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Real-World Problem: Connecting Socio-Scientific Contexts and Dioramas

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Addressing Wicked Problems through Science Education

Part of the book series: Contributions from Science Education Research ((CFSE,volume 8))

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Abstract

This study describes research conducted in a national natural history museum in Taiwan. It describes how a museum education professional drew on the Benzene Ring Heuristic of scientific practice to integrate science education theory into the museum’s educational practices. Since 2001, the museum has strengthened its partnership with schools and social institutions related to education. A majority of these partners confirmed that the museum represents a strong resource for education but that its programming was difficult to fit into their science education practices. In response, the present study developed a scaffold for engaging participants with its exhibitions through inquiry, more specifically about the dilemma between renewable energy production and environmental protection. This chapter includes three parts. First, it introduces the significance of natural history dioramas for framing the controversy as a socio-scientific issue (SSI). Second, it discusses inquiry learning and clarifies the differences between the school setting and the natural history exhibition environment. Finally, it describes how the scaffolded educational program Which Renewable Energy Installations You Would Choose was iteratively developed for the gallery Life on Earth. The study concludes by discussing the advantages of using the Benzene Ring Heuristic of scientific practice for developing the program and offering a number of guidelines for scaffolding an SSI education program in a natural history museum.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The elementary school with less than 300 students was defined as small size school. Schools with 301–900 students were defined as middle size schools.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology project no. MOST-107-2511-H-178-001. The author thanks the anonymous reviewers and Marianne Achiam for comments on earlier versions of the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan

    Jung Hua Yeh

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  1. Jung Hua Yeh
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Correspondence to Jung Hua Yeh .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Marianne Achiam

  2. Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Justin Dillon

  3. School of Education, King's College London, London, UK

    Melissa Glackin

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Yeh, J.H. (2021). Real-World Problem: Connecting Socio-Scientific Contexts and Dioramas. In: Achiam, M., Dillon, J., Glackin, M. (eds) Addressing Wicked Problems through Science Education. Contributions from Science Education Research, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74266-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74266-9_6

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-74266-9

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