The Nature of Science Reflected in Exhibitions of Natural History Museums

Abstract

This study investigated to describe how the nature of science is revealed in the four natural history museums in Korea. Natural history museums are well considered as informal settings of education, and the nature of science has been one of major topics stressed in science education. Therefore, the revelation of this topic is supposedly reflected in developing museum exhibitions. In each of the four target natural history museum or natural history exhibition, the representative exhibits subtitled by scientific inquiry and cases dealing with history of science were selected for the study. The analyzing exhibits focused on whether exhibitions were labeled with emphasis on declarative description or interpretative one. In analyzing the contents, the focus was on the concerns of scientists, scientific community, social and cultural aspects, uncertainty of scientific knowledge, and providing sufficient evidences. All things considered, it was hard to conclude that every target exhibit clearly considered the nature of science as an essential element, in designing and developing their exhibitions. More deliberate input of nature of science is suggested for worldly renowned natural history museums, because previous researches keep insisting that the nature of science would be more efficiently achieved in an informal educational setting rather than in classrooms.

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