U.S. strength in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines has formed the basis of innovations, technologies, and industries that have spurred the nation’s economic growth throughout the last 150 years. Universities are essential to the creation and transfer of new knowledge that drives innovation. This knowledge moves out of the university and into broader society in several ways – through highly skilled graduates (i.e. human capital); academic publications; and the creation of new products, industries, and companies via the commercialization of scientific
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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Sharing scientific knowledge in conflict zones may not sound like a priority. Still science communicators can contribute to address social issues by inviting people to experience research practice, engaging them in scientific questioning and constructive dialog.
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Leila PerieLivio Riboli-SascoClaire Ribrault
Brazilian research has grown intensely in all areas of microbiology, with the increase in the amount of governmental resources for the sector and the strengthening of a greater number of research groups. However, very few academic studies deal with research about teaching and science communication in microbiology. There is no in-depth study of how this topic is currently being divulgated in communication journals, didactic books and the Internet, or about the interest and the difficulties faced by researchers in communicating microbiology to the general public. This paper investigates academic
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Daniela Franco Carvalho JacobucciGiuliano Buza Jacobucci
In this article, we invite you to expand your vision of what it means to work at the intersections of formal and informal science and literacy education by describing how educators have collaborated to create programs that blend science and literacy in schools, in museums, and across these two spaces. In 2012, K–12 teachers from the National Writing Project (NWP) began working with the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) and science museum educators in the National Science Foundation–funded Intersections project, which is being evaluated by Inverness Research. NWP is a network
This chapter reviews four projects that reflect the principles of design-based implementation research (DBIR) in an effort to highlight a range of relevant theoretical and methodological perspectives and tools that can inform future work associated with DBIR.The goal of this chapter is to highlight a range of relevant theoretical and methodological perspectives and tools that can inform future work associated with design-based implementation research (DBIR). As Penuel, Fishman, Cheng, and Sabelli (2011) described, DBIR entails engaging “learning scientists, policy researchers, and
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Jennifer RussellKara JacksonAndrew KrummKenneth Frank
Design-based research (DBR) is used to study learning in environments that are designed and systematically changed by the researcher. DBR is not a fixed “cookbook” method; it is a collection of approaches that involve a commitment to studying activity in naturalistic settings, many of which are designed and systematically changed by the researcher, with the goal of advancing theory at the same time directly impacting practice. The goal of DBR (sometimes also referred to as design experiments) is to use the close study of learning as it unfolds within a naturalistic context that contains
This paper discusses three mediation concept approaches and, consequently, three facets of mediator action. The approaches presented start with a bibliographical review of the concept of mediation present in education and scientific communication studies. These approaches serve as a basis for interpreting a semi-directive interview with the director of the Museum of Morphological Sciences of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). They also help us reflect on the complexity of organizing the objectives of a museum action that takes into account the transformational role of the
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Silvania Sousa do Nascimento
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
In this paper, the authors synthesize three types of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) for informal learning. The article includes descriptions of example partnerships between local researchers and informal educators from the Hive NYC Learning Network, Community Practice Research Collaboration, and California Tinkering Afterschool Network. The synthesis paper concludes with a review of characteristics commonly found in partnerships in informal science education.
At the end of the dark ages, anatomy was taught as though everything that could be known was known. Scholars learned about what had been discovered rather than how to make discoveries. This was true even though the body (and the rest of biology) was very poorly understood. The renaissance eventually brought a revolution in how scholars (and graduate students) were trained and worked. This revolution never occurred in K–12 or university education such that we now teach young students in much the way that scholars were taught in the dark ages, we teach them what is already known rather than the
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Robert DunnJulie UrbanDarlene CavalierCaren Cooper
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Design research is strongly associated with the learning sciences community, and in the 2 decades since its conception it has become broadly accepted. Yet within and without the learning sciences there remains confusion about how to do design research, with most scholarship on the approach describing what it is rather than how to do it. This article describes a technique for mapping conjectures through a learning environment design, distinguishing conjectures about how the design should function from theoretical conjectures that explain how that function produces intended outcomes.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Through a unique university-zoo partnership, Project TRUE engages New York City high school students in authentic urban ecology field research in the surrounding metropolitan area. Central to the project design is a tiered mentorship model, in which Fordham University professors mentor undergraduate and graduate ecology students, who in turn mentor high school students from communities underrepresented in STEM fields. Project TRUE also pairs the university
In addition to their intrusive presence in American schools, creationists - or more modern epigones thereof, known as “intelligent designers” - are also and unexpectedly to be found in other countries. Take the United Kingdom as an example. Over the past few years, Darwin’s homeland has actually been witnessing attempts to introduce literal faith in the Bible into school programmes in a way which does not significantly differ from the one adopted in the United States. It is multi-billionaire Howard H. Ahmanson who generously finances the Discovery Institute across the Atlantic, one of the