musings | in the halls and beyond the walls

A natural history museum illuminates the workings and wonders of the natural world. It's full of objects — meteorites, feather headdresses, dinosaur nests — collected from all over the world by different kinds of scientists. Over the course of a year, literally hundreds of expeditions set out from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Whether they're led by biologists looking for microbial life in Antarctica or ichthyologists searching for a near-extinct catfish in Colombia, these scientists go into the field to ask questions, gather evidence, and find answers.

A nest of dinosaur eggs from the late Cretaceous period (72 million years ago) found in Mongolia. On display in the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs at the AMNH.
© AMNH Library, Special Collections

Why not send your students, like scientists, into the field? Why not turn your museum visit into a scientific expedition? An expedition involves a quest: You want to find something out. You can have your students act like scientists by posing a question — such as "Why did the mammoths go extinct?" Explain that you're on your way to the place that might contain the evidence. Just like a scientist, each student must collect data through his or her observations and frame a response to the question.

Before a scientist leaves on an expedition, she's done her research, knows what to focus on, and has a field journal and a flashlight in her pack. Clearly, advance preparation is important. But the best tool you and your class can bring on a field trip isn't a map or a pickax. It's a mindset: a way of framing your class trip as an exploration of the ways in which knowledge is generated in the field. The National Science Education Standards talk about science as inquiry, which is active, exploratory, and investigative in nature. To foster this scientific way of thinking, consider a field trip that involves activities for your students like:

asking questions;

making observations;

collecting data;

recording observations (through words, illustrations, etc.);

constructing an argument based on evidence;

analyzing and interpreting evidence; and

communicating ideas to your peers.

A Masai headdress on display in the Hall of African Peoples at the AMNH.
© AMNH Library, Special Collections

Begin thinking of questions and assignments that will require your students to reason, weigh ideas, and think for themselves. How about, "When we come back, I want you to describe the giant squid to someone from another planet." Or, "Look around and find three things Inuit women used in daily life." Or, "How would you create a hall like this to illustrate American family life in the 21st century?" Or, "Come back with a drawing of your favorite object and tell us why you think the exhibit designers included it in the exhibit."

If you can, build in time to explore. Part of the value of a field trip lies in the excitement of visiting a place that students might not get to on their own very often. They'll have fun, and they'll catch sight of things that might inspire a future visit. It's natural for learners to make discoveries on their own in museums, because these institutions value objects and the information they contain. As students interact with the museum environment — making observations, describing objects, drawing, solving puzzles, looking for clues, handling specimens — they become active learners. Like scientists, they're on a mission, hunting for evidence.

Underpinning an "expedition" of this kind, both logistically and intellectually, is the open-ended question. It doesn't take long to find the answer to "When did the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) go extinct?" On the other hand, a question such as, "What factors led to the extinction of the dodo, and could this have been prevented?" leads to in-depth investigation and reflection. If one of your students wants to find out the size of a barosaur, you might broaden the inquiry by asking her to think about the advantages, and disadvantages, of being as big as a barosaur.

An open-ended question generates discussion. What evidence have the students gathered in support of their conclusions? How can they prove the accuracy of their findings? Even better, an open-ended question forms the basis for further inquiry back in the classroom. Of course it's risky to initiate a discussion that may end up somewhere unpredictable; the answer for the day might be, "I don't know; let's find out." But this is a risk that scientists take all the time. After all, some expeditions don't yield new evidence. Some produce findings that challenge what the scientists believed to be true. What better way to convey to your students the fact that the pursuit of scientific knowledge is an unpredictable, ongoing, infinitely challenging human endeavor.