Integrating expertise for teaching conservation science to cultural heritage conservation students – A closer look at radiation, colour and museum lighting topics

Abstract

Introduction to Conservation Science (ICS) is a curricular unit (CU) from the bachelor’s degree in Conservation-Restoration at NOVA School of Science and Technology. This CU was created in 2017 to fill a gap in the academic degree – the need for a bridge between fundamental sciences (1st year) and conservation-restoration diagnosis (3rd year). For this reason, ICS was designed with the main goal of teaching 2nd year students how to look at, approach and solve problems of Cultural Heritage, through the combination of reflexive thinking and object-led analysis. ICS was first designed by an expert in Conservation Science with academic background in physics. However, from the perception of the students’ struggle to understand the purpose of ICS subjects to their future professional activity, a professor with expertise in Conservation and Restoration was invited in 2019 to work together in the re-design of the CU, through an integrated approach between the two experts. ICS was then revised with the introduction of new perspectives and topics, as well as new communication routes to students. This work highlights this partnership as a good practice methodology to involve conservation-restoration students into science, focusing on the ICS classes specifically dedicated to radiation, colour, and museum lighting.

Keywords

• academic training
• collaborative teaching
• conservation science
• cultural heritage
• fundamental sciences