Abstract:

Science at primary and secondary education levels lags behind formal science as a process of teaching or as a research activity at the tertiary level. The outcome of this lag is that methods, materials and ideas may represent an earlier period in the formal scientific world notwithstanding the absence of digital technology in earlier times.

This paper outlines the relationship between the material culture of science education and its relationship with the history of science per se. The method of this examination is trialling the activity with a biology teacher education student sample (n=26), determining their familiarity (ranking) either with the apparatus as is, or with its modern version, and ranking their perceived usefulness of the apparatus. In this work, the main examples is the Shandon paper electrophoresis and chromatography kit. The data from the questionnaire is then analysed using multidimensional scaling. In addition a small sample of teachers (n=10) were interviewed regarding their familiarity with the Shandon Kit.

As part of this examination, and as a lens, the author also examines the Department of Education & Science survey of schools in the 1990s coupled with the official government science teaching equipment list of the time.

Whereas the Irish Government official list of equipment specifically listed the Shandon Kit for electrophoresis and chromatraphy in the 1990s and the kit ceased production in the 1970s, most teachers did not know what the kit was when asked. Such a kit did have multiple roles and parts and these tended to be separated. Teachers’ could be familiar with some of the parts but underlying their difficulty was that the curriculum (for biology) never specified the topic or concept of electrophoresis.

In addition, historic science teaching items can be mapped in a timeline of when made, and when mainstream usage ceased, and this locates the type of science thought important to the practitioners at that time. Mirroring this evolution is the development of science education in the teacher education establishments, and the collection of DCU Science Archive & Herbarium may be seen as an indication of the pedagogical philosophy underpinning the purchase of items at specific periods which correspond to curricular changes at the primary level.

It is further suggested that during the economic boom of 1997 – 2007 when extra funding was given for equipment, teacher-manufactured equipment diminished and much historic equipment was disposed of. If science in school is skill-based and content is reduced, it seems peculiar that choices to remove practical work of low cost which promoted a range of scientific and manual skills would be afforded.

Finally, there is also the question of whether historic science equipment collections have a role in learning science today — the author believes that it does indeed have such a role within the framework of the History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) approach to science education and is underpinned by the theoretic framework provided by cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT).

Keywords:

Science Education, Material Culture, History of Science.