Engaging and assessing students via a museum educational program
Danai Gata 1 , Efstratios Valakos 1 2 , Martha Georgiou 1 3 *
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1 Museum of Zoology, Department of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, GREECE2 Section of Animal & Human Physiology, Department of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, GREECE3 Department of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, GREECE* Corresponding Author

Abstract

Many museums offer educational programs encouraging visitors to “interact” with the subjects in a meaningful way. Students’ visit to a museum can be an effective means of introducing them to important science concepts through contact with actual specimens. As part of a properly designed educational program, students’ contact with realia can be an invaluable aid to engaging their interest and achieving corresponding learning goals. The present paper details a research project relating to the concept of evolutionary adaption. A worksheet was developed requiring students to work collaboratively during a museum visit to complete activities progressively leading them to the target goals of correlating: (i) the structure of certain physical features of birds with their function and (ii) the structure and function of those features with their respective habitats. The final worksheet activity was an open-ended assessment task aiming to identify the level of learning students had achieved from participating in the program. The results were statistically analyzed and indicated that students had grasped the concept of structure and function of specific traits and their importance to basic survival, but they had not been able to correlate the adaptation with other challenges presented by the habitat.

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2023, Volume 19, Issue 10, Article No: em2334

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/13574

Publication date: 01 Oct 2023

Online publication date: 11 Aug 2023

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Article Downloads: 786

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