ABSTRACT
Elementary school teachers regularly spend time designing and leading field trips (Leinhardt & Gregg, 2002). Scholars have focused on museums as informal places of learning for families and other leisure time visitors (Ash, 2003; Borun, Chambers & Cleghorn, 1996; Crowley et al., 2001; Stevens & Hall, 1997) but not for elementary school, particularly sixth-grade students. Recent studies have started to shed light on the experiences of children who visit museums, as distinct contexts with meaning and symbol systems, as part of field trips that typically last one to two hours (Anderson, Lucas & Ginns, 2003; Cox-Petersen, Marsh, Kisiel & Melber, 2003). Sixth-graders, who must soon transition from learning with one teacher who teaches all subjects to a fragmented school day with multiple teachers are a particularly important group of visitors (S. Wineburg, personal communication, December 2001). They will deal with a disconnectedness of school subjects as well as a potential disconnectedness of contexts. As museum educator Lisa Roberts asks, “Is the museum setting—informal, selfpaced, three-dimensional, and multisensory—even suited to the kind of linear, cognitive thinking that characterizes traditional educational endeavors?” (1997, p.7–8). Therefore, my research questions are: How do we articulate or describe sixth-grade students’ beliefs about scientific knowledge and artistic knowledge and how that knowledge is justified?; and How do field trips to museums and other sites fit within these understandings about knowledge?
