In practice, the seven intelligences are not separate, but integrated in unique combinations as one intelligence that shapes the mind, body, and spirit. They are recruited daily to interpret the fascinating world around us. Howard Gardner recently proposed an eighth intelligence. Called the naturalist intelligence , it drives the fascination a particular individual has with the immense variety of the world's animal and plant species and the talent to assign them to new or established taxa. Taking Gardner's definition one step further suggests that the ability to recognize and classify with the exquisite precision of a Charles Darwin, for example, derives from a natural expertise in identifying patterns.
Patterns make connections, set up expectations, and raise burning questions.
When students seek patterns in the world around them, they see order instead of chaos which builds confidence in their understanding of how the world works and gives them greater control over it. Charles Darwin drew upon it when he synthesized his evolutionary theory from observations of life pieced together from his voyage. Our laws of heredity are a product of Gregor Mendel's careful recording of the patterns of inheritance of pea plant traits. The periodic table of chemical elements was created when Mendeleev discovered that an element's chemical behavior repeated itself in an orderly fashion. And whether studying the classification of wetlands or an organism's coloration, the search for patterns at all levels is critical to the science of ecology.