of the nature–health relationship [ 143 , 144 ]. We also know little about the potential harms of exposure to nature, most commonly observed in studies of asthma and allergies.

4.2. Future Directions

There are ample promising future directions for nature and health research. First, future research should employ rigorous study designs (e.g., longitudinal studies, randomized controlled trials) and investigate the underlying mechanisms of observed associations between exposure to nature and health outcomes. Although cross-sectional studies dominate the literature, there is increasing evidence emerging from prospective studies, which are essential to investigating causal relationships [ 108 ]. Novel designs, such as quasi-experimental studies and randomized trials, will provide further detail on how nature influences health [ 119 ]. Furthermore, studies should thoroughly evaluate potential biases, such as confounding by socioeconomic status, that may threaten the validity of studies on nature and health. Researchers should rigorously examine factors that may modify the effects of exposure to nature (e.g., socioeconomic status, gender, or race) to determine the subpopulations that might benefit most from exposure to nature. A life-course approach to examining associations between green space and health is also essential. We need to better understand vulnerable time windows in the early life-course where access or exposure to nature may have stronger impacts on health than in other time periods. Similarly, additional research assessing dose-response relationships (e.g., duration of time in nature or quantity of vegetation) is crucial to determine the minimum amount of exposure to green space needed to yield health benefits or if the relevant dosage varies across the life-course or across different countries/settings [ 142 ].

Second, future studies should make use of novel datasets and computational approaches that may provide rapid advances in exposure assessment. Emergence of advanced satellite and aerial photos combined with machine learning to develop tree canopy measures and other more specific metrics of nature provide information on specific species on the ground. Google Street View and other ubiquitous geocoded imagery, when combined with machine learning, also provide scalable approaches to estimate specific natural features from the on the ground perspective as human beings experience them [ 145 ]. Combined with geocoded residential addresses or GPS data and health or behavioral data, these approaches may unveil novel insights on how nature exposure affects health. Leveraging smartphones with GPS and accelerometry enable fine-scale information on exposure and physical activity. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) or micro-surveys administered through smartphones can be used to ask about processes for how and why people interact with nature [ 62 ]. EMA can also be applied to estimate mental health outcomes in real time, and these responses can be geo-tagged and linked to spatial measures of natural environments. In addition, consumer wearable devices (e.g., FitBit) provide objective information on physical activity patterns, heart rate, sleep, and other biometrics down to the second level [ 146 ]. These data will prove crucial to better understand the behavioral mechanisms through which nature exposure impacts health. We should also capitalize on geo-located social media data (Flickr, Twitter, Facebook) and other data sources to understand exposure to nature [ 147 ]. Innovative metrics of mental health, such as skin conductivity, cortisol (stress), heart rate variability, brain activity through EEG, and functional MRI, can also provide information on stress processes when individuals encounter natural environments [ 148 ]. Such measures of nature exposure and time spent in nature should be incorporated into large federal data collection efforts, such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) in the United States or the Health Survey for England (HSE) in the United Kingdom. These recommendations cannot be accomplished without also considering the impacts climate change is currently having and will have on exposures to nature, and how climate change may alter the relationship individuals have with nature.

Third, future studies on nature and mental health should focus more on positive health—happiness, purpose, flourishing—instead of just the absence of negative mental health outcomes. Further, more research is required on natural water features, or blue space [ 149 ], as well as other natural environments.

Fourth, the overwhelming majority of research on nature and health is on urban study populations in North America, Europe, and Australia. Researchers should also focus on different geographic areas, low-income and middle-income settings, and vulnerable or historically marginalized populations where nature benefits might be greatest. Researchers should also work together with communities as they conduct their research to ensure their work addresses the needs of community members.

Finally, we must also recognize the potential unintended consequences of adding green infrastructure in cities. Adding green amenities to cities may entice high-income populations, and the resulting increased property values shape a new conundrum, embodied in the exclusion and displacement associated with so-called green gentrification [ 135 ]. Results from this type of research should also be considered for policies, urban planning, and designing cities.

