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Natural History Dioramas – Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes

Socio-cultural Aspects

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  • © 2019

Overview

  • Points out how dioramas can contribute to the well-being of societies

  • Focuses on individual, cultural and social factors that influence the learning experience

  • Discusses the potentials and limitations of dioramas as contemporary agents of knowledge transfer in science

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Reaching Different Types of Audiences Through Dioramas

  2. Problematic Aspects of Dioramas

  3. Connecting People with the Natural World Through Dioramas

Keywords

About this book

This book focuses on socio-cultural issues and the potential of using dioramas in museums to engage various audiences with – and in – contemporary debates and big issues, which society and the natural environment are facing, such as biodiversity loss.
From the early 1900s, with the passage of time and changes in cultural norms in societies, this genre of exhibits evolved in response to the changes in entertainment, expectations and expressed needs of museum visitors. The challenge has always been to provide meaningful, relevant experiences to visitors, and this is still the aim today. Dioramas are also increasingly valued as learning tools. Contributions in this book specifically focus on their educational potential. In practice, dioramas are used by a wide range of educational practitioners to assist learners in developing and understanding specific concepts, such as climate change, evolution or or conservation issues. In this learning process, dioramas not only contribute to scientific understanding and cultural awareness, but also reconnect wide audiences to the natural world and thereby contribute to the well-being of societies.

In the simultaneously published book: “Natural History Dioramas – Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes, Science Educational Aspects" the editors discuss the history of dioramas and their building and science learning aspects, as well as current developments and their place in the visitor experience. 

Reviews

“Readers are most likely to be those professionally interested in dioramas and this particular aspect of science education/communication.” (Sue Howarth, The Biologist, September 17, 2019)

Editors and Affiliations

  • University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Annette Scheersoi

  • University College London (UCL), Institute of Education, London, UK

    Sue Dale Tunnicliffe

About the editors

Annette Scheersoi is a Professor in Biology Education at the University of Bonn,
Germany. Her doctorate was on museum’s exhibition concepts and the use of different
media for communicating biological knowledge. Since 2005 she is a biology teachertrainer
and researcher, first at Frankfurt University, then at the University of Cologne
and now at Bonn’s university. Her research on biology learning focuses on interest
development in out-of-school learning environments. Annette also develops learningmaterials for schools as well as for museums, zoos and botanic gardens.


Sue Dale Tunnicliffe is a Reader in Science Education at UCL Institute of
Education, University College London. She holds a bachelors degree from
Westfield College, University of London in Zoology and trained as a secondary
biology teacher at the university’s Institute of Education. After teaching in
grammar schools for a few years she had children and, wanting to find out more
about how young children learnt science, particularly biology, she entered
primary school teaching and is now interested in pre school learning, as well as
animals as exhibits. She set up and ran a new Primary Science and Design
Technology advisory team for London Borough of Richmond and then became
Head of Education at the Zoological Society of London. She has worked at the
BBC and in a cultural museum. Her doctorate was from King’s College,
London ’Talking about animals: conversations of children in zoos, a museum and
a farm”. She has published widely.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Natural History Dioramas – Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes

  • Book Subtitle: Socio-cultural Aspects

  • Editors: Annette Scheersoi, Sue Dale Tunnicliffe

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00208-4

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-00207-7Published: 14 November 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-00208-4Published: 02 November 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 211

  • Number of Illustrations: 53 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Science Education, Learning & Instruction, Teaching and Teacher Education, Cultural and Media Studies, general

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