Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Rat Park

Psych teacher Scott Miller recently sent me this link to a graphic novel about a psychology experiment. A graphic novel! I didn't know anything like this existed! This is an interesting way to present the complexities of a series of animal studies in a compelling, visual way.

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/

The studies were conducted by Bruce Alexander, professor emeritus at Simor Fraser university. Dr. Alexander's bio page links to the wikipedia page explaining the study, so someone there must think that wikipedia is representing the study accurately.

NOTE: I expect there are controversies and complexities galore involved in this study and the researcher's conclusions, so as always, please read through the material thoroughly and use it only if you think it's appropriate for your classroom. Thanks for sending this link my way, Scott!



posted by Rob McEntarffer

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This reading worked better than expected with my regular level psych class. The kids read it in class and had a great discussion afterwards. I created a little handout for them to fill out while they were reading so they could organize their thoughts:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/103069073/Rat%20Park%20Questions.docx

Hope others give this a try!

Steve Jones said...

Very cool - thanks for sharing, Anna!