1.  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  1.1  This submission is from York Museums Trust who run Yorkshire Museum & Gardens and who are responsible for Designated museum collections of geology, natural history and scientific instruments. Museums make a great contribution to the learning agenda through support for formal education at all levels and through inspiring informal learning. There are limited funding streams to support science and science-based collections in museums, but these are often short-term programmes and initiatives often lack sustainability. The contribution that museums can and do make in the public engagement with science if often under-recognised. In order to develop museums' support for science learning, a long-term source of funding for projects should be established, to enable museums to work as a public face in partnerships with schools, colleges and universities.

2.  INTRODUCTION

  2.1  York Museums Trust was established in 2002 as an independent charitable trust to manage the museum and gallery service on behalf of City of York Council. The Trust is responsible for four venues in the city of York and over 1.5 million objects and works of art. The whole of YMT's collections are Designated as a pre-eminent collection of national and international importance.

  2.2  Yorkshire Museum and Gardens is the main venue housing YMT's scientific collections including Geology, Natural History and Scientific Instruments. Museum Gardens houses an early 19th century Observatory, which remains in working order, as well as botanical specimens although the botanical nature of the gardens has been uncelebrated and unmanaged for decades.

  2.3  York's science collections owe their origins to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society (YPS) who established themselves and the museum as a "scientific institution for the County of York" in 1822. The collections include internationally important specimens from the history of Geology including the excavated remains from Kirkdale Cave, famously interpreted by Dean Buckland. The collection also contains over 1500 type and figured specimens from across the natural sciences. The majority of the collection, as with any museum, is held in store at any one time.

  2.4  York Museums Trust has invested substantially in building a science team to care for, interpret and make accessible these important collections. This team consists of: Curator of Geology (who is Team Leader), Camilla Nichol; Assistant Curator of Geology, Stuart Ogilvy; Assistant Curator of Biology, Pip Strang; Assistant Curator of Astronomy, Martin Lunn; Assistant Curator of Science Learning, Christine Borland. They will shortly be joined by a new role of Learning Manager for the site. The team is supported by a growing number of volunteers.

  2.5  This evidence is submitted by the Director of Collections, Mary Kershaw, for York Museums Trust, who has overall responsibility for the curatorial staff at York Museums Trust and for the care, development and use of the Trust's extensive collections.

3.  POTENTIAL FOR MUSEUMS' CONTRIBUTION TO THE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH SCIENCE

  3.1  Museums' unique contribution to the public engagement with science is the wealth of material evidence they hold. Their collections are massive reservoirs of data, inspiration, and learning resources. They offer the opportunity for the object-based discovery learning that can be such a powerful stimulus to engaging with the process of scientific investigation.

  3.2  The privilege of being able to handle a complete Roman vessel and the raw materials from which it was made is a powerful experience, and one that for most people can only be had in a museum. Physical interaction with "the real thing" can be a deep and evocative encounter—holding in your hands a meteorite that has been circling the sun for 4.5 billion years can be mind-blowing.

  3.3  Museums are ideally placed to offer less formal, out-of-the-classroom science experiences to engage young people with science. Museum collections offer opportunities to apply science to a range of situations and contexts that offer inspiration and experience beyond the classroom. Some of these are directly linked to pure science, while others demonstrate how applied science affects and interprets many aspects of the world around us.

  3.4  Many museums with science collections also contain material from other disciplines, and the opportunity for inter-disciplinary work abounds in museums. Museums can bridge the gap between science and history. For example, much of what we understand about the past has been discovered or confirmed using scientific analysis. An exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum, Fingerprints of Time, is built around this appliance of science and explores how scientific techniques and methodology are used to determine the ages of things from meteorites to Victorian whisky.

  3.5  Museums are audience-focused institutions that use collections in imaginative and sometimes unexpected ways. As examples, some successful projects based on science at the Yorkshire museum involved secondary children developing literacy skills within the context of an exhibition on the Ice Age—studying and performing a Robert Frost poem, or a class of music pupils working with a renowned sound artist and composer to create a sound installation based on the sounds of the Antarctic.

4.  SUPPORT FOR FORMAL LEARNING WITH SCIENCE FROM YORK MUSEUMS TRUST

  4.1  At York, we have been able to invest in developing resources for schools drawn from our collections through financial investment of Renaissance in the Regions. Prior to the establishment of the Trust, and the investment through the Renaissance programme, there was no support for formal science learning at the Yorkshire Museum.

  4.2  Primary school children learn through playful activities with a science bent. We can work in partnership with teachers and primary science advisors to develop sessions that directly support the requirements of the National Curriculum and we contribute to primary school oriented festivals. For example, we offer a Time Trolley for self-guided sessions around Fingerprints of Time exhibition; Roman catapults—design and building catapults with a Roman theme, Super bugs is an online interactive game to investigate minibeasts. These are all collection based and directly linked to KS1-2 topics.