5. Conclusions

The purpose of this review was to examine recent literature on exposure to nature and health, highlighting studies on children and youth where possible. We assessed the strength of evidence from experimental and observational studies and found evidence for associations between exposure to nature and improved cognitive function, brain activity, blood pressure, mental health, physical activity, and sleep. Evidence from experimental studies suggested protective effects of exposure to natural environments on mental health outcomes and cognitive function. Cross-sectional observational studies provide evidence of positive associations between exposure to nature, higher levels of physical activity and lower levels of cardiovascular disease. Longitudinal observational studies are starting to assess the long-term effects of exposure to nature on depression, anxiety, cognitive function, and chronic disease. Limitations and gaps in studies of nature exposure and health include inconsistent measures of exposure to nature, knowledge of the impacts of the type and quality of green space, and the health effects of the duration and frequency of exposure among different populations (e.g., adults, children, historically marginalized). Future research should incorporate more rigorous study designs, investigate the underlying mechanisms of the association between green space and health, advance exposure assessment, and evaluate sensitive periods throughout the life-course.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.P.J., N.V.D., J.E.H. and P.J.; methodology, M.P.J., N.V.D., J.E.H. and P.J.; writing—original draft preparation, M.P.J., N.V.D., E.G.E., J.E.S., G.E.W., J.E.H. and P.J.; writing—review and editing, M.P.J., N.V.D., E.G.E., J.E.S., G.E.W., J.E.H. and P.J.; supervision, J.E.H. and P.J.; project administration, N.V.D.; funding acquisition, P.J. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research was funded by The National Geographic Society, and NIH grants R00 CA201542, R01 HL150119, T32 {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"ES007069","term_id":"164015192","term_text":"ES007069"}} ES007069 , K99 AG066949, R01 ES028712 and P30 ES000002.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Parents of German-Israeli Woman Whose Body Found in Gaza Thankful to Have a Grave

Reuters

Ricarda Louk and Nissim Louk, May 18, 2024. REUTERS/Rami Amichay

By Rami Amichay and Michal Yaakov Itzhaki

SRIGIM, Israel (Reuters) - German-Israeli Shani Louk's father says that finally laying his daughter to rest will be a gift after her body was recovered from Gaza, months after she was killed in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.

Louk, a 23-year-old tattoo artist, was celebrating with friends at the Nova music festival just inside Israel before it was attacked by gunmen from the Palestinian militant group. Her body was soon seen in a video, slung across the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by gunmen and paraded through Gaza.

On Friday, the Israeli military informed her parents, Nissim and Ricarda Louk, that their daughter's body had been found by Israeli commandos in Gaza. Nissim Louk said that to be sure, he had viewed photos.

War in Israel and Gaza

Palestinians are mourning by the bodies of relatives who were killed in an Israeli bombardment, at the al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Balah in the central Gaza Strip, on April 28, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas. (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

"We also saw the tattoos on her hands," he said on Saturday. "Now she will have her own place next to us and we can go there whenever we want. And she can rest."

He said the funeral will be held on Sunday, which is Ricarda Louk's birthday.

"I think Shani said 'let's give my mother a birthday present and let's go back and be close to her'," he added.

Having Shani's grave nearby would be a comfort, said Ricarda Louk.

"Maybe we'll find more peace," she said.

Nissim Louk said there was also solace knowing Shani was doing what she loved best before she died and probably did not suffer. She was pronounced dead by Israeli authorities at the end of October, based on findings in the area of the Nova rave, where more than 360 people were shot, bludgeoned or burned to death.

Videos of a smiling Shani at the party, before the attack, surfaced in the following weeks.

"She was dancing the whole night. She was so happy," Nissim Louk said. "She never thought that there is evil in the world because she was a free spirit. She saw it only for a couple of seconds."

Around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 abducted in the Hamas-led attack, according to Israeli tallies. Israel responded by launching a military offensive to try to eradicate Hamas that is now in its eight month.

More than 35,000 people have since been killed in Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry says. Most of the coastal enclave's population has been displaced and much of it has been laid to waste in the offensive, which has drawn fierce criticism abroad.

Ricarda Louk said she was pained by what she sees as ignorance and misinformation displayed at some U.S. campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza.

"It's horrible for us to see," she said. "We can tell you from our own experience. We lost our daughter in this massacre."

"There is no resistance that can justify what happened here," she said.

