An innovative scheme, which brings together science teachers and artists, is breaking down the division between science and the arts teaching. Kathy Pimlott explains how the project works.
?PAL?s Creative Science Teaching Lab pushed the boundaries in every way for me. I was challenged emotionally, physically and intellectually.? These are the words of a science teacher following the first PAL Creative Science Teaching (CST) Lab in 2003. Now in its third year, the Lab sees science teachers from all key stages working and living with a group of practising artists and scientists, selected for their outstanding talent and their generosity. Together, as peers, they experiment and explore new ways of teaching science. These unique residential Labs, directed for PAL by science communicator Steve Mesure, are a national action research project with Creative Partnerships (with additional funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and NESTA); the model is currently being tested for further roll out in 2006.
It is clear from the teachers? response and from the work they go on to do back in their classrooms that the CST Labs foster the confidence to experiment, take risks and to adopt a more creative approach to teaching, breaking down the compartmentalisation of science
and arts: ?They (artists and scientists) actually enhanced every aspect of the Lab, from the illuminating discussions over dinner to the sharing of what teaching and learning is really all about. They also offered very tangible practical support, skills, knowledge and understanding?. After the Lab we were able to build a network of expertise to draw upon, a network where we enthused and motivated each other to continue to push the boundaries in the educational experiences we offered to our children and young people. It worked because with their help we knew we couldn?t fail...?
It is also clear that the artists also benefit from the process: ?I feel more adventurous now and able to offer different and more creative work/ideas to the schools. Also I feel that I can now encourage schools to be more adventurous themselves and help them in that process.? Another participant adds, ?I learnt more about the position teachers are in and what they need. I found I was personally challenged at the intellectual and emotional level to produce new and exciting ideas.?
For fifteen years PAL has been bringing together creative professionals from the arts and architecture, media and technology, education and science through its residential experimental Lab programmes. In 2000, PAL launched its Labs of Learning programme to invest in the imagination and creativity of teachers in order to inspire and sustain their own and their students? interest and engagement in learning. The final word goes to a science teacher testifying to the long-term impact of such intellectual exchange: ?My experiences of the week enabled me to recapture and further develop the teaching approach that comes naturally to me. A culture of discrete subjects within the National Curriculum meant that I was losing, or being persuaded to lose, the impulse to help children to learn in a cross-curricular way. PAL?s Creative Science Teaching Lab has forced me to take a look at how I learn and interact with the learning situation.?
For further information about PAL and the Labs of Learning, see http://www.pallabs.org or email kathypimlott@pallabs.org