Deeper and broader public engagement: Fieldwork with an embedded museum educator

Abstract:

As part of an Australia-UK research voyage on the R/V Investigator, we included two education professionals, one from the UK and one from Australia, embedded in the onboard science team as part of CSIRO's Educator on Board programme. This gives the educators first-hand experience of research fieldwork and helps the team share the voyage with schools and the general public. A number of voyages run by different countries have included a school teacher in this way, but the UK team instead partnered with a learning officer at the Scottish Maritime Museum, Jamie Menzies.

Jamie and others on board wrote blog posts, tweeted, and video conferenced live from the ship with over 600 Scottish pupils. The museum served as a communications hub and used its existing school connections to generate interest in the opportunities during the voyage – over 400 teachers requested a video conference. Many who were successful reported that the exposure to real-time science, interacting with scientists in the middle of the ocean 20,000 km away, left a lasting impression on them and their pupils, and Jamie remains in contact with some the teachers, offering the opportunity for deeper engagement over a longer time period.

A key component of the Educator on Board programme is preparing curriculum-linked teaching materials to be freely shared and provide continuing impact beyond the voyage. For this, working with a museum-based education team provides some key advantages: Firstly, they have experience preparing materials for a broad range of ages – Jamie prepared a series of 6 lessons/workshops for pupils from primary to early secondary level. Secondly, materials used for museum and science centre workshops have a broader reach than a single classroom teacher. Teachers, families, or other groups who enjoy one workshop can also be pointed to the other online materials, and the museum's existing connections can be used to share the resources (in our case, including a series of 7 early secondary maths and geography lessons prepared by a second shore-based teacher).

Overall, the partnership has proved a highly successful collaboration, enabling the science team to broaden their impact, whilst offering the museum and its learning officer a chance to incorporate a different type of material and hands-on engagement with scientific research into their programme.