Spotlight

Science Education at the Auckland Museum

Miranda Makin

Like all school excursions, the day has started the way you had hoped and dreamed about the night before. Beautiful, sunny, not a cloud in the sky. All the students have turned up, passed uniform inspection and are now sitting on the bus clutching an array of worksheets and their bags. They are bubbling with excitement and anticipation at having a day off school!

The bus pulls in at the front entrance and everyone alights, making their way up the cold granite steps to the main doors. The chatter from the students has died down and there are only a few exclamations to be heard. There is a person waiting at the top of the stairs, smiling down at your group. She welcomes you all to the Auckland Museum -- it's a Museum Educator, one of a team of facilitators available to help teachers with preparation for visits and offer assistance during their time at the Museum.

The Auckland Museum is committed to providing valuable learning experiences outside the classroom for both teachers and pupils. It boasts a resource base of 2.7 million items. There are 60 professional staff who compile, care for and interpret the different collections. This wealth of resources represents a rich cultural diversity in a variety of different areas including technology and science.

The educators at the Museum therefore offer assistance and opportunities to enhance teaching programmes in a variety of different ways, having ready access to resources that would otherwise be unavailable in a normal classroom environment.

They help with the planning of visits, providing pre-visit information. This may take the form of background information or worksheets for students utilising expert interpretation of different exhibits. There is also a classroom that can be used for classes, where the educators can tailor lessons to meet the specific objectives of any visit, and to support students' gallery experiences.

The lessons are complemented by use of slides and video. It is also here the students have the unique opportunity to actually handle museum artefacts. The added value of having this type of support supplementing the exclusive resources available, amounts to a very memorable learning experience for all involved.

So what opportunities does the Auckland Museum have for learning in science, an area dear to our hearts?

I, for one, have been involved in developing and providing up-to-date secondary science programmes, importantly forming strong links with respect to the new science curriculum achievement objectives. As part of this, we have developed exciting new possibilities for science education at the Museum, including some innovative new initiatives.

The new resource topics were determined using teacher consultation via a questionnaire sent out to all secondary science teachers in the greater Auckland area. Through this the following areas were highlighted:

• Auckland's volcanoes
• New Zealand native flora and fauna
• nature in balance
• Pacific navigation

The development of these resources involves a large amount of research, and use of creative approaches to encourage and motivate students to work through the relevant galleries. Programme development around these topics has begun, with eventual completion set for later this year.

The first programme to be developed has been the one focusing on Pacific navigation. It is the result of a lot of research and consultation with experts in this area. During this process it also led to extensive personal growth in my own understanding of processes and navigational cues that are used. My knowledge before this point would have easily equated to less than zero!

The programme has been designed in two parts. Part One discusses the celestial cues, currents (both wind and sea), and biological indicators that skilled navigators used to determine their location.

Part Two involves a gallery-based student-centred activity which looks at students forming technological links between different islands in Polynesia. This activity allows students to discover for themselves those places with most similar technological designs as they "navigate" around the Pacific and Nga Mahi galleries.

Overall the resource makes strong links with appropriate levels in the science curriculum areas of technology and Planet Earth and Beyond.

The second resource, covering Nature in Balance, is being developed for students operating at around Level Five. It is designed to be flexible for teachers, who can choose worksheets from four different focuses to complement and enhance their current teaching programmes. Each focus looks at a different aspect of interactions within a community, both living and non-living.

While all this resource development is going on, there are a variety of other services and programmes continuing. One exciting initiatives has the Museum offering secondary students the opportunity to complete community service commitments for their Duke of Edinburgh awards. This allows students to act as facilitators in the "Weird and Wonderful" discovery center. They choose a display area to research and then can offer additional explanations and assistance to the numerous visitors at the center. This helps to promote the science aspects of the center, as well as present positive role models especially to the younger children there.

Another area in which the Museum is keen to assist school students is to let them have the chance to "adopt" one of our scientists. This is useful for keen and enthusiastic students who are looking for outside consultants for their Silver CREST project work. Consultants are often hard to find and we think that this approach will help students to locate someone in an area of common interest who is willing to help and advise them in their project work.

There will be a lot of change at the Auckland Museum over the next five years, and with this change will come new possibilities for science education. It is my hope that services to schools will expand and flourish in the future; that teachers will be able to visit with classes and will continue to be supported by learning material and programmes that evoke wonderment and fascination from the participants.

Miranda Makin works in the area of science education at Auckland Museum.