Over the past two weeks, I have learned many valuable things in my scientific inquiry class.  As a relatively quiet individual, it is difficult for me to communicate at times.  The exercise which we had to communicate without using words was quite difficult for me; it also showed me how my use of words as my main form of communication has become somewhat of a crutch for my communication skills.  I most enjoyed the solving the cryptogram exercise.  It is always a pleasure for me to challenge my mind in order to decipher something.  These such activities opened my eyes to realizing how complex our brains really are. Much of the information we obtain must first be deciphered into a way that our brains can receive the meaning of that information.  These activities have allowed me already to think on a higher level about the way the mind works and all of them were beneficial to my progress in enhancing my communication skills.  Therefore, I do not think I would change any of the activities we have done so far.

Communication is essential to the process of learning and acquiring new knowledge.  The act of communicating allows people to exchange thoughts, opinions, and other information, whether it be by speaking, writing, or signing.  If one does not have a method in which he or she can make this exchange of knowledge, he will never learn new things.  For this reason, communication is one of the main methods of gaining knowledge from sources other than one's self.