We explored the semiotic choices children in grades 1-6 made that nurtured embodied, dramatizing performances in science classes at urban public schools, serving predominantly students of color in a large US city. We studied how such choices in school and home settings (when instruction was remote during the COVID-19 pandemic) were implicated in…

A team of literacy, science, and theatre educators have been working to engage children in an urban public school system in the United States through embodied performances, where students embody and dramatise science ideas. This study focuses on one fourth-grade classroom when instruction was done remotely due to Covid-19. Children in the class…

The implementation of theatre as a didactic tool for teaching science provides a new perspective on the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in the construction of meaningful learning experiences. Gamification and collaborative work are functional strategies to teach scientific concepts in a creative way. However, there are still conceptual…

Educators increasingly recognize the importance of disciplinary literacy for student success, beginning as early as the primary grades. This cutting-edge volume examines ways to help K-12 students develop the literacy skills and inquiry practices needed for high-level work in different academic domains. Chapters interweave research, theory, and…

There is a knowledge gap in best practices for incorporating performance arts into science instructions. The study focused on the design and implementation of the Performance Arts Enhanced 3-Stage Instructional Model (PAEIM), which incorporated drama, dance and music. The PAEIM was implemented in mixed factorial quasi-experimental research during…

This paper highlights an investigation of how middle school students responded to a theatre performance designed to portray science as a humanistic and relatable endeavour that youth -- similar to the youth in the audience -- engage in during their everyday lives. The play included in this study was generated as a part of a design research project…

In 2016, professors representing Biology, Dance, Music, and Theatre and dance program students created "Dunes," a performance piece that depicts the ecological succession of Michigan's sand dunes. The process used to make this work is a direct representation of the steps that Team Hyena Puppet, a collective of teaching artists and…

With my background in acting, stagecraft, and some knowledge of theatre history from high school and college, it was natural for me as a novice teacher to think about theatre as a metaphor for teaching. In this article I will discuss how over my career I conceived of teaching in terms of theatrical metaphors, and make a comparison with a common…

Constructivist teaching methods such as using drama have been promoted as productive ways of learning, especially in science. Specifically, role plays, using given roles or simulated and improvised enactments, are claimed to improve learning of concepts, understanding the nature of science and appreciation of science's relationship with…

Energy Theater is a dynamic, full-body activity that engages all students in representing the flow of energy in various phenomena, such as a light bulb burning steadily or a refrigerator cooling food. In Energy Theater, each participant acts as a unit of energy that has one form at a time. Regions on the floor correspond to objects in a physical…

This article focuses on the impact of a professional play that we developed in order to introduce elementary learners of an urban school to the research of a scientist working at a local university. The play was written in a way that might increase student understandings of the nature of science, scientific inquiry, the identity of scientists, and…

Evolution and inheritance appear in the new National Science Curriculum for England, which comes into effect from September 2014. In the curriculum documents, it is expected that pupils in year 6 (ages 10-11) should be taught to: (1) recognise that living things have changed over time; (2) recognise that living things produce offspring of the same…

"Why do I need to know this if I don't want to be a scientist?" is a question middle school teachers probably hear on a regular basis. In an effort to answer it, the authors have tried to appeal to students' varied interests, and thus developed myriad ways to show students how science is a part of their everyday lives. What is described in this…

With the increasing prominence of "How science works" in science courses in England and the imperative of equipping students to engage with the controversies thrown up by the advance of science, science departments need new teaching strategies. Here we describe the application of "Dramatic Enquiry" to GCSE science. The project,…

There is, in Greece, an ongoing attempt to breach the boundaries established between the different teaching-learning subjects of compulsory education. In this context, we are interested in exploring to what degree the teaching and learning of ideas from the sciences' "internal life" (Hacking, in: Pickering (ed) "Science as practice…