STEAM Project-Based Learning Activities at the Science Museum as an Effective Training for Future Chemistry Teachers

Non-formal learning environments, such as science museums, have a fundamental role in science education and high potentialities as ideal contexts for science teachers’ training. These aspects have been analyzed and reported in several recent works mainly focused on students’ perception of science and increased engagement towards scientific disciplines. In this work, a project-based learning methodology optimized and experimented in the frame of a pre-service chemistry teachers’ course at the University of Pisa (Italy), during the last eight years, involving in total 171 participants, is presented. This educational project has several distinctive features related to the STEAM philosophy, with a high level of multi-disciplinarity and creativity. Most of the laboratories and chemistry-centered activities were conceived, planned and carried out by the future chemistry teachers in non-formal contexts, such as science museums. A case study based on a series of non-formal laboratories designed by a group of students during their training in the academic year 2018–2019 and performed in a science museum is reported and examined in details. In this paper, all steps of the STEAM project-based learning methodology are described underlining the main learning outcomes and cognitive levels involved in each step and the relevant methodologies proposed during the training course and adopted in the project. The effectiveness of this pre-service teachers’ training methodology is finally discussed in terms of participants’ motivation and interest towards the course’s content, students’ final judgment of their training experiences and, in particular, of the STEAM project-based learning activities. From the students’ feedbacks and final assessment, the role of the non-formal context in teaching and learning chemistry and the efficacy of developing educational activities related to current and real-life chemistry-centered topics emerged as very positive aspects of the proposed approach.

Designing for others: the roles of narrative and empathy in supporting girls’ engineering engagement

Purpose Science museums provide a context for developing and testing engineering activities that support visitors in creating personally meaningful objects. This study aims to propose that narrative design elements in such engineering activities can foster empathy to support engineering engagement among girls ages 7–14. Design/methodology/approach Taking a constructionist approach to engineering design, the authors present results from an observational study (n = 202 girls) of engineering activities across three museums that were designed to foster girls’ engineering engagement by integrating narrative elements aimed to foster empathy in activities. Using quantitative counts from observation protocols, the authors conducted statistical analyses to explore relationships between narrative, engineering and empathy. Findings Linear regression demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between empathy and increased numbers of engineering practices within museum activities. Additionally, this led us to explore the impacts the potential narrative design elements may have on designing for empathy – multiple linear regressions found both narrative and empathy to be independently associated with engineering practices. Overall, the authors found that using narrative to design activities to elicit empathy resulted in girls demonstrating more engineering practices. Originality/value The authors offer design ideas to foster aspects of empathy, including user-centered design, perspective-taking, familiarity and desire to help.

The author's program "Natural Science Museum in the Life of a Modern School" as a way of realizing the culture-creating and pedagogical potential of natural science museums

This article deals with the implementation by teachers of secondary schools of the culture-creating and pedagogical potential of natural science museums with the help of the author's program. At the moment, there is a situation where society needs a holistic and informative potential of the museum. Modern education in the educational process is increasingly based on a number of museum disciplines. The museum, being a socio-cultural institution, directly influences the solution of crisis situations of civilization in the XXI century. It should be noted that the pedagogical position put forward by the authors on the potential of natural science museums, reflected in this article, is relevant not only for our country, but also for the whole world affected by globalization. The authors of the article, based on the findings of the study, compiled an author's program for teachers of secondary schools, in which they tried to reveal the main points on the implementation of the culture-creating and pedagogical potential of natural science museums.

Nineteenth-century paleontological art in the Natural History Museum Vienna, Austria: Between demystification and mythologization

ABSTRACT The nineteenth century was the dawn of scientific and systematic paleontology. The foundation of Natural History Museums—built as microcosmic “Books of Nature”—not only contributed to the establishment of this new discipline but also to its visual dissemination. This paper will take the metaphor of the “book” as a starting point for an examination of the paleontological exhibition at the Natural History Museum in Vienna. In keeping with “Natural Theology,” the earliest natural science museums in Britain were designed as expressions of the medieval idea of the “Holy Book of Nature.” Contrary to this, the Natural History Museum Vienna, opened in 1889, wanted to be a nonreligious museum of evolution. Nevertheless, the idea of the “book” was also influential for its design. According to the architects and the first director, it should be a modern “walk-in textbook” instructive for everyone. The most prominent exhibition hall in the museum is dedicated to paleontology. The hall’s decorative scheme forms a unique “Paleo-Gesamtkunstwerk” (Gesamtkunstwerk: total piece of art). The use of grotesque and mythological elements is a particularly striking feature of the hall’s decoration and raises the question of how this relates to the museum’s claim to be a hard-core science institution. As it was paleontology’s task to demystify the monsters and riddles of Earth history systematically, it seems odd that the decorative program connected explicitly to this world. This chapter sheds light on the cultural traditions that led to the creation of this ambiguous program that oscillates between science and imagination.