Development of knowledge about electricity and magnetism during a visit toa science museum and related post-visit activities

This article reports on part of a larger study of how 11- and 12-year-old s tudents construct knowledge about electricity and magnetism by drawing on a spects of their experiences during the course of a school visit to an inter active science museum and subsequent classroom activities linked to the sci ence museum exhibits. The significance of this study is that it focuses on an aspect of school visits to informal learning centers that has been negle cted by researchers in the past, namely the influence of post-visit activit ies in the classroom on subsequent learning and knowledge construction. Thi s study provides evidence that the integrated series of post-visit activiti es resulted in students constructing and reconstructing their personal know ledge of science concepts and principles represented in the science museum exhibits, sometimes toward the accepted scientific understanding and someti mes in different and surprising ways. A descriptive interpretive approach w as adopted, with principal data sources comprising student-generated concep t maps and semistructured interviews at three stages of the study. Findings demonstrate the interrelationships between learning that occurs at school, home, and in informal learning settings. The study also underscores for cl assroom teachers and staff of science museums and similar centers the impor tance of planning pre- and post-visit activities. The importance of this pl anning is not only to support the development of scientific conceptions, bu t also to detect and respond to alternative conceptions that may be produce d or strengthened during a visit to an informal learning center. (C) 2000 J ohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.