Dance/Drama in Science

One of the greatest take aways from my Drama/Dance classes at Brock is realizing that there are so many opportunities for cross curricular learning. Below are some of the ways that dance/drama were incorporated into science.

One of the most memorable activities from class was when we were each given apart of the digestive system and asked to create a movement that would represent our part. I was the gallbladder and so I made a motion that includes swaying and collecting with my arms while making a gurgling sound to represent the bile. We all stood in a line and played out our digestive system. It was fun, funny but also extremely effective in getting us to think about how that body part would work and operate and consider what was it’s job and how could we portray that. This drama lesson not only focused on the science expectation of investigating the structure and function of the organs of the human body system but also embodies Dwyer’s (1996) Learner’s Theory about how information is absorbed, processed, and retained.

• 30% of what you see
• 50% of what you write/draw
• 70% of what you discuss
• 80% of what you do/experience
• 90% of what you teach

In another science activity we were given a poem that related to the particle theory. We had to come up with ways to illiterate our poem using different movements. We created an interceptive dance to tell the story of the state of matter. We used narrative form where our choreography followed a storyline. We were using our bodies and specific movements to explain and understand the partial theory of matter. We examined how particles would move differently if they were a solid, liquid or gas. 

In week 5, my group presented on structures and mechanisms and used dance to describe major weather events. We used call and response, mirroring and canons to demonstrate the learning. In our action we used the strategy of a canon to have students show how a major weather event such as a hurricane or tsunami could impact structures such as city buildings. We showed a video of how an earthquake impacts a city. 

We then had groups choose one weather condition or weather instance, and show, using dance, how the weather condition had changed the way the infrastructure looked before. Students would present and then have other groups guess which weather condition they were showing.