Afterschool and community science programs have become widely recognized as important sanctuaries for science learning for low-income urban youth and as offering them with "missing opportunities." Yet, more needs to be known about how youth, themselves, perceive such opportunities. What motivates youth to seek out such opportunities in the nonschool hours? How do youth describe the doing and talking of science in such programs? Given such descriptions, how do youth perceive the role of these programs in their lives? This paper relies on stories from three youth drawn from a multisited
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jrene RahmMarie-Paule Martel-RenyJohn Moore
What meaning visitors make from their interactions with science center exhibits— and how they do so — is an issue of enduring interest in the field of learning in informal contexts. In order to explore what resources schoolchildren bring to bear in making meaning, this study used video clips taken during school trips to prompt reflection in stimulated recall interviews. The results indicated that students utilized their existing science understandings to interpret and explain their interactions with exhibits. Such findings provide evidence for the educative value of the experience as well as
Poster presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC. It describes a project that is designed to engage Hispanic students in grades K-5 in STEM in afterschool programs within community-based organizations (CBOs).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Patricial and Phillip Frost Museum of ScienceCheryl Juarez
This research project examines the way that children and parents talk about science outside of school and, specifically, how they show distributed expertise about biological topics during visits to a science center. We adopt a theoretical framework that looks at learning on three interweaving planes: individual, social, and cultural (tools, language, worldviews, and artifacts). We analyze conversations to study how these three planes show learning processes as families work together to create explanations of biological phenomena. Findings include: (a) children and parents made epistemic moves
What if every kid had access to a real workshop? Like the ones in the corners of garages across the country: a basic array of tools, bits and pieces of hardware, piles of scrap materials and fasteners, plus stacks of unsorted boxes containing the remnants of projects gone by. Visualize also that the workshop held a few musical instruments-guitars, a keyboard, some percussion-as well as art supplies: markers, paints, clay, and the tools to shape it, ribbons glitter, beads, fabric, etc. n top of this, picture the workshop having a few hands-on exhibits to explore and manipulate-a vacuum chamber
In recent years, novel paradigms of computing have emerged, which enable computational power to be embedded in artefacts and environments in novel ways. These developments may create new possibilities for using computing to enhance learning. This paper presents the results of a design process that set out to explore interactive techniques, which utilized ubiquitous computer technology, to stimulate active participation, involvement and learning by children visiting a museum. Key stakeholders, such as museum curators and docents, were involved throughout the process of creating the exhibition
This article focuses on understanding how games and immersive participatory simulations, with their focus on doing science, are becoming an emerging type of curricula for supporting science education. It discusses the theoretical frameworks positing that knowing is a contextual and participatory act. The context in which one learns any particular content shapes resultant understandings of that content. Moreover, knowledge and skills in science should be established as an inquiry process and that new technologies and design methodologies can facilitate this process.
This study provides a historical overview of the development of the instructional television as a tool within the context of science education. The technology was traced from its beginning as experiments in public service broadcasting by universities and television networks, though closed circuit, cable, and commercially produced science-related programming. The use of the technology as a teaching tool is examined in terms of the concept of scientific literacy and the means by which instructional television helped to accomplish the goals of scientific literacy.
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting held in Washington, DC. It describes a project that uses museum-based exhibits, girls' activity groups, and social media to enhance participants' engineering-related interests and identities.
Interest is a powerful motivator; nonetheless, science educators often lack the necessary information to make use of the power of student-specific interests in the reform process of science curricula. This study suggests a novel methodology, which might be helpful in identifying such interests--using children's self-generated questions as an indication of their scientific interests. In this research, children's interests were measured by analyzing 1555 science-related questions submitted to an international Ask-A-Scientist Internet site. The analysis indicated that the popularity of certain
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ayelet Baram-TsabariRicky SethiLynn Bry
In order to name and classify a plant they see, children use their existing mental models to provide the plant with a name and classification. In this study pupils of a range of ages (5, 8, 10, and 14 years old) were presented with preserved specimens of six different plants (strictly, five plants and a fungus) and asked a series of questions about them. Their responses indicate that pupils of all ages mainly recognise and use anatomical features when naming the plants and explaining why they are what they are. However, older pupils are more likely to also use habitat features. For both girls
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting held in Washington, DC. It describes a project that uses social network methods to study networks of afterschool and informal science stakeholders.