Connections Between Nature and Mathematics: The Fibonacci's Sequence in the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto

Introduction

Education is a central process in the life of each of us, taking place as we grow and age and in every environment we encounter. As today’s societies face increasingly complex local and global challenges, the solutions required to address this complexity entail scientific, social, cultural, and economic dimensions that are often transversal to the educational, health, and ecological systems (English, L. D., 2009). Therefore, it is of paramount importance to foster collaboration between formal and non-formal educational agents and platforms to promote meaningful and lifelong learning opportunities.

In modern societies, people are increasingly becoming more detached from nature, a phenomenon that can come about as the result of our search for comfort and the modifications we introduce in the natural world, especially in urban environments, to achieve it (Kahn, Weiss, and Harrington, 2018).

During the last decades, there has been a tendency for science and technology museums to restructure their material to make it more efficient from a communicative point of view, as well as to create privileged relationships with institutions of formal education. (Gkouskou, 2021, p. 217). Science centers and museums can be seen as educational institutions that provide tools and activities, frequently addressing pressing issues related to the interaction of science, technology, society, and the arts, many of which can be articulated with formal school programs (Teles & Fonseca, 2019, p. 132). By focusing on the connections that can be established between different areas of knowledge and building an interdisciplinary context, it is possible to prompt the development of scientific reasoning and advance knowledge of key scientific concepts. This had led to the recognition of the educational worth of interdisciplinarity in both formal and non-formal settings (Santaolalla, 2020). One of the major challenges science educators face nowadays pertains to the identification and use of efficient strategies to engage children in problem-solving when complex systems are involved and within interdisciplinary contexts. Studies have shown that a possible way to meet this goal is through the promotion of direct contact and exploration of the natural world (Kahn, Weiss, and Harrington, 2018; Chawla, 2020). These authentic interactions are known to foster an increased understanding of scientific and artistic phenomena. Humans need to feel connected with nature to commit to its protection (Chawla, 2020). Contact with natural environments, both wild and managed, has been identified as a way to connect with nature. Studies have shown that children and adults alike, who express higher levels of connection with nature are more likely to report actions in favor of the environment, besides displaying increased levels of health and well-being, and that these effects are strengthened through the frequency and duration of the contact (Chawla, 2020). Accordingly, opportunities for children to connect with nature are important when aiming to preserve the biosphere, by prompting action toward biodiversity conservation. And in this regard, the use of exploratory and discovery activities has been shown to reinforce and deepen the connection (Barrable, 2019). In particular, the link between science and mathematics has been shown to have considerable educational potential when applied to the development of active learning activities (Tytler, 2021). Museums, botanical gardens, nature centers, and planetariums, for example, can provide complementary learning experiences inspired by contact with nature. How these spaces operate provides room for interdisciplinarity (Seligmann, 2014).