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Art and science may seem like opposite things. One means the creative flow of ideas, and the other means cold, hard data — some people believe. In fact, the two have much in common. Now, a study finds art can help students remember better what they learned in science class.

Mariale Hardiman, an education specialist, noticed that students who used art in the class listened more carefully. They might ask more questions. They might volunteer more ideas. What’s more, students seemed to remember more of what they had been taught when their science lessons had involved art. To prove that, Hardiman teamed up with some researchers and six local schools.

In the experiment, the researchers worked with teachers in 16 fifth-grade classrooms. They provided traditional science lessons and art-focused ones. In a traditional science class, for example, students might read the information from a book aloud. In the art-focused one, they might sing the information instead.

The team randomly assigned (分配) each of the 350 students to either a traditional science class or an art-focused one. Students then learned science using that way for the whole unit — about three weeks. When they changed to a new topic, they also changed to the other type of class. This way, each student had both an art-focused class and a traditional one. Every unit was taught in both ways, to different groups of students. This enabled the researchers to see how students did in both types of classes.

The team found that students who started off in traditional classes performed better after they moved into an art-focused class. But those who started in an art-focused class did well even when they went back to a traditional science class. These students appeared to use some of the art techniques after going back to a traditional class. Classroom teachers reported that many students continued to sketch (画速写) or sing to help remember the information. “It suggests that the arts may help students apply creative ways of learning on their own,” Hardiman said.