New scientists

Museums Journal: What do museums and science centres do differently from traditional methods of science education?

Honor Gay: Authenticity and the fact that we offer the possibility of encounters with real practising scientists. We have galleries that are designed to provide inspiring educational experiences and we have an abundance of real specimens that students can handle.

If you look at the resources that a school classroom would have, they might have a dog or a cat skull, whereas we offer dinosaur bones and meteorites. We also have trained educators, who understand the difference between an informal learning setting, which museums and science centres are, and the school classroom.

Nick Winterbotham: We're also an off-site hit. We are hearing a lot about learning outside the classroom, and we hope there will be serious money behind it, but there's no doubt that what we offer in museums and in science centres is something which is copper bottomed learning outside the classroom. Maybe the thing it offers too, certainly in regional museums, is an insight into people's own region - and what makes it special.

Jean Franczyk: It's about the environment itself, because it is different both in its structure and its design; everything about it says "this is not a normal day". You are able to prompt different reactions and behaviours - often different positive behaviours - on the part of young people. It's because the style of presentation and the methods used are quite different from what would be allowed in a classroom, and that's a really important environmental difference.

Janet Stott: We found that really well-facilitated museum sessions are much more successful than a classroom for children who are struggling, particularly those with lower literacy levels. I think that they find science harder in a classroom, partly because a lot of the concepts are quite abstract and the language is quite complex.

We had a group of mixed-ability year 8 children and the teacher said that the kids who were answering all the questions were kids who could hardly read. But because we had objects, they were really motivated.

Cris Edgell: I would like to think that students coming into a museum are given a lot more freedom in terms of what will interest them. There's such a range of exciting things there.

I would say that education is, by its nature, closed, because the curriculum is quite tight and the expectations are quite channelled. I would hope that a kid comes into a museum with a sense of wonder and leaves with an even greater sense of wonder.

NW: What we offer is a kind of object-based learning which has object literacy at its heart. It's not primarily a written formula, it's verbal, and it's something that tends to be slightly more open-ended.

One of the reasons that teachers very often enthuse about coming to museums is because it changes attitudes towards their subject matter. All of a sudden what you've got is something that really is pivotal for the child. It's because they remember it for the holistic experience.

Martin Braund: Does this experience actually make the connections between the learners and the experience they've had in the museum to then go back and want to find out more? School science is often criticised for the fact it doesn't engage enough young people to want to do more of it.

If we measured science centres and museums and galleries on the same basis, they would be more successful because they engage people to want to go back and find out more.

Emma Newall: Has there been any work done on how sustained that effect is? I think it's well known that it does enthuse and inspire students, but how long does that effect last once they get back in the classroom?

MB: There was some work done in the 1970s at the Science Museum. Normally in educational research, if you get long-lasting memories of experience and even some science after about two weeks, you'd be very pleased, but to go back and actually get some significant memories, not just about going to the Science Museum and having a good time, but some of the scientific principles that were underlying the exhibits was remarkable.

HG: There's been one study in the 1970s, and then beyond that, we're looking at anecdotes. That's quite an indictment of us. One of the things that we're doing at the Natural History Museum is a partnership with King's College London to look at the longer-term impact of our A level programme because we want to affect career choices. We would love to show that we can affect attainment.

EN: One thing that has been overlooked is the power to enthuse teachers, not just their students. There are an awful lot of learning opportunities for teachers in a museum.

CE: One things teachers could get from museums might be how to teach off site, because that often isn't taught in initial training. How you teach off site, when you don't have a blackboard, is something they could definitely learn from museums.

JF: The philosophical approach that we take is to value the question almost above all else; and many teachers, because of that confinement to the curriculum, are not comfortable with questions, especially questions that they can't answer.

One of the things museums can bring to teachers is getting comfortable with the questions, understanding the learning value that's attached to that approach.

MB: There is a role here for museums to encourage discourse between pupils and between scientists about evidence. One of the things we've researched was about effective group work in science and it was quite hard to find very much, we're really talking about groups being able to debate and argue about significant scientific issues.

So if museums can help in this modelling of what is good argument and what is good discourse about science, that would be very helpful.

MJ: How much does the national curriculum influence subject matter and learning in museums?

JS: The new curriculum offers a fantastic opportunity for us. It's about how science works. What real science is about is evidence, and that's what we've got. When I was a classroom science teacher, I don't think I taught with an awful lot of evidence, because I was trying to keep to the curriculum.

