Beauty in Science – Designing Learning Environments for Aesthetic Engagement in DBER
This project aims at investigating how to rethink learning environments as socio-material ecologies (social, spatial/material and digital), fostering aesthetic engagement with disciplinary theory in science education.
In this study, we aim at redesigning learning environments (material and social, digital and analog) as spaces for aesthetic experiences in science learning and making, to make science theory more accessible, leveraging affective and cognitive perception.
We see science knowledge, practice, and lab spaces in their sociomaterial complexity, as ideal contexts for enabling students and teachers to engage with disciplinary aesthetics as epistemic resource, supporting students to transition from novices to experienced modelers, acquiring abstract knowledge in their disciplines (Verma 2023, Smith et al 2024).
Expert scientists (computer scientists, biologists and physicists) perceive and describe their theoretical abstractions in aesthetic terms e.g.: elegant, clean, beautiful. Interestingly preliminary data from our studies show that a majority of students might perceive abstractions as confusing or challenging, missing to see their role in framing their experimental and future professional practice, on the computer as well as in the biolab.
In Object Oriented programming, computer scientists talk about “bad smell” (Verma et al 2023) to define hints of overcomplicated code, which might lead to issues in execution and in code maintenance. The same can be said for mathematical formulas and proofs (Sinclaire 2001), where beauty is more acknowledged as a resource for leading the intuition of mathematicians in their problem solving. In biology and chemistry, practical work in the lab is aimed at theorizing from experiments with messy material, to capture their essence and elaborate wellexpressed or elegant formulas and theories, often in a collaborative effort (Lyngs 2024).
WP leader: Associate Professor Emanuela Marchetti, SDU
Lead Researcher: PhD student Johan Kørvel Sørensen, SDU
In this project, we focus on the development of innovative learning environments, which could support struggling students, in grasping complex theoretical concepts from their discipline, leveraging experts’ aesthetic perception of scientific abstractions. The disciplines in focus in this project are computer science (CS), mathematics, in connection with the theory behind computer science, and biology. Hence a main goal of this project would be to define how do expert scientists perceive beauty in their abstractions and explore ways to support them in articulating it, so to make it accessible to struggling students as epistemic resource, through design-based research.
The main question of this work package is: How can the design of learning environments and tools foster innovative teaching practices (lab project work, assessment forms) and enable students to “appreciate” the aesthetics in science theory?
We work with the following subquestions:
SRQ1: How do experienced disciplinarians (teachers and TAs) perceive and articulate the beauty of abstractions and formalisms in their disciplines?
SRQ2: How can aesthetic perception of theoretical abstractions and models contribute to strengthening disciplinary understanding and skills for science students?
SRQ3: How can the aesthetic perception of abstractions be articulated so to nurture deeper forms of understanding in the discipline, with consequences for self-motivation and disciplinary identities as “experts” in struggling students?
WP leader: Professor Connie Svabo, SDU
Lead Researcher: Post doc/Assistant Professor, SDU
This WP aims at fostering student engagement by designing integrated learning environments where classroom, laboratory, and field experiences are experienced as meaningful and connected parts of a coherent learning journey. By involving students in open-ended, inquiry-based, and aesthetic learning processes, the project seeks to strengthen student agency, enabling them to take an active and selfdirected role in their own learning and knowledge production. Through the integration of multiple learning environments and representations, the project supports the development of conceptual understanding, helping students to navigate and make sense of complex scientific phenomena across contexts. By connecting theory with hands-on experimentation and real-world problem contexts, the project aims to enhance students’ science identity and their ability to connect theory and practice.
In this WP we ask the following research questions:
RQ1: How can laboratory and field settings be understood as interconnected (onto-)epistemic, discipline-based learning environments?
RQ2: How do students experience continuity, meaning-making, and transitions across classroom, laboratory, and field learning environments in biology and chemistry education?
RQ3: How are knowledge, practices, and representations enacted and transformed across ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ learning environments and across disciplinary and ancillary subjects?
RQ4: What might biology and chemistry learning environments look like if designed as aesthetic, integrated learning ecologies across classroom, field, and laboratory settings?
