Using out-of-school sources to enrich science education

Many people equate learning in science with the formal science curriculum. Yet much, if not most, of children’s learning about science takes place outside the confines of a timetable and a school. There is a mound of evidence to show that this ‘informal’ learning is both powerful and tightly held onto. Museums, newspapers, magazines, television and the internet can all be sources of learning outside school. This chapter considers children’s out-ofschool learning and studies in detail three sources which teachers can make use of.