Science and Drama: Contemporary and Creative Approaches to Teaching and Learning

This edited volume presents interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to drama and science in education. Drawing on a solid basis of research, it offers theoretical backgrounds, showcases rich examples, and provides evidence of improved student learning and engagement. The chapters explore various connections between drama and science, including: students’ ability to engage with science through drama; dramatising STEM; mutuality and inter-relativity in drama and science; dramatic play-based outdoor activities; and creating embodied, aesthetic and affective learning experiences. The book illustrates how drama education draws upon contemporary issues and their complexity, intertwining with science education in promoting scientific literacy, creativity, and empathetic understandings needed to interpret and respond to the many challenges of our times. Findings throughout the bookdemonstrate how lessons learned from drama and science education can remain discrete yet when brought together, contribute to deeper, more engaged and transformative student learning.

Dr. Peta J White is a science and environmental education senior lecturer at Deakin University. Peta has worked in classrooms, as a curriculum consultant and manager and as a teacher educator in several jurisdictions across Canada and Australia. Peta gained her Ph.D. in Saskatchewan, Canada, where she focused on learning to live sustainably which became a platform from which to educate future teachers. Her interest in initial teacher educator, activist environmental/sustainability and climate change  education, action-orientated methodologies, and ways to infuse school science with contemporary research science and science practice foregrounding socio-scientific drives her current teaching/research scholarship.

Ms. Kitty van Cuylenburg is a practicing drama and science teacher based on the Bass Coast, a teacher coach for Teach For Australia and a producer of theatre in the great outdoors with In The Park Productions. In 2017, she was the recipient of the Rob Galbraith award for Excellence in Drama Teaching by Drama Victoria. Her professional background is in mine-site geology and hydrogeology; she has worked for an education startup in NYC and has a passion for interdisciplinary practice of science and drama. Kitty's recent research is focussed on how students can make meaning of their lives through this interdisciplinary practice, and how this facilitates deep learning.