WHAT IF…? DRAMA AS A TOOL FOR SOCIO SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

Abstract

Modern societies are characterized by a controversial interface between science and technology. At this interface Socio-Scientific Issues arise, encompassing socio-political values and techno-scientific challenges which are complex and involve diverse perspectives. This paper addresses in what way drama allows to explore socio-scientific issues in science education. We connect to the educational framework, socio-scientific inquiry based learning (SSIBL). The rationale for SSIBL is participation through inquiry in addressing authentic questions on socio-scientific issues. We argue that dramatization allows students to enact possible solutions to such questions and illustrate dilemmas. Despite the relatively large body of literature, drama in science education remains unexplored and underused due to difficulties in crossing borders between the pedagogy of science and the pedagogy of drama. To bridge this divide we stress the congruence between science and drama and arrange socio scientific inquiry as drama experiments. The techniques for staging and expressing emotions and ideas are equivalent elements compared to the components of scientific inquiry. Possible ‘what if… scenarios’ can be staged and tested in an experimental fashion thereby naturally crossing the pedagogical borders between science and drama. We draw on experiences from a case study in which students collaboratively scripted a moral/ethical role-play on science in society and performed and witnessed it in classroom. This approach constituted a collaborative student-centered process, allowing the teacher to stimulate reflection on the imagined dilemmas. Further research on such drama-experiments could provide a more complex understanding of how they further the emphatic imagination of science students.