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"Do not kill guinea pig before setting up apparatus:" : the kymograph's lost educational context
- Author(s):
- Alistair Kwan (see profile)
- Date:
- 2016
- Group(s):
- Education and Pedagogy, Education Sciences, Medical Humanities, Science Studies and the History of Science
- Subject(s):
- Educational technology, Education, History, Medicine, Scientific apparatus and instruments--Design and construction, Science--Historiography, Kymograph
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- instruments, Primary sources, objects, Technology in the classroom, History of education, History of medicine, Complexity
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/7e19-rp91
- Abstract:
- The objects of science education are transformed, degraded and disappeared for many reasons, and sometimes take other things with them when they go. This close reading of an undergraduate physiology laboratory report demonstrates how the kymograph was never a stand-alone instrument, but intertwined with conceptual frameworks and technical skills, laboratory amenities, materials, animal supply, technicians. Replacing the obsolete kymograph entails changing all of that. Histories usually focus on progress associated with better measurements and fewer complications; instead, I focus on the complications themselves: what did students learn from them? What laboratory culture disappeared along with them? How have curriculum and pedagogy been transformed by their removal? The connection between progress and demise raises uncomfortable challenges for laboratory pedagogy, and for museum practice: what is laboratory education really about, and what kinds of heritage should museums, libraries and archives preserve to document it?
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 1 year ago
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
- Share this:
Open access, open source, open to all
kymographs-kwan.pdf