NOT NATURAL: EXHIBITION VISIT
Details
Available: 27 February - 28 June 2024
Levels: 9 - 12
Sessions: Tuesday-Friday at 11am-12pm, 12pm-1pm, 1pm-2pm or 2pm-3pm.
Duration: Up to 1.25 hours
Capacity: Up to 50 students (no minimum)
Cost: FREE but bookings essential
In this self-directed experience, students will be welcomed to the gallery with an introduction to Science Gallery Melbourne and the NOT NATURAL exhibition by a Learning Team staff member. Then, led by their teachers, they will get to explore, participate and immerse in the themes and works of the NOT NATURAL exhibition.
The exhibition will explore the friction between cultural perceptions of nature and the implications of creating synthetic forms of life. Advances in synthetic biology have opened a plethora of possibility and a pandoras box of ethical dilemmas. We’ve stepped into a new era, where the tools of genetic engineering and biotechnology allow us to gene-edit, splice and de-extinct almost anything biological. We get to design new life-forms and modify existing ones. But are we redesigning evolution or is evolution re-designing us? And just because we can, should we?
Teachers are supported with a digital resource pack to extend and tailor the student experience. For each work, the resource contains suggested discussion points and questions, activities, themes and curriculum links. There are also student activities for before and after the Exhibition Visit, accessibility (including sensory) information, and additional resources regarding the concepts, research and technologies explored in the exhibition.
Key Themes: synthetic biology, de-extinction, eco-detachment, new life forms, genetic engineering, connecting to country, ecosystems, hybrids, otherness, biodiversity, bionic life, romanticism, evolution, engineering and design.
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Students will explore and participate in the transdisciplinary art-science-technology installations, experiments and works of the NOT NATURAL exhibition.
Participate in discussions and activities chosen by their teacher (teachers are welcome to use the accompanying exhibition resource).
Be able to ask questions and have conversations with Mediators – our in-house communicators with expert knowledge of the science and art behind the works.
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Victorian Curriculum 7-10: Design and Technologies, Digital Technologies, Science, Visual Arts.
Capabilities 7-10: Critical and Creative Thinking, Ethical, Personal and Social Capability.
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