(Writing by Maayan Lubell, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

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IMAGES

  1. Sample body paragraphs from research papers

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  2. Body of Research · Strixhaven: School of Mages (STX) #336 · Scryfall

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  3. Body of Research MtG Art from Strixhaven Set by Campbell White

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  4. Body of Research

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  5. How To Write Main Body of Research Paper

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  6. Writing a Research Paper

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VIDEO

  1. Human Body Research for General Knowledge #hindi #bodyfacts #generalknowledge #biology #science

  2. Human Body Analysis part 1... #facts #shorts

  3. The Brain Body Connection

  4. Language, Emotion, and Personality: How the Words We Use Reflect Who We Are

  5. Body Awareness-1/5

  6. Body In A Body // Research

COMMENTS

  1. How to Write a Body of a Research Paper

    Learn how to write the main part of your research paper, the body, with relevant information, logical order, and transition words. Find out how to organize your ideas in paragraphs, topic sentences, and supporting sentences with facts and examples.

  2. Meta-analysis in medical research

    Meta-analysis is a quantitative, formal, epidemiological study design used to systematically assess previous research studies to derive conclusions about that body of research. Outcomes from a meta-analysis may include a more precise estimate of the effect of treatment or risk factor for disease, or other outcomes, than any individual study ...

  3. Grading the Strength of a Body of Evidence When Assessing Health Care

    Systematic reviews are essential tools for summarizing information to help users make well-informed decisions about health care options.1 The Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) program, supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), produces substantial numbers of such reviews, including those that explicitly compare two or more clinical interventions (sometimes termed ...

  4. How to Write a Literature Review

    Literature review research question example What is the impact of social media on body image among Generation Z? Make a list of keywords. Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you're interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms.

  5. What is a body of research?

    This is a hastily thrown together video from slides I've used in teaching and lectures. It provides an overview of what an entire body of research is--and wh...

  6. Body of Research: Impetus, Instrument, and Impediment

    The ways our physicality matters as we move through the world in our own bodies of research is often veiled in the body of qualitative research. In this article, we lift the veil, striving to flesh out the body of research on reflexivity by examining how our own researcher bodies have figured into our work. Specifically, we narrate and reflect ...

  7. Writing a Research Paper Introduction

    Table of contents. Step 1: Introduce your topic. Step 2: Describe the background. Step 3: Establish your research problem. Step 4: Specify your objective (s) Step 5: Map out your paper. Research paper introduction examples. Frequently asked questions about the research paper introduction.

  8. Review articles: purpose, process, and structure

    First, the research domain needs to be well suited for a review paper, such that a sufficient body of past research exists to make the integration and synthesis valuable—especially if extant research reveals theoretical inconsistences or heterogeneity in its effects. Second, the review paper must be well executed, with an appropriate ...

  9. Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews

    9.3. Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations. EHealth researchers have at their disposal a number of approaches and methods for making sense out of existing literature, all with the purpose of casting current research findings into historical contexts or explaining contradictions that might exist among a set of primary research studies conducted on a particular topic.

  10. Evaluating impact from research: A methodological framework

    The causal relationship between research and impact can be: i) necessary, implying that a body of research was necessary to generate the impact but could not alone have caused the impact (i.e. the research was a significant contributing factor amongst other causes but was not sufficient alone to generate the impact); or ii) sufficient, implying ...

  11. How interdisciplinary is a given body of research?

    Both measures are based on Thomson-ISI Web of Knowledge subject categories. 'I' measures the cognitive distance (dispersion) among the subject categories of journals cited in a body of research. 'S' measures the spread of subject categories in which a body of research is published. Pilot results for samples from researchers drawn from ...

  12. Research Methods

    Learn how to choose and use research methods for collecting and analyzing data. Compare qualitative and quantitative, primary and secondary, descriptive and experimental methods with examples and pros and cons.

  13. A Growing Body of Knowledge

    Science deals with the world around us, and we understand, experience, and study this world through and with our bodies. While science educators have started to acknowledge the critical role of the body in science learning, approaches to conceptualising the body in science education vary greatly. Embodiment and embodied cognition serve as umbrella terms for different approaches to bodily ...

  14. 11 The Body of the Research Proposal

    Drawing on guidelines developed in the UBC graduate guide to writing proposals (Petrina, 2009), we highlight eight steps for constructing an effective research proposal: Presenting the topic. Literature Review. Identifying the Gap. Research Questions that addresses the Gap. Methods to address the research questions.

