Objects prompt authentic scientific activities among learners in a museum programme

ABSTRACT

Although the scientific disciplines conduct practical work in different ways, all consider practical work as the essential way of connecting objects and phenomena with ideas and the abstract. Accordingly, practical work is regarded as central to science education as well. We investigate a practical, object-based palaeontology programme at a natural history museum to identify how palaeontological objects prompt scientific activity among upper secondary school students. We first construct a theoretical framework based on an analysis of the programme’s palaeontological content. From this, we build our reference model, which considers the specimens used in the programme, possible palaeontological interpretations of these specimens, and the conditions inherent in the programme. We use the reference model to analyse the activities of programme participants, and illustrate how these activities are palaeontologically authentic. Finally, we discuss our findings, examining the mechanism by which the specimens prompt scientific activities. We also discuss our discipline-based approach, and how it allows us to positively identify participants’ activities as authentic. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Biology education
• formal–informal links
• museum

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge our constructive conversations with professors Carl Winsløw and Marianna Bosch in the early stages of this manuscript, the support of the ATD research community, and the kind participation of seven Danish secondary school groups. We wish to warmly thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Marianne Achiam has a Ph.d. in science education, and is an Associate Professor at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She leads the Department's research group on science education in out-of-school contexts.

Leonora Simony is working towards her M.Sc. at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Bent Erik Kramer Lindow has a Ph.d. in paleontology. In addition to conducting palaeontological research, he develops and teaches educational programmes at the Natural History Museum of Denmark.

ORCID

Marianne Achiam http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1701-2959

Bent Erik Kramer Lindow http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1864-4221