This Barron and Bell article provides a foundational overview for how “cross-setting learning” can equitably engage all youth across formal and informal educational contexts. The paper offers: 1) a review of research; 2) descriptions of supports and challenges to cross-setting learning, including learner interest and identity; and 3) suggestions for research and assessments that capture learning for underrepresented youth.
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.
This project brings real scientific research into the public domain by establishing a research laboratory in a museum setting where visitors not only enroll in the study, they help shape it through their work as citizen scientists. Findings from the study will increase the public understanding of how genetic research translates into meaningful personal information that can be used to better understand personal health risks and opportunities. In a community-based participatory research laboratory, school-aged children and their families will participate in an authentic research project on the genetics of taste. In a series of simple but highly specific taste tests, participants will learn which gene variations they possess and how these variations influence how they taste foods. Taste function has been increasingly linked to human health, in that variability in taste sensation correlates with, and may in part be causal for, major health problems, including cardiovascular disease and obesity. Interactive exhibit components will inform participants about the scientific process, the principles of genetics, the human genome project and genetic variation. Teaching the public about their genetic profile and its influence on taste may have a positive impact on major health threats such as cardiovascular disease and obesity. The data collected from museum visitors who choose to enroll in the study will be sent to the museum's academic partners for further analysis and inclusion in their ongoing research analysis and publications. This laboratory experience not only engages and educates the public, but also advances the research enterprise and offers a vivid model for how to translate research into the public domain.
This project will introduce students ages 8-14, including underserved students; their teachers and families; and the general public to three biomedical research areas inspired by NIH's Roadmap for Medical Research: biological pathways, bioinformatics and nanomedicine. These areas are unfamiliar to many adults and are not introduced in science curricula. Using the metaphor of a hardware store (i.e., building materials, tools, parts, home repair projects), the project will introduce families, students and teachers to three ideas: (1) The body maintains and repairs itself at the molecular, cell, tissue, organ and system levels; (2) Biomedical researchers are uncovering new complexities at the molecular level that can increase our understanding of how the body works; and (3) Developments in nanomedicine can lead to discoveries and treatments. In a hardware store theater and workshop space and in a virtual hardware store, the project will develop and present demonstrations and basic- and intermediate-level labs (for 2nd- and 6th-grade students or families); train museum staff and interns to present the programs; offer orientation workshops to teachers from Title I schools; develop a teacher's guide; conduct outreach in middle schools; engage scientists to talk about their work and help them communicate with the public; and create a manual of materials and activities for other science centers. The evaluation plan will include formative research on activities and assessment of how well repair metaphors facilitate understanding of clinical issues. A team of scientists, museum staff, science teachers, and biology and medical students will guide the development of education components.
This cooperative effort among Purdue University, public schools in Indiana, and The Children's Museum of Indianapolis aims to develop, evaluate and disseminate educational programs for K-12 students, parents, teachers and the public about the science involved in keeping people healthy. Obesity prevention, cancer prevention and asthma will be emphasized. Fitness programs, research programs using animal models, K-12 outreach programs, professional development workshops and recruiting efforts will be networked to fill gaps in health science education, interest schoolchildren in health science research and improve public health. This project will develop and rigorously assess curricular modules for grades three, six and nine. The science behind health advances, the clinical trials process and the role of animals in developing drugs and medical devices will be addressed. In addition, the project will engage schoolchildren in becoming health science researchers by providing them with role models. Researchers will interact with K-12 students during classroom visits, camps and after-school programs. Finally, the project will involve and engage children, parents and the public in educational fitness activities and programs. Dogs will be incorporated into fitness programs as exercise companions. The program includes an interactive traveling exhibit, highlighting the science involved in keeping people healthy.