  15. (PDF) How interdisciplinary is a given body of research? Research

    The literature offers many. definitions. For instance, Tijssen. (1992) defines. interdisciplinarity as: direct or indirect use of knowledge, methods, techniques, devices (or other 'products ...

  16. Approaching literature review for academic purposes: The Literature

    Conducting research and writing a dissertation/thesis translates rational thinking and enthusiasm . While a strong body of literature that instructs students on research methodology, data analysis and writing scientific papers exists, little guidance on performing LRs is available.

  17. Body of Research

    Body of Research — Ownership and Use of Human Tissue. Author: R. Alta Charo, J.D. Author Info & Affiliations. Published October 12, 2006.

  18. Understanding how exercise affects the body

    Changes in gene activity, immune cell function, metabolism, and other cellular processes were seen in all the tissues studied, including those not previously known to be affected by exercise. The types of changes differed from tissue to tissue. Many of the observed changes hinted at how exercise might protect certain organs against disease.

  19. Body of Research (Card)

    Body of Research (Card) Body of Research. In 5812 decks 1% of 871277 decks. Apr 9, 2021. Angelo Guerrera. Strixhaven Set Review - Quandrix and Green. Class is in session! Angelo reviews Quandrix's quandaries and green's most verdant spells!

  20. How to Write a Research Paper

    Create a research paper outline. Write a first draft of the research paper. Write the introduction. Write a compelling body of text. Write the conclusion. The second draft. The revision process. Research paper checklist. Free lecture slides.

  21. Far from toxic, lactate rivals glucose as body's major fuel after a

    The results show that the rapid conversion of glucose to lactate, starting initially in the intestines, is a way for the body to deal with a sudden dose of carbohydrates. Lactate, working with insulin, buffers the appearance of dietary glucose in the blood. "Instead of a big glucose surge, we have a lactate and glucose surge after eating," said ...

  22. Google Releases A.I. That Can Predict How the Human Body's Molecules

    That Can Predict How the Human Body's Molecules Behave, Boosting Drug Discovery Research. Called AlphaFold 3, the latest update of the software models the interactions of proteins with DNA, RNA ...

  23. Body's 'message in a bottle' delivers targeted cancer treatment

    Karolinska Institutet. (2024, May 20). Body's 'message in a bottle' delivers targeted cancer treatment. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 20, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com / releases / 2024 / 05 ...

  24. Implementing research results in clinical practice- the experiences of

    A large body of research nonetheless suggests that it is difficult for professionals to utilize new, decontextualized, explicit knowledge in their daily work practice [16-18]. What directs the professional's actions in practice will often be the implicit and established know-how of routines- even when decisions on new methods and the ...

  25. International research team uses wavefunction matching to solve quantum

    A team effortThe research team applied this new method to lattice quantum Monte Carlo simulations for light nuclei, medium-mass nuclei, neutron matter, and nuclear matter. ... Wavefunction matching replaces the short distance part of the two-body wavefunction for a realistic interaction with that of a simple easily computable interaction. The ...

  26. Research Workshop on Sound with Guillermo Galindo

    Please join the Bay Area Latinx Art & Activism team for a two-part research workshop led by experimental composer/artist/performer Guillermo Galindo. The workshop will begin with a seminar-like discussion followed by a sound workshop using CAVIAR (Cave of Augmented Virtual and Interactive Realities), a virtual acoustic system developed by the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics ...

  27. How to Write the Body of an Essay

    The body is always divided into paragraphs. You can work through the body in three main stages: Create an outline of what you want to say and in what order. Write a first draft to get your main ideas down on paper. Write a second draft to clarify your arguments and make sure everything fits together.

  28. Preserving breast tissue outside of body will aid cancer research

    Breast cancer study. Researchers say they have managed to keep breast cancer tissue viable for at least a week outside of the human body, paving the way for enhanced cancer treatments. A new study ...

  29. Associations between Nature Exposure and Health: A Review of the

    We found a substantial body of research on natural environment interventions to evaluate the effects of nature on health from an experimental approach. The interventions consisted of active engagement in the natural environment (e.g., walking, running, or other activities), passive engagement (e.g., resting outside or living with a view), or ...

  30. Parents of German-Israeli Woman Whose Body Found in Gaza Thankful to

    US News is a recognized leader in college, grad school, hospital, mutual fund, and car rankings. Track elected officials, research health conditions, and find news you can use in politics ...