Natural History Museum: The Cocoon, ITT and informal learning

A trip to the Natural History Museum with trainee teachers got me thinking about informal learning and inspired by Cocoon, part of the NHM's Darwin Centre.

As part of the Graduate Training Programme (GTP), I like to take my science students on a trip. This year we visited the Natural History Museum in London. I had not been for a couple of years and was astonished by the relatively new addition, The Cocoon.

The focus of the visit is firstly to improve subject knowledge (it's guaranteed every visit I make to the NHM) and secondly to consider how learning can take place outside the classroom. The latter to consider the practicalities of organising such a trip for students and consider how to facilitate learning while pupils are actually there.

 There are lots of definitions of informal learning. It is hard not to learn something from the NHM when you enter and see the huge dinosaur skeleton greeting you. My definition of informal learning is to go to the exhibition and learn informally from the experience. I encourage my trainees to observe the children's interaction with the museum. We saw a lot of pupils moving around with clipboards, mostly filling notes in on them, occasionally whacking each other with them. Others were using their camera phones to take pictures, a few were running around excitedly.

We observed a small group of girls, under ten years old, who were looking at an exhibit in the dinosaur zone. One was whacking another with her clipbaord. However, the others were very interested. One says to the other, 'If I was a dinosaur, I'd be one like that one.' I'd like to have asked 'why', but it's frowned upon to talk to children that you are not responsible for! Moments like that are far more interesting than filling out worksheets.

Maybe setting an open-ended task would help bring out these personal learning experiences. For example, ask the pupils to choose one part of an exhibition that makes them go 'wow', take some pictures and write a few notes. Then at school make a presentation, Blog, wiki or similar to share what they learnt.

We then went to visit 'Cocoon' in the Darwin Centre. After being transported up in a lift, you enter the white Cocoon. The first area, looks fresh and futuristic with a central table with a cabinet full of plant and animal specimens. Around the surface are touchscreens with information about the exhibits. Now the magic bit is that you can collect a NaturePlus card (see below).

My NaturePlus Card

When you look at the touchscreens, you can select any information that you would like to keep. Then scan your card on a nearby barcode reader and take it home with you. Then look up the NaturePlus website, type in the card number and look at your stored information. To be honest to took a few attempts and help from a guide to get it right, but once I understood, we could use the card easily throughout the whole exhibition. It fuses the science of nature with the nature of science.

Highlights for me included:

1. A NHM staff member helping us to classify some beetles on their external characteristics. She was very enthusiastic and impressed by our determination to get it right! Our physicist did extremely well considering he was well out of his comfort zone. We got talking about ways of remembering the levels of classification: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Then tried applying it to a few exhibits. This was for me an example of informal learning, where one stimulus leads to another.

2. One of the key features of Cocoon is that it has a strong emphasis on How Science Works, particularly the people behind the science. Many of the scientists that work at the NHM are show cased in videos, posters and animations. These show what goes on 'behind the scenes.' These are real life scientists solving problems today - there was an exhibit on tackling malaria by finding ways to control malaria. Another one, that we started was packing a bag for an expedition to a rainforest and getting the relevant paperwork. This takes place on an interactive table following instructions and making decisions from information given by a NHM scientist on video.

3. Finally, I really enjoyed the section about historic figures that have contributed to the collections at the NHM. Particularly my favourite, the enigmatic Sir Joseph Banks. I scanned a lot of info onto my NaturePlus card on this exhibit.

The point for me was that the interactive exhibits stimulated discussion and learning and these led to further conversations about pedagogy and how we would manage students on a visit. I can imagine pupils getting excited by the data collection. However, what do you do with the info when you get home/back to the school laboratory?

When I got home, I registered on NaturePlus and typed in my card number and after a bit of searching, found my saved information. I think KS4 and 5 would be ok with this, it might be a bit much for KS3. I am still reading through it, though it is visually attractive with good quality pictures and graphics. I am at the stage where I am thinking 'what next' - how could this be made into a useful learning experience back at school? This is an excellent opportunity for developing ideas of HSW, particularly the work of scientists at the NHM.

A final note, probably the highlight of our trip, was the Spirit Collection Tour. You have to book as there are only seven places per tour. Our guide takes us literally behind the scenes of the museum into the cool (in both senses of the word) storage vaults that contain millions of animals preserved in spirit. This is the research base of the NHM. The enthusiastic tour guide could relate it all to her own work, including a preserved heart of a killer whale that she had recently dissected. We then met up with a giant squid in a very long tank and came face to face with preserved specimens that were collected by Charles Darwin on the Beagle - his own handwriting is on the labels. Spine tingling stuff. Complete. Awe. and. Wonder.

Meeting the giant squid



Darwin's recently discovered tortoise and original specimens




Our guide and preserved echidnas



Me and the spirits



Close up squid suckers and 'teeth' - amazing!

 I learnt that squids stomachs go through their tubular brain and so they have to really mush their prey to avoid brain damage!
The NHM is an amazing place. You cannot help but learn, ask questions and bask in the wonders of the planet we share with so many other weired and wonderful organisms. Take your family, take your friends and above all if you are a teacher - take your pupils. Every child deserves to experience this place with or without a clipboard.

AC-G