Research Roundups: Research considering music within the science curriculum

The main question: are there videos with Taylor Swift music to teach science as well as the times tables we covered last time? Of course there are (from water cycles to tectonic plates). There are a fair number of periodic table songs too (with real elements to your more classic Tom Lehrer version) as well as songs focused around revising complex topics. They do seem to work as well to help students learn more about subjects – and there’s even been research on them (Crowther, Fleming, McMadden, Davis, 2016).

By this point, I can’t imagine anyone is thinking that I’m only justifying music’s usage to deliver other subjects! But this series does reveal research which explores all of the ways music can be used in addition to its core place in the curriculum.

The first area, especially given our new climate crisis focused campaign This Is Not A Rehearsal, is the use of music to explore and engage with climate themes. There are rich examples here (even musicals). I will pick up the theme of ecoliteracy in a later Research Roundup. But for now, Daniel Shevock’s work in this area is well worth a look. Claire Jackson’s recent overview for Music Teacher Magazine also tackles some of these issues in an extremely user friendly and practical way.

For primary, Palmer and Booth argue that ‘incorporating music and song into science lessons not only enriches the educational environment but also contributes to an arts-infused education known to enhance student performance across a wide range of curriculum domains’ (Palmer, Booth 2024). Working in a South African context, Eureka Jansen van Vuuren provides a case study on teaching weather, infused with music, exploring a ‘design method for an integrated teaching approach’ (Van Vuuren, 2022). Even BBC Teach gets in on this act, with resources for exploring instruments alongside the science of how they work in The House of Sound.

Understanding creativity has been used as a tool for thinking about science education; or as a historical connection that might have practical uses – George L. Rogers thinks about ‘the music of the spheres’, ‘Several music-science correlations are explored, including the mathematical commonalities between musical intervals and planetary orbits. The article includes teaching suggestions and student activities’. Writing in The Physics Teacher, Gordon P. Ramsey’s work considers ‘how to teach physics concepts in the context of music at many levels’.

This project (open access) explores a science project of designing a new musical instrument to explore how creativity can be embedded into the curriculum. Robert S. Root-Bernstein’s work on how music and science might use shared tools for thinking is an intriguing prospect in this kind of work.

Also we should note that many kinds of science explore music itself – we’ve already mentioned physics, but also performance science (Williamon, Ginsborg, Perkins and Waddell, 2021).

Compiled by Dr Sarah K. Whitfield – Research Lead for Music Mark