  4.3  Secondary school children are more difficult to prise from the classroom because of timetable demands, so we offer different modes of delivery—online resources, lesson plans and learning journeys for teachers are available online through the Yorkshire regional My Learning website (www.mylearning.org). Ideas and Evidence is supported by Kirkdale Cave, with opportunities for year groups to get involved in science debate—debating competitions on evolution vs creationism based on the Kirkdale cave theories. YMT also participates in school science fairs and careers fairs and we offer work placements for secondary school students who are engaged in the real work of museums—collection documentation, storage, exhibition, etc.

  4.4  Undergraduate students engage with the museum and the collections in a less structured way. We offer volunteering opportunities for students to work with the collections on a variety of projects which may be detailed research, public interpretation, exhibition development, conservation or educational activities. We have the raw material for thesis projects and dissertations that apply real science using geological, biological and archaeological collections to interpret our landscape, biodiversity and human history. We work with students from the Physics Department at the University of York on various Astronomical projects from public dissemination during important astronomical events such as the Transit of Venus, or eclipses to a re-assessment of the work of the 18th century astronomer Thomas Cooke.

  4.5  Perhaps the strongest role for museums in the public engagement with science is in the informal learning opportunities they can offer. We aim to engage people with science through the collections in our care and to help them understand and appreciate their surroundings better. Science is a way of looking at the world, not just serious folk in white lab coats! Examples in York are: Wild Wednesdays—hands-on family days based in museum gardens to look at wildlife, geology and archaeology; fossil roadshows; open days and evenings at the Observatory, and hands-on collection based activities in the museum itself. The emphasis for all these events is that they must be hands on. Science is about discovery, asking questions, testing and interpretation so we try to offer as realistic a science experience as possible.

5.  FUNDING SCIENCE PROGRAMMES AT YORK MUSEUMS TRUST

  5.1  York is one of five museum services that form the Yorkshire Hub. Yorkshire is a Phase II Hub, which receives funding support through Renaissance in the Regions, a programme funded through DCMS and MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council). The science team has been strengthened through the recruitment of key curatorial and learning posts through the investment of Renaissance.

  5.2  At the heart of all science based activity at York Museums Trust are our collections. Currently projects, initiatives and opportunities for developing the collections in science are funded through a diverse range of initiatives which are often project based, short term and usually for relatively small sums. York has secured additional financial support for projects related to our science collections through DCF (Designation Challenge Fund), the PRISM fund, the Curry fund, Re:Discover, Creative Minds, and COPUS.

  5.3  Many excellent initiatives come and go, and are all short term. Programmes such as Re:discover, Creative Minds, and COPUS grants have all achieved wonderful projects that have reached many people with science and scientific heritage, but the funding stream is short term and so the opportunity to build upon their successes is not available.

  5.4  Major funding opportunities such as those through lottery distributors such as HLF are not easily available in for science collections. HLF is naturally heritage-oriented, so funding is available for the natural heritage, but it is not possible to fund unadulterated science developments in museums in there without having a major historical focus to jog it along, and there is no capital investment equivalent for science. Often with this and other funding sources, the real science is a poor relation to science as a humanity—ie the history of science.

  5.5  We have a desire to continue to develop our collections as a resource for learning and inspiration, but funding for acquisitions in science collections is inadequate for the scale of potential purchase. The PRISM fund offers grants of up to £20,000 (50% of purchase price) as opposed to its sister programme, the V&A Purchase Fund which offers up to £80,000 for purchases in the subjects of arts, literature or history. There is no funding stream to rival those in the art world, for example, such as the Art Fund.

6.  RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTIONS

  6.1  We would be pleased to see a formal recognition from government of the active and inspirational role that museums can play in the public engagement with science, and particularly in sparking an interest in young people to pursue scientific subjects.

  6.2  We would encourage government to actively consider the positive contributions museums can make as a user-friendly interface between the public and scientists when it considers programmes for the promotion of science, and to explicitly include museums as effective partners for the public face of many of its science programmes.

6.3. We would encourage government to support Universities with Science Departments to build active partnerships with relevant regional museums to offer an accessible public interface for scientific developments, and to help develop public dissemination abilities as part of their professional toolkits.

6.4. Increased support for the PRISM fund would enable larger grants to be offered for new acquisitions to science collections and for the preservation of science collections, so that they are available as resources for learning and inspiration.

  6.5  In order to sustain and develop museums support for science learning, we would wish to see a long-term source of funding for projects established. Such a fund would enable us to work in partnership with other bodies such as schools, colleges and universities, and would enable us to look forward to a viable and sustainable future in science and not just the history of science.

June 2007