Being creative in science education

There’s a common myth that science is procedural rather than creative. In fact, creativity underpins much of science research – from coming up with research questions to novel ways of finding answers. 

Teaching science is similar. Educators can be creative in how they lead learning to build key competencies and science capabilities. 

Prompting questions/ngā pātai 

• As you watch the video, are there words, ideas or phrases that resonate with you? 

• How have your teaching practices evolved over time or with experience? 

• What are some possible constraints to being creative in science education? 

• How does the concept of mātaioho – contextualised local, national and global contexts – encourage creativity in what or how you teach?

Transcript

Andrea Tritton

Part of creativity in science is letting go of the way that we always do things and being really open to where the students want to take it.   

Mairi Borthwick

How do I make this real for students and make them interested in it and really engage the kids and let them see the relevance of science? 

Meredith Wilson

Being creative is how do you teach science in a different environment and then bring that learning back to the classroom as well.  

Carmen Kenton

My students really like the creativity of digging into science ideas that they’re passionate about or creating a model about an idea that they want to demonstrate rather than just writing a paragraph.  

Faye Booker

Creativity for me is really about trying new things where we don’t know the answers, building our competencies as we explore those worlds and find out more about how we’re going to observe closely, how we’re going to listen, how we’re going to examine, how every person can become an expert. We have authentic learning, and the kids love it.  

Lian Soh

It’s about making links between what they already know and the real-world application of all those skills that we’re passing on to them.

These are competencies which we need to teach to our students and build upon at school. That will take a bit of creativity from teachers in terms of how we go about doing that. And the whole purpose behind this is to help these students become functional and participating citizens.  

Meredith Wilson

I love the flexibility and the creativity that you can just go ahead and do some cool things as long as you’re gathering, interpreting data, using evidence, critiquing the evidence, doing all those skills that build up your scientists.  

Anna Thornton  

We’re trying to hit these skills – the investigation, the participating, contributing – across all the topics.

Acknowledgements 

Andrea Tritton, Deputy Principal, Hobsonville Point Secondary School
Mairi Borthwick, Head of Science, Freyberg High School
Meredith Wilson, HOD Science, Ruapehu College
Carmen Kenton, Science Teacher, Riccarton High School
Faye Booker, HOD Science, Edgewater College
Lian Soh, Science and Chemistry Teacher, Pāpāmoa College 
Anna Thornton, Learning Area Head of Science, Mana College
Student with worksheet and student at microscope. © Hobsonville Point Secondary School
Students inspecting rat trap, students in ngahere, student with dead rat, and students exploring rocky shore, by Lian Soh. © Pāpāmoa College
Students on a field trip, collecting and interpreting stream data, by Meredith Wilson. © Ruapehu College
Student science fair project. © Mana College