Learning Science Outside the Classroom

Martin Braund, Michael Reiss

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781134359134
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book shows how a wide range of contexts for learning science can be used outside of the classroom, and includes learning:

• at museums, science centres and planetaria
• from newspapers, magazines and through ICT
• at industrial sites and through science trails
• at zoos, farms, botanic gardens, residential centres and freshwater habitats
• in school grounds.

With contributions from well known and respected practitioners in all fields of science education and through using case studies, Learning Science Outside the Classroom offers practical guidance for teachers, assistant teaching staff and student teachers involved in primary and secondary education. It will help enable them to widen the scientific experience and understanding of pupils.

The advice in this book has been checked for safety by CLEAPSS.

Chapter 1

The nature of learning science outside the classroom

Martin Braund and Michael Reiss

Overview

The chapter acts as a prelude to the rest of this book. Personal and historical perspectives on the value of using out-of-classroom contexts for learning science are given. These are discussed in relation to the debate about the purposes of school science. The nature of learning that occurs in out-of-classroom contexts is considered in terms of its definition, its characteristics and a model that helps us understand how it is different to more formal learning in classrooms. A brief summary of each chapter is provided.

Introduction

One of us (MB) recently attended a reunion of students to whom he had taught biology in the sixth form of a large comprehensive school. Most of the original group had come to the reunion and a pleasing number had continued with biology in some form or other. There were teachers, biochemists, a doctor and even the warden of a large nature reserve in Canada. We got talking about old times and one topic kept resurfacing—‘that wonderful week’s fieldwork on the Hebridean Island of Mingulay’. It seems the experience was remembered and treasured by all, irrespective of their future careers, and was quoted as being a key influence by those who had continued with biology. The other of us (MR) similarly has a selection of evaluation forms from students whom he has taken on week-long field trips to Slapton Ley Field Studies Centre. As one student put it ‘I enjoyed everything. I can’t believe I feel so good about this experience; I’ve done more work in this week than in the whole year. Every night I went to bed exhausted and satisfied. It’s good to be EXCITED about learning’. When he left his last job, he too recalls students fondly remembering their residential field trip—and even offering to come and help with future ones.

Many teachers tell similar stories of the positive influences that contexts for learning which occur outside the normal classroom have had, both on their pupils and on themselves. The gains for teachers’ own professional development in terms of their developing knowledge about learning and pupils’ emotional and intellectual growth can be significant. At York, teachers at the end of their first year in teaching are invited to talk to current student teachers about their experiences. These practising teachers reflect on the key moments in their professional lives and offer advice to the novices. We are struck by a common and recurring theme. As one teacher put it:

My best advice to you is to get involved with anything you can outside school. You know, it could be a school trip, fieldwork, outdoor pursuits, a school holiday; anything where you see pupils and how they learn in a different light. You learn so much more about them, what motivates and drives them. You share their fears and aspirations and they share yours. It’s the most rewarding thing I have done this year.

(Comment made by a teacher to PGCE student teachers at the University of York, June 2003)

This book is about the ways in which we can educate school-aged pupils and students in science using a variety of what we call ‘outside-the-classroom’ contexts. This is not to say that the methods discussed in this book necessarily require special visits or organised excursions. Each chapter includes examples of activities that can be ‘brought in’ to the classroom context to make science learning more relevant and accessible to pupils. There has been much debate about the current school curriculum for science in the UK and its usefulness and relevance for young people in the twenty-first century (Millar and Osborne, 1998). Questions have been raised about the central purpose of science education, challenging its traditionally narrow focus on preparation for further study. The argument is made for a curriculum more in tune with the needs of a population increasingly faced with lifestyle decisions relying on some understanding and appreciation of science so that people can have better access to the debates and arguments that underpin personal choice. Amongst the recommendations is one stating that:

School science should aim to provide a populace who are comfortable, competent and confident with scientific and technical matters and artefacts. The science curriculum should provide sufficient knowledge and understanding to enable students to read simple newspaper articles about science and follow TV programmes on new advances in science with interest.

(Millar and Osborne, 1998 p. 29)

The contexts described in the chapters of this book are well placed to meet these aspirations for science education. The learning that results from them, however, may not only be derived from the hours spent in formal schooling. We should remember that school-aged children spend only about a third of their waking lives in school. The impact that home-based learning can have on school-based outcomes should not be underestimated. One of us found evidence of this when researching pupils’ understanding of animal classification (Braund, 1991). Pupils’ performance in formal tests of reasoning ability were compared with their performance on classification tasks and a number of cases were found where pupils performed on the classification tasks well above the predicted level. When pupil responses to questions about hobbies and interests were examined, it transpired that in every case these were pupils who had some out-of-school interest that involved learning about animals, their names and so on. Fishing, bird-watching, trips to zoos with parents and watching wildlife programmes on TV all featured. The extent of such influences is suggested in work one of us has carried out with Sue Dale Tunnicliffe (Tunnicliffe and Reiss, 1999, 2000). Pupils aged from 4 to 14 years were shown a range of preserved animals and living plants and asked a series of questions about them. For both girls and boys, the home and direct observation were more important as sources of knowledge than were school or books.

So far we have set out some personal perspectives on learning science outside the classroom and how we see this in the wider context of the purposes of science education. Our views are not unique. Many educators, particularly in the past, have sought to justify and promote a variety of situations outside the classroom in which school-aged children might learn.

