Students working in small groups during a field trip to a nature center prioritized the maintenance of social roles within groups of friends rather than exhibiting the behaviors that educators might desire a well-functioning group to engage in for science learning. ISE professionals may consider teaching strategies to help students learn to work through disagreements and discussion within a group, which students perceive as having long-lasting negative social consequences.
Previous research studies have found that many new teachers feel inadequately prepared to teach science (cf. Kelly, 2000). This situation may be attributable to a number of factors, although the nature of teacher preparation courses is clearly significant. This research describes a teaching training initiative in which teacher candidates are engaged in internships in an afterschool programme. The findings, comprising the teacher candidates’ drawings and interviews, indicate that the experience positively influenced the participants’ professional identity development as science teachers.
In this article, researchers report on the ways that middle school students positioned themselves as agents of change in their community by using the results of their research into local scientific phenomena and advocating for environmental reforms. This article might be of interest to ISE educators who are exploring how their programs can support the emergence of positive science learning identities in their youth participants.
The authors of this article advocate for broad opportunities for young children to engage with the natural environment. In one out-of-school time (OST) program, called Animal Rescuers, children aged 10–12 participated in zoo visits, environmental education activities, and the creation of an online space. This project can give ISE educators insight into how zoos might connect children’s development with issues such as animal and environmental justice.
This study aims to answer two questions important to informal science learning: What is “authentic”? And, why do we want students to have authentic science learning experiences? Using ethnographic methods, the authors developed a case study over the course of one year of an Aboriginal student, Brad, who participated in a scientific internship program that included both nature conservation and laboratory work. This study analyzes how Brad’s cultural identity interacted, influenced, and hybridized with the scientific and other practices he participated in during his internship. The paper will be
Ice Planet Earth (IPE) was a three-year NSF-Funded grant, with a focus on building awareness and understanding of polar processes and designed to coincide with the International Polar Year, which took place from March 2007-March 2009. A key feature of the IPE project was the development of 'Ice Worlds', a planetarium style film designed for both general audiences and for students/youth. IPE was a collaboration between the University of New Hampshire, and the following institutions: The Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh; the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences; the Louisiana Art
In August 2009, The Ohio State University at Lima (OSU) received a three-year award from the NSF Division of Research on Learning Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) Program for It's About Discovery (IAD). IAD was a partnership between OSU Lima, the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and regional rural schools in Northwest Ohio and North Carolina that equipped teachers to teach new Ford Partnership for Advanced Study (PAS) science curriculum, focused on the theme of Working Towards Sustainability. Ford PAS is focused on transforming teaching and learning
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Rucha LondheOhio State UniversityUniversity of North Carolina GreensboroMarkeisha GrantColleen ManningIrene F Goodman
The overall goal of the project was to convene a large-scale, open conference on public participation in scientific research, bringing together science researchers, project leaders, educators, technology specialists, evaluators, and others from across many disciplines to discuss advancing the field of PPSR. The conference included three sessions for posters and conversations, and five plenary sessions of presentations. The meeting culminated in an open meeting to explore strategies for large-scale collaborations to support and advance work across this field of practice, through the development
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joe E HeimlichPublic Participation in Scientific Research
In 2011, ORG received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to develop resources for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning by redesigning and expanding the "Jonathan Bird's Blue World" website; adding components to enable teachers and students to search episodes for specific themes, locations, or scientific concepts; and enhancing the lesson plans to explicitly match the content standards for teaching science. One of the major grant objectives was to make the "Jonathan Bird's Blue World" website content widely accessible as an open source via an Internet
Leaders of the only two large-scale assessments of environmental literacy used in the U.S. to date (Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] and the National Environmental Literacy Assessment [NELA]), led by an experienced PI representing the North American Association for Environmental Education, to develop a new, comprehensive, research-based framework for assessing environmental literacy. By bringing together, for the first time, experts in research, assessment, and evaluation from the fields of science education, environmental education, and related social science fields -
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joe E HeimlichNorth American Association for Environmental Education
The Sam Noble Museum contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to evaluate their Whitten-Newman ExplorOlogy Program. The program offers hands-on, immersive experiences in scientific field research to classroom teachers and middle and high school students. The evaluation study explored how participants experienced the program and how their sense of self and identity was affected during the year following the program's completion. How did we approach this study? The Whitten-Newman ExplorOlogy Program offers an in-depth program experience to a select number of teachers and students. We
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
Engaging and Learning for Conservation: Workshop on Public Participation in Scientific Research was held at the American Museum of Natural History 7-8 April 2011. This preliminary report is based on the delayed post feedback from workshop participants 2-3 months following the workshop. The overall goals of the project are to convene a workshop for scientists, educators, and community members involved in public participation in scientific research (PPSR) to share experiences, lessons, protocols, and tool and to collaboratively set forth a coherent agenda for answering outstanding questions for
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joe E HeimlichAmerican Museum of Natural HistoryCornell UniversityNational Audubon Society