Bridging Conservation Practice and Science: A Study on Encapsulation Theory and Knowledge Transfer in the Education of Conservators

Conservation students often find science challenging to relate to conservation treatments when applying theory to practice. Inspired by both the theory of encapsulated knowledge used in the medical field and the active learning theory, a new strategy was tested in an attempt to make third year paintings conservation students at the School of Conservation in Copenhagen more aware of material properties of the products used in paintings conservation. The purpose of the class, our case study, was to enable students to make educated choices between available products and materials to better understand their degradation properties
in different environments.