Investigating learning from informal sources: Listening to conversations and observing play in science museums

The knowledge that pupils bring to science lessons can come from many sources, including some that are deliberately educative and some that contain scientific information, although education is not necessarily their primary purpose. Museums provide a useful setting to investigate the process of learning from informal sources; samples of data obtained from listening to groups of people as they interact with different types of exhibit in the British Museum (Natural History), and from systematic observation of pupils investigating phenomena in the Discovery Room at the Parc de la Villette, illustrate the information that can be obtained.