Museums have got a wonderful opportunity in terms of what could be done in classrooms, to go back and say: "Look, here's the evidence." I think science teachers could get excited about this.

HG: For secondary science the curriculum is tailored to what we are excellent at. It's all about how science works in the real world and the context within which scientists practise, and that is a gift to us.

Teachers need what a natural history museum or a science museum has to offer in order to really demonstrate what is at the core of the curriculum. We're hoping that we will become viewed as key to delivering the secondary curriculum. Any museum is underpinned by science. Conservation is all about science. This is a golden opportunity for the sector.

JD: At the science museum in a typical year our booked school visits range from 12 per cent to 15 per cent of our audience so exhibitions have to cater to quite a broad array of the general public. We like to say that we are informed, not led, by the national curriculum.

And what we consistently know from all of the research we've done is that what the public and teachers want is for us to be both fun and educational. So I think we can fulfil this requirement, but also be true to our USP, which is to present this information in a very different kind of way.

CE: I'm really optimistic about the national curriculum, it's like Christmas came early. It could have a really liberating effect in schools and with teachers and it could be great for museums as well.

But it's really important that the early opportunity to demonstrate the use of museums and other out-of-school activities has to be done swiftly. I'm particularly interested in the skills, rather than the knowledge base.

They're looking for independent enquirers, creative thinkers, teamwork as self-managers, effective participators. I think you should bear that in mind when you're thinking about what you're going to do with kids when they come here.

MB: There was some research work done after the national curriculum had been in about three or four years, and the variety of practical work that's been going on, particularly at key stage 4, has got less and less, yet the whole intention of the national curriculum was to open up investigative work and pupils are encouraged to display a variety of skills.

Places of informal learning have such a wide variety of examples of not just hands-on experimentation but all sorts of enquiries, chances to enhance observation, prediction and hypothesising, linking between one area of science and another - that's a lot of opportunities. It's pretty urgent to do a big marketing job on what the sector can offer.

MJ: What do the next five years hold?

NW: We have proved that we can operate dynamically, that we can step up given the opportunity. We know the government hasn't got a big spending programme planned for any of this, so it's a question of: "Do we work with corporates? Do we think of other ways around it? Do we work more closely with schools?" The answer is, yes, we do.

We're going to get overtaken by governments who want to make science their strong suit; China is in a different league altogether. What they're offering and what they're investing in museums is extraordinary.

It's a shame about the HLF. It's a shame the way the Olympics has impacted on the opportunities we now have for developing. There needs to be recognition that science centres are inherently valuable and can have demonstrable impacts on people. Unless that happens, the STEM agenda won't be as vibrant and as significant to the UK as it ought to be.

HG: At the Natural History Museum, our aspirations are that we grow our network and use the Natural History Museum's position to support museums with natural history collections across England to make the best possible use of their collections for secondary science teaching.

We've got quite a rigorous approach to trying to look at the impacts and I feel that it will be recognised by government. The curriculum is a complete gift and I think it's all to play for.

MB: There are now examples of the way in which teacher educators, training colleges and universities are linked with the museum sector; that ought to continue. The other thing that is useful is getting teachers in their first few years of teaching to come back and talk to student teachers about their experience.

One of the most fantastic quotes I've heard was from a newly qualified teacher who was asked: "What is the most beneficial thing that's happened to you this year?" And he described an out-of classroom learning experience.

He said it's not just the learning that you get out of it, but it's social interaction with the students and the way you get to learn about their fears and aspirations and what they learn about you as well; it gives you a human scale of interaction which gives you joy as a teacher. I thought it was fantastic.

JF: I'm hopeful because I strongly believe in the value and the power of the informal learning sector. Whether people come to us as a young person with their teacher, with their family, with their peers, we can have a profound impact on their life.

I hope that as a result of that I can help move the informal learning from the fringes of the conversation to the centre. The aspiration that we have for the Science Museum is that we find a way to provide everybody with a science museum learning experience by the time they've reached the age of 14 so that we're getting to them before they're likely to turn off.

EN: I hope that the Science Learning Centre is going to be a much more coherent national network, working together and that we can also pair up with other regional museums and offer some of the things that you've been doing in London.

I'd like to see regional science learning centres working with regional museums to make sure that teachers make the most of the opportunities that are there for themselves and their students.

CE: I can see big opportunities for our key stage 3 pupils, particularly with the experience of going to a museum. Although you can't really replace that sense of wonder when you come into the museum, you would like to try and recapture some of it to continue to develop an interest in science.