We've created a selection of useful products to help members of NISE Network promote the network within their own institution or with potential collaborators. These materials are updated regularly.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
NISE Network
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Because the NISE Network bridges the cultures of museums and the academic research world, participants from one profession may not always know the lingo of the other. At the same time, a shared vocabulary is essential for educators and researchers who want to truly collaborate on projects such as writing grant proposals. Therefore, we present the NISE Network Glossary of Two Worlds.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This education project is a time sensitive opportunity related to the March 9, 2016 Total Solar Eclipse occurring in a remote part of the world located in Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia, a U.S. affiliated Pacific Island nation. The path of totality is only 100 miles wide and passes through only a few Pacific Island nations ending in Hawaii. This project uses this unique phenomenon to educate a large US and international audience about solar science using multi-platforms with integrated video, social media, and public programs. Project deliverables include the production of a broadcast of the eclipse live from Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia on March 9, 2016 making it accessible to hundreds of countries and millions of people around the world via satellite and live streaming on the Internet. Additional deliverables include on-site educational programs at science centers and planetariums as well as media resources for long-term use. These resources will enhance the interest and preparedness for additional public engagement when the 2017 eclipse occurs in the U.S. Making new research understandable and accessible to the public is an important activity of the U.S. research enterprise. NSF is making a substantial investment in solar physics research by funding the construction of the world's largest solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope which is slated to begin operations in late 2019 and operated by the National Solar Observatory. This new facility will revolutionize researchers' capability to study the Sun and its magnetic fields. This education project leverages that investment with a major public engagement opportunity that has the potential for reaching millions of students, teachers, and the public both in the U.S. and worldwide through the Internet.
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ExploratoriumRobert SemperNicole MinorRobyn Higdon
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) identify an ambitious progression for learning energy, beginning in elementary school. To help the nation's teachers address this challenge, this project will develop and investigate the opportunities and limitations of Focus on Energy, a professional development (PD) system for elementary teachers (grades 3-5). The PD will contain: resources that will help teachers to interpret, evaluate and cultivate students' ideas about energy; classroom activities to help them to identify, track and represent energy forms and flows; and supports to help them in engaging students in these activities. Teachers will receive the science and pedagogical content knowledge they need to teach about energy in a crosscutting way across all their science curricula; students will be intellectually engaged in the practice of developing, testing, and revising a model of energy they can use to describe phenomena both in school and in their everyday lives; and formative assessment will guide the moment-by-moment advancement of students' ideas about energy. This project will develop and test a scalable model of PD that will enhance the ability of in-service early elementary teachers to help students learn energy concepts by coordinating formative assessment, face-to-face and web-based PD activities. Researchers will develop and iteratively refine tools to assess both teacher and student energy reasoning strategies. The goals of the project include (1) teachers' increased facility with, and disciplined application of, representations and energy reasoning to make sense of everyday phenomena in terms of energy; (2) teachers' increased ability to interpret student representations and ideas about energy to make instructional decisions; and (3) students' improved use of representations and energy reasoning to develop and refine models that describe energy forms and flows associated with everyday phenomena. The web-based product will contain: a set of formative assessments to help teachers to interpret student ideas about energy based on the Facets model; a series of classroom tested activities to introduce the Energy Tracking Lens (method to explore energy concept using multiple representations); and videos of classroom exemplars as well as scientists thinking out loud while using the Energy Tracking Lens. The project will refine the existing PD and build a system that supports online implementation by constructing a facilitator's guide so that the online community can run with one facilitator.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sara LacyRoger TobinNathaniel BrownStamatis VokosRachel ScherrKara GrayLane SeeleyAmy Robertson
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
As a part of the strategy to reach the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Science Education and Public Outreach Forum Objective 1.2: Provide resources and opportunities to enable sharing of best practices relevant to SMD education and public outreach (E/PO), the Informal Education Working Group members designed a nationally-distributed online survey to answer the following questions: 1. How, when, where, and for how long do informal educators prefer to receive science, mathematics, engineering, and/or technology content professional development? 2. What are the professional development and
Some of the most intriguing science museum exhibits start with a counter-intuitive outcome, a result that runs counter to visitors' expectations. Although counter-intuitive events often succeed in captivating visitors, they rarely lead to visitor-driven inquiry. The author argues that this is primarily due to two factors: first, for the counter-intuitive effect to be presented reliably and repeatedly, the visitor's interaction must be limited to a narrow set of options. Without multiple options for visitors to explore, extended inquiry is nearly impossible. Second, counter-intuitive outcomes
A team of researchers and practitioners developed a museum program to coach families in the skills of scientific inquiry at interactive exhibits. The program was inspired by the increasing focus on scientific inquiry in schools and the growing number of open-ended exhibit designs in science museums. The development process involved major decisions in two arenas: which inquiry skills to teach, and what pedagogical strategies to use to teach them. After many rounds of refinement based on evaluation with families, the final program, called Inquiry Games, improved visitors' inquiry behavior in
This Stocklmayer, Rennie, and Gilbert article outlines current challenges in preparing youth to go into science careers and to be scientifically literate citizens. The authors suggest creating partnerships between informal and formal education to address these challenges in school.
To this volume on out-of-school STEM learning, we contribute an example of science. Our charge is to discuss what it means for children to be doing science and how educators can assess it. To that end, we’ve chosen an especially clear case. It happens to have taken place in school, but that shouldn’t matter for our purpose here; it’s the substance of the children’s reasoning that we’re assessing as the beginnings of science. We open with the case. We then articulate how it is an example of science, in particular of science as a pursuit. Finally we discuss what this view means for science
The World Biotech Tour (WBT) is a multi-year initiative that will bring biotechnology to life at select science centers and museums worldwide. The program, supported by the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) and Biogen Foundation, is scheduled to run from 2015-2017, with the 2015 cohort in Belgium, Japan, and Portugal. The WBT will increase the impact and visibility of biotechnology among youth and the general public through hands-on and discussion-led learning opportunities. Applications are now open for the 2016 cohort! Learn more and submit an application at http://www.worldbiotechtour.org/become-a-stop
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Association of Science-Technology CentersCarlin Hsueh
The Exploratorium's Going APE project (APE=Active Prolonged Engagement) developed 30 exhibit designs to encourage visitors to become more cognitively engaged with exhibits--to use exhibits as tools for self-directed exploration, rather than as authoritative demonstrations. To do this, the staff drew on work in the fields of education, visitor research, human factors engineering, computer interface design, and interactive exhibit development at other museums. The project also integrated evaluative research into exhibit development to maximize possibilities for visitor-authored questions