This report shares the results of a year-long study of the impact of IMLS grants (1998-2003) though programs that served youth aged 9-19. Nearly 400 museum and library programs were surveyed about their goals, strategies, content, audience, and structure, as well as about their impact, effectiveness, and outcomes.
The Science and Math Informal Learning Education (SMILE) pathway is serving the digital resource management needs of the informal learning community. The science and math inquiry experiences offered by science and technology centers, museums, and out-of-school programs are distinct from those found in formal classrooms. Interactive exhibits, multimedia presentations, virtual environments, hands-on activities, outdoor field guides, engineering challenges, and facilitated programs are just some of the thoughtfully designed resources used by the informal learning community to make science and math concepts come alive. With an organizational framework specifically designed for informal learning resources, the SMILE pathway is empowering educators to locate and explore high-quality education materials across multiple institutions and collections. The SMILE pathway is also expanding the participation of underrepresented groups by creating an easily accessible nexus of online materials, including those specifically added to extend the reach of effective science and math education to all communities. To promote the use of the SMILE pathway and the NSDL further, project staff are creating professional development programs and a robust online community of educators and content experts to showcase best practices tied to digital resources. Finally, to guarantee continued growth and involvement in the SMILE pathway, funding and editorial support is being provided to expansion partners, beyond the founding institutions, to add new digital resources to the NSDL.
AMNH will use NOAA weather satellite data to annotate 72 high definition (HD) video time-series global cloud cover visualizations using thermal infrared brightness temperature data acquired by five geostationary satellites and joined into global mosaics at half-hourly intervals. The HD visualizations will be used in informal and formal education activities and will be made available on the Web. These media pieces will be used for informal education activities at AMNH and 28 other informal science institutions (ISI) around the United States . The target population of visitors to subscribing ISIs is currently ten million and is projected to be over 15 million by the end of the grant. The HD visualizations will be used in formal settings, as well. Fifteen schools throughout New York City with large numbers of new English Language Learners will be targeted and professional development for teachers of ELL students will be provided through programs at AMNH as well. AMNH s effort focuses on weather and climate patterns that will be visible in the cloud-data visualizations. All viewers of the media will learn about general circulation patterns and changes in phase of water associated with the hydrologic cycle.
McWane ScienceCenter (McWSC) is a non-profit, interactive science museum committed to showing the public how science and technology enrich their lives and help them solve problems. McWSC has a goal of extending the power of experiential learning to as many people as possible, particularly those who would otherwise not be able to do so on their own. McWane's environmental education initiative, the Envirosphere Educational Project, uses NOAA's Science on a Sphere (SOS) to provide environmental education and workforce development programs for an estimated 200,000 people. This number includes the general public, school groups from across the region, and 2,500 children in low-income communities from across the state of Alabama. All visitors have the opportunity to go to the SOS exhibit and participate in environmental education programs led by McWSC Education Staff. Each program corresponds to one of the SOS data sets and to the Alabama Course of Study Standards for elementary and secondary schools. The intended outcomes of the Project are to make complex environmental science concepts more accessible to people of all ages; to provide educational opportunities to children who would otherwise not have access to this type of information; to partner with local and state academic institutions, school boards and municipalities to improve environmental science curricula and awareness; and to increase the visitor s knowledge of and pique his/her interest in science and its related real-world applications.
This project aims to develop and implement residential and non-residential science camp and summer camp programs and related activities to over 1500 youth and teachers from 8 elementary and middle schools. NOAA's Multicultural Education for Resource Issues Threatening Oceans (MERITO) program will serve as a key outreach mechanism to reach underserved youth and their families. The proposed project will utilize existing ocean educational materials, including those developed by NOAA, in experiential learning programs for youth through Camp SEA (Science, Education, Adventure) Lab. The two major goals of the project are: (1) to develop and implement marine-oriented outdoor science and summer camps in close collaboration with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, resulting in an effective model for dissemination of the Ocean Literacy Essential Principles and Fundamental Concepts to large numbers of youth and their teachers; and 2) to develop a model and a feasibility plan to implement the program across a broader geographical area, e.g. through other National Marine Sanctuaries.
"Local Investigations of Natural Science (LIONS)" engages grade 5-8 students from University City schools, Missouri in structured out-of-school programs that provide depth and context for their regular classroom studies. The programs are led by district teachers. A balanced set of investigations engage students in environmental research, computer modeling, and advanced applications of mathematics. Throughout, the artificial boundary between classroom and community is bridged as students use the community for their studies and resources from local organizations are brought into school. Through these projects, students build interest and awareness of STEM-related career opportunities and the academic preparation needed for success.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert CoulterEric KlopferJere Confrey
The idea to link European citizenship and science education is surely new and uncommon in Poland, but we think, as SEDEC project, that can enrich both the panorama of science popularization outside and inside school system. I checked carefully curricula for every stage of school education looking for the topics concerning the developing of the European citizenship. I found that they are usually connected to the history, geography and some activities developing of the knowledge about generally defined citizenship. The spare topics connected directly to the science are present especially in
Being aware of the fact that science is a decisive factor for development and individual well being and a citizen's right, no less important than all his other rights, Tunisia's new-Era initiated its Science City on 10 April, 1992. The purpose of such an institution is to disseminate science throughout the whole of Tunisia for the different categories of citizens and to help, in the context of dovetailing with the educational sector, youngsters get, from their earliest years, interested in science and its use.
ITR: A Networked, Media-Rich Programming Environment to Enhance Informal Learning and Technological Fluency at Community Technology Centers The MIT Media Laboratory and UCLA propose to develop and study a new networked, media-rich programming environment, designed specifically to enhance the development of technological fluency at after-school centers in economically disadvantaged communities. This new programming environment (to be called Scratch) will be grounded in the practices and social dynamics of Computer Clubhouses, a network of after-school centers where youth (ages 10-18) from low-income communities learn to express themselves with new technologies. We will study how Clubhouse youth (ages 10-18) learn to use Scratch to design and program new types of digital-arts projects, such as sensor-controlled music compositions, special-effects videos created with programmable image-processing filters, robotic puppets with embedded controllers, and animated characters that youth trade wirelessly via handheld devices. Scratch's networking infrastructure, coupled with its multilingual capabilities, will enable youth to share their digital-arts creations with other youth across geographic, language, and cultural boundaries. This research will advance understanding of the effective and innovative design of new technologies to enhance learning in after-school centers and other informal-education settings, and it will broaden opportunities for youth from under-represented groups to become designers and inventors with new technologies. We will iteratively develop our technologies based on ongoing interaction with youth and staff at Computer Clubhouses. The use of Scratch at Computer Clubhouses will serve as a model for other after-school centers in economically-disadvantaged communities, demonstrating how informal-learning settings can support the development of technological fluency, enabling young people to design and program projects that are meaningful to themselves and their communities.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mitchel ResnickJohn MaedaYasmin Kafai
In the many studies of games and young people's use of them, little has been written about an overall "ecology" of gaming, game design and play—mapping the ways that all the various elements, from coding to social practices to aesthetics, coexist in the game world. This volume looks at games as systems in which young users participate, as gamers, producers, and learners. The Ecology of Games (edited by Rules of Play author Katie Salen) aims to expand upon and add nuance to the debate over the value of games—which so far has been vociferous but overly polemical and surprisingly shallow. Game
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
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.