A historical perspective

The curriculum of UK schools today can seem rather crowded and constrained, dominated by government legislation and an objectives-focused framework. Curriculum documents prescribe a curriculum yet often without clear philosophical justifications for and argument about what teachers might do and learners should learn. Contemporary educationalists often overemphasise, frequently implicitly and apparently unwittingly, the importance of formal school-based education without recognising the contribution that home-based learning and informal contexts can make. This has not always been the case. A number of thinkers in the past promoted a pedagogy and a curriculum based on wider agendas.

Johann Comenius (1592–1670), for example, believed that education should be universal, focusing on family and social life as well as schooling. Comenius’ ideas of an ‘authentic curriculum’ contain many references to learning outside the classroom and continue to influence teachers today as can be seen from reading Susan Rowe and Susan Humphries’ chapter on ‘The outdoor classroom’.

A century later the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his classic novel Emile (1762), wrote about the value of an experiential approach to teaching and learning and its importance for the development of the individual. Much of Rousseau’s advice on teaching drew heavily on examples based in nature and outside contexts.

The important contribution that an outdoor space can make to the learning environment of young children fundamentally influenced British primary education and school design in the early part of the twentieth century. Maria Montessori and later the MacMillan sisters in London both promoted the inclusion of experiences in outdoor spaces such as gardening, eating and even sleeping out-of-doors as an essential component of schooling for the young (Anning, 1991). Their influences can still be seen in the design of some primary schools built in England in the 1930s. After the Second World War, a tradition of fieldwork including the use of residential centres developed and blossomed as part of national trends in conservation and environmental education. The history of this movement and its impact on science education are discussed by Anne Bebbington in Chapter 5.

In Victorian times, learning about the latest scientific and technological discoveries was popular in the UK and de rigeur for people from all social classes. A great tradition of mass, public interest in science and its applications, developed. This included visiting the newly constructed national and regional museums, attending public lectures and debates, and viewing zoos, botanical gardens and the great fairs and exhibitions that were established to celebrate and promote the latest achievements. Out of this grew a vigorous and well-established education service based in museums and other places that provided for pupils both within the confines of the centre or building and as an outreach service. Although this service declined following the First World War its resurgence, started in the 1960s, continues today. A new emphasis on education is being called for by the UK government and museums and galleries are once again at the forefront as important providers of learning for schools and the wider public and as part of a contribution to what is often called ‘lifelong learning’ (Anderson, 1997).

Defining the learning that takes place

Trying to define learning is an almost impossible task. So much depends on the context and the perspective and intentions of the author. Definitions are often framed in the psychological theories and models that attempt to explain how people learn, or are focused only on measurable outcomes. We have, however, found a definition that takes a wider view more suited to the nature of learning described in this book:

Learning is a process of active engagement with experience. It is what people do when they want to make sense of the world. It may involve the development or deepening of skills, knowledge, understanding, awareness, values, ideas and feelings or an increase in the capacity to reflect. Effective learning leads to change, development and the desire to learn more.

(Based on a definition first used by The Campaign for Learning, 2003)

The last sentence of this quote seems to hold the key to understanding what goes on in the contexts described in this book and the value placed on experiences by pupils and their teachers. We believe that science is a fundamentally interesting subject to learn about, yet so many young people seem to reject it as they grow older claiming, for example, that it is boring, impenetrable and irrelevant to their needs (Bennett, 2003). Science is indeed hard to learn as much of the research into children’s learning has shown. Yet, when pupils visit or are taught in places that explain science in new and exciting ways, they frequently seem to be more enthused. There is, we believe, something about these contexts and places that brings about change through increasing the desire in people to find out and understand more.

Teachers might look for evidence that knowledge and understanding of science have improved as a result of using informal, out-of-school contexts but we believe that this may be missing the main point. Whilst there may be some small changes in scientific knowledge and understanding resulting from these contexts (and there is evidence for this as some of the authors in this book cite), is this likely to be significantly more than a conventional school science lesson can achieve? Perhaps the main changes come about in terms of pupils’ attitudes to science or in terms of the values that they place on the processes and modes of learning that they encounter in contexts beyond school. The next two sections of this chapter develop this idea.

Domains of learning

Authors writing about informal learning contexts often talk about the contribution made within three types or ‘domains’ of learning. These are:

the cognitive domain n the affective domain

the affective domain

the psychomotor domain.

This terminology can be traced back to the work of Bloom (Bloom et al., 1956). Bloom went on to describe a hierarchy of educational objectives under the first two headings that is still commonly referred to, although the third domain was never fully explored in terms of its implications for schooling. Table 1.1 summarises the key characteristics of each domain as we see them and shows some examples in each domain of science learning activ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Learning Science Outside the Classroom
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Chapter 1 The nature of learning science outside the classroom
• Chapter 2 Practicalities and safety issues
• Chapter 3 The outdoor classroom
• Chapter 4 Using freshwater habitats
• Chapter 5 Learning at residential field centres
• Chapter 6 Learning science in a botanic garden
• Chapter 7 Learning at zoos and farms
• Chapter 8 Learning science at museums and hands-on centres
• Chapter 9 Learning science at industrial sites
• Chapter 10 Chemistry trails
• Chapter 11 Learning physics and astronomy outside the classroom
• Chapter 12 Learning with newspapers
• Chapter 13 Learning science through ICT at home
• Chapter 14 Managing learning outside the classroom
• Index