New Perspectives in Science Education

It has long been held that science and arts locate at both ends of the knowledge spectrum. However, history reveals that the two fields may share many features in common. During the European Renaissnce, science and mathematics played key roles in the development of arts, including painting, music, and architecture. On the other hand, the demands of the arts also often drove advances in science and mathematics. This study will report the findings obtained from an in-progress college liberal art course entitled ‘Sciences and Arts in the Renaissance’. Several hand-on activites regarding science, mathematics, and Renaissance arts will be used to engage Taiwanese college students’ learning, stimulate their creativities, and enhance their conceptions regarding science, mathematics, and arts. First of all, an origami activity for making a square root spiral will be employed for students to realize how a beautiful equiangular spiral can be constructed based on a basic mathematical idea. Students will then experence an interdisciplinary activity involving mathematic and music, followed by a lesson on the historical interreationships between the two disciplines. By the end of the course, following the introduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s pioneering ideas of scientific inquiry, students will be asked to reproduce Leonardo’s pyramid-shaped parachute and conduct flight experiments. Before and after each hand-on activity, students will be required to express their views on the interrelationship between science, mathematics and arts. I will compare and contrast students’ pre- and post-views to analyze the effect, if any, of these STEAM activities on promoting students’ scientific creativities and conceptions regarding interreationships between science, mathematics and arts. 
 

Keywords: Renaissance Science, Renaissance Arts, STEAM  Education

References:

[1] Crombie, A. C. (1980). Science and the Arts in the Renaissance: the Search for Truth and Certainty, Old and New. History of Science, 18(4), 233-246.

[2] Peterson, M. A. (2011). Galileo's muse: Renaissance mathematics and the arts. Harvard University Press.