Description

Science educators have to meet new and profound challenges: to prepare citizens for a technologically advanced society in which global inequities are rapidly increasing. In a fast-changing world, straddling the demands of producing professional scientists on the one hand, and socially conscious citizens on the other, places science education on the horns of a dilemma: what kind of approach can satisfy contrasting demands in the short time available for full-time education?

At the same time arts and media education are highly popular with students. Can synergies between the arts and sciences open up that imaginative and speculative thinking that will help people to critically engage with developments in science and technology? Yes…but too often the separate cultures of arts and science prevail in schools where they have long disappeared in other areas of life.This volume of essays explores these challenges and records the experiences of individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds who, collectively, share a common vision: that science and arts education can reap rewards from a closer relationship with each other. Most of the writers have been directly involved in innovative projects spanning science, the arts and education. Their reflections provide illuminating insights into the process of interdisciplinary collaboration.

The volume has been edited by leading figures in science education (Ralph Levinson, Institute of Education), arts education (Helen Nicholson, Royal Holloway, University of London) and arts-based approaches in public engagement with science (Simon Parry, Wellcome Trust).