Objects of Substance- Beatrice Monteath Jones Science Books

1969 Christine Jones’s depiction of the rocky platform, Pt Cartwright.

In these days before laptops, iPad, and mobile phones, it was a curriculum requirement that each excursion was documented by using written descriptions and hand-drawn diagrams. These reports were marked by your Science teacher. My teacher at this time was Mrs Vim Sharma, who instilled in me the love of Biology. Vim Sharma was later to be a colleague and mentor when I returned to Girls Grammar as a Science teacher in 1983. Much time and effort went into producing the work presented in my exercise book. As with Beatrice’s work, some of the diagrams were copied from Outdoor Studies on Living Animals in Queensland by William Stephenson, which was a standard reference in the 1960s and 70s, and some are original. Whilst students studying Science today are still required to make a record of excursions, they are of far less depth and detail than displayed in these books. Most teachers also wonder if a photograph with a typed caption teaches the students the comprehensive understanding provided by a meticulous and detailed drawing. What comes to a teacher’s mind in 2022 is that this very activity of slow and careful drawing, and indeed handwriting observations, are the very activities that mindfulness promotes. Not only is this approach validated by research and applied in our school setting, but it also gives the student the time to absorb and store the information meaningfully. Even though technology offers new ways of communicating knowledge between teacher and student, personal notebooks are still used in the Science classroom. From another historical point of view, it is interesting to acknowledge the similarities between the two exercise books (even down to the covers!). Given that there is a 54-year gap between these two exercise books (1915-1969), it would be worth archiving an exercise book from a 2023 student, 54