Communicating science through theatre: middle school students’ noticings and articulations of ‘doing’ and ‘being’ in science after a theatre performance

ABSTRACT This paper highlights an investigation of how middle school students responded to a theatre performance designed to portray science as a humanistic and relatable endeavour that youth – similar to the youth in the audience – engage in during their everyday lives. The play included in this study was generated as a part of a design research project with a collaborative community comprised of artists, scientists, educators, and researchers. The design and implementation of this cross-disciplinary intervention and the research included in this study represent the design team’s initial attempts to better understand youths’ response to dramatic productions, and specifically which characters’ practices youth ‘count’ as scientific. The design and goals of the project are described, followed by an analysis of focus group interviews with students (N = 65), which were conducted after watching the play. Despite the design team’s intentions, findings highlight that the majority of students included in this study recognised a narrow range of practices taking place in the play as scientific, which led to a process of re-examination, complication, and interrogation the findings and design. Guided by Butler’s theory of performativity, this paper is used as a reflection space in order to theorise this work in a new direction.