Exploring the Intersections of Science and History Learning

ABSTRACT

How can history museums incorporate Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) activities while preserving their missions and identities? How do interdisciplinary experiences lead to learning? A cross-institutional exhibit development and evaluation team wrestled with these ideas as they developed Create.Connect, an National Science Foundation-funded exhibition at Conner Prairie designed to weave together historical narrative and STEM activity. The goal was to create a truly interdisciplinary experience, where history and STEM learning would not just exist side-by-side, but interact in ways that might spark new interest or deeper learning. While visitors to Conner Prairie accepted, enjoyed and valued the Create.Connect experience, and families explored both history and STEM during their visit, conceptualizing and defining “integrated” history and STEM learning proved challenging for both exhibit developers and evaluators. What emerged were several definitions and levels of integration and a nascent understanding of the complexity of learning in interdisciplinary exhibitions.

KEYWORDS:

• History
• STEM
• interdisciplinary
• evaluation
• exhibit development
• museum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

About the authors

Catherine Hughes, Ph.D., is a theatre practitioner, museum professional, educator, and researcher. She is Director of Interpretation and Evaluation at Conner Prairie History Museum, overseeing daily operations of all interpretive areas. She also teaches a course on museum theatre for Butler University’s theatre department. Previously, Catherine worked at the Atlanta History Center, the Museum of Science, Boston and the London Science Museum. In 1990, she founded the International Museum Theatre Alliance. Her book, Museum Theatre: Communicating with Visitors through Drama, was published by Heinemann. She has consulted and written widely on the use of theatre in museums.

Allison Cosbey is the Evaluation Coordinator at Conner Prairie Interactive History Park. During her time at Conner Prairie, she has focused on the evaluation of Create.Connect as well as several other exhibitions and programs. She has presented and published on the Create.Connect project and how evaluation shaped the guest experience. Her professional interests include exploring interdisciplinary learning, history learning for families and exploring effective interpretation techniques.

Notes

1. “Business Higher Education Forum”; “National Science Board.”

2. Cosbey et al.,. “Create.Connect First-round Formative Evaluation Report.”

3. Rusk et al., “New Pathways into Robotics.”

4. Grinnell, A Stage for Science.

5. Baum and Hughes, “Ten Years of Evaluating Science Theater.”

6. Rosenthal and Blankman-Hetrick, “Coversations across Time.”

7. Leinhardt, Crowley, and Knutson. Learning Conversations in Museums; Beaumont, Developing the Adult Child Interaction Inventory; Gutwill and Allen, “Facilitating Family Group Inquiry at Science Museum Exhibits”; Leinhardt and Knutson, Listening in on Museum Conversations; Borun, Dritsas, and Johnson, Family Learning in Museums.

8. Crowley and Callanan, “Describing and Supporting Collaborative Scientific Thinking in Parent-Child Interactions”; Rosenthal and Blankman-Hetrick, “Coversations across Time.”

9. Padilla, “NARST”; Ash, “Dialogic Inquiry in Life Science Conversations of Family Groups in a Museum.”

10. Alexander, “What Are the ‘Six Strands’ for History Museums?”; Gosselin, Open to Interpretation; Seixas et al., The Big Six; “National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies.”

11. Create.Connect Summative Evaluation Report (in preparation).

Additional information

Funding

The Create.Connect exhibition was made possible by the generous grant support from the National Science Foundation [grant number 1223770], as well as support from the Duke Energy Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.