Teaching Science as Aesthetic Inquiry: How the Arts Can Make Science Matter to More Students

• In Event: Science for All: Challenges, Practices, and Spaces of Possibility for Creating Inclusive Science Learning Environments

Abstract

More and more, science teachers find themselves with students who are reading below grade level, for whom much science informational text seems threatening. A lecture-based approach rarely engages the special needs student, whose creative gifts may be foregrounded by teacher attention to what’s “wrong” with them. This paper describes action research which asks the question, “What will happen if science is taught through drawing and aesthetic inquiry?” The research methodology evolved from 25 years of field testing methods of teaching science through the creative arts. Previously struggling students acquired epistemic agency, achieved academic success, and communicated their understanding of the language and nature of science in classrooms characterized by an ethic of care.

Author

• Merrie Koester, University of South Carolina