This report offers an assessment of environmental literacy in America that is both sobering and hopeful. This summary of almost a decade of NEETF (National Environmental Education & Training Foundation) collaboration with Roper Reports provides a loud wake-up call to the environmental education community, to community leaders, and to influential specialists ranging from physicians to weathercasters. At a time when Americans are confronted with increasingly challenging environmental choices, we learn that our citizenry is by and large both uninformed and misinformed.
This is a report of the NSF Advisory Committee for Environmental Research. It contains a call to action, research priorities, and sections on environmental research and citizen science.
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NSF Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This chapter examines what is known about the use and the potential of including informal science education in formal science teacher preparation. The chapter’s first section provides an introduction to the argument for innovation in formal science teacher preparation and the potential positive inclusion of informal science education. The second section provides a definition with conceptual understandings and common features of informal science education. The third section presents a review of the literature on including informal science education in formal science education for preservice
In February 2012, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History ( NMNH) convened 100 colleagues from 43 organizations to initiate a collaborative learning research agenda focused on examining important areas for innovation to better serve twenty-first-century audiences. The conference organizers anticipated that scientists, educators, exhibit professionals, and other members of the natural history community would identify and prioritize research questions about what, how, why, when, and where people learn about natural history. We prepared to engage in a conversation about how natural
In the midst of discussions about improving education, teacher education, equity, and diversity, little has been done to make pedagogy a central area of investigation. This article attempts to challenge notions about the intersection of culture and teaching that rely solely on microanalytic or macroanalytic perspectives. Rather, the article attempts to build on the work done in both of these areas and proposes a culturally relevant theory of education. By raising questions about the location of the researcher in pedagogical research, the article attempts to explicate the theoretical framework
Although schools traditionally take their pupils to Natural History Museums, little has been elicited about either the overall content of the conversations generated by such groups or of the effect on content in the presence of an adult. Transcripts were coded using a systemic network which had been designed based on pilot studies. A range of variables was created from the coded data. The number of conversations that contained at least one reference to the designated categories were ascertained overall and those of the three sub-groups, pupils and teacher, pupils and chaperone and pupils alone
This chapter explores natural history exhibits, particularly dioramas, with regard to both art and authenticity. Dioramas are treated as a novel form of scientific model.
How can you carve out a museum space that’s less authoritative? And how you can make work that is smaller, more intimate in that same space? Kio Stark and Mark Allen discuss Machine Project, the Echo Park, Los Angeles exhibiting space that doubles as an interactive setting, an alternative performance venue, and an active agent in creating events around the local area, including in museums such as the Hammer.
Women have made tremendous progress in education and the workplace during the past 50 years. Even in historically male fields such as business, law, and medicine, women have made impressive gains. In scientific areas, however, women’s educational gains have been less dramatic, and their progress in the workplace still slower. In an era when women are increasingly prominent in medicine, law, and business, why are so few women becoming scientists and engineers? This study tackles this puzzling question and presents a picture of what we know—and what is still to be understood—about girls and
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Catherine HillChristianne CorbettAndresse St. Rose
Over the past 50 years, women in the United States have made great strides in education and entry into the work force in this country. However, despite these advances, women continue to be underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, collectively referred to as “STEM.” Women’s representation is low at all levels of the STEM career “pipeline,” from interest and intent to majoring in a STEM field in college to having a career in a STEM field in adulthood. Studies show that girls lose interest in math and science during middle school, and STEM interest for girls
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Kamla ModiJudy SchoenbergKimberlee Salmond