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM)--in collaboration with scientists at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and Academic Health Center; the Minnesota Department of Health, and the Minnesota Antibiotic Resistance Collaborative--requests a Phase 1/11five-year SEPA grant of $1,250,000 to develop a traveling museum exhibition and web site that highlight the fascinating science behind the outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that are changing and shaping our way of life in the 21st century. Topics to be covered will include the emergence of new illnesses like SARS and Avian Influenza and the re-emergence of drug-resistant infections that were once curable but now can be fatal. An Infectious Disease Advisory Panel and Content Experts representing the collaborating institutions listed above and others will guide museum staff in the development of these exhibits and programs. EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES will be a 1,500 square-foot special exhibition to be installed in SMM's Human Body Gallery in spring 2007. After an 18-month presentation, it will begin a tour to five medium size science centers over two years. In addition to the exhibition and its complementary web site, special programming will be targeted to reach specific audiences, including: K-12 school groups visiting the museum (a user guide with on-line pre- and post-visit activities aligned with state and National Science Education Standards); K-12 classroom teachers (Curriculum Enhancement Institutes); and outreach programs serving after-school programs for children in under-served inner-city neighborhoods. A focus on areas of ongoing research will be used to highlight how far we have come in understanding the complex world of infectious diseases and how far we must go in treatment or elimination of present day health threats.
This summative evaluation of the University of Washington Botany Greenhouse K-12 Education Outreach Program analyzed the contents of 468 thank-you notes written by program participants using the National Science Foundation’s Framework for Evaluating Impacts of Informal Science Education Projects. Strong evidence was found for impacts in three STEM learning categories: Awareness, Knowledge or Understanding, Engagement or Interest, and Skills.
Over 200 zoos and aquariums in North America are accredited members of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA), with a shared vision of the future: a world where all people respect, value and conserve wildlife and wild places. Through programs & experiences that reach millions of people each year, we hope to encourage caring and empathy towards all living things, but we lack the tools that are needed to assess whether – and how – we’re reaching this goal. The overall goal of this 2 year collaborative project is to create tools that zoos and aquariums can use to assess whether they’re meeting their goal of encouraging caring and empathy towards wildlife. Project partners (Woodland Park Zoo, Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, & Seattle Aquarium) aim to develop, test and share tools that can be used by accredited zoos & aquariums to assess whether their educational programs are having the desired impact of encouraging children’s empathy towards animals. To better inform our understanding of the empathic experience and the role it plays in human relationships with animals, an advisory team comprised of conservation psychologists and evaluation practitioners in the zoo and aquarium field, has been formed to aid in this two year project.
Working in collaboration with biomedical researchers from universities in the San Francisco area, across the nation, and abroad, the Exploratorium proposes to develop a high-quality microscopic imaging station for use by museum visitors, students, teachers and Internet visitors. This facility will utilize the highest quality optics and state-of-the-art microscopic techniques including biological staining and sophisticated digital recording. A variety of living specimens fundamental to basic biology, human development, the human genome and health-related research will be displayed. The station will be the lively center of the life sciences' area at the Exploratorium, providing educational content, dramatic imagery and regular demonstrations to reach an audience which ranges from the mildly curious to research scientists. In addition, the Exploratorium will be the first public institution, outside of a few research laboratories, to present live microscopic specimens via video and the Internet in real time. (To date, remote microscopes have generally presented inanimate objects or fixed tissue.) In order to increase student accessibility, subject matter for the imaging station will be integrated into the ongoing middle and high school teacher professional development at the museum. Teachers will be able to use the imaging station to conduct their own experiments, develop classroom explorations, take away images, access the website in their classrooms, or share materials with other teachers.
The Maryland Science Center, in cooperation with the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (JHMI) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, developed and produced BodyLink, a unique health sciences update center. The group did so with support from the National Institutes of Health SEPA (Science Education Partnership Award) Program, BodyLink, which is modeled after the Maryland Science Center's praised SpaceLink space science update center, will make today's medical and health news clear and relevant for visitors, young and old. Science and technology centers have long struggled with ways to acquaint visitors with the latest and greatest discoveries in health and biomedical science, and to interpret the significance of these findings for all ages. Museums can no longer be content with presenting only basic science, and need to expand their role as public communicators of science by presenting cutting-edge research, and by interpreting and explaining this information for visitors. BodyLink is a 1,500-square foot multimedia center where visitors can discover and appreciate the wonders of cutting-edge medical research (basic research, as well as clinical research) through interactive exhibits, stunning imagery, and facilitated demonstrations in a multimedia driven programmable space. BodyLink also includes WetLab, an open-access microbiology laboratory facility that allows visitors to conduct scientific investigations using state-of-the art research technology. Visitors can extract DNA from wheat germ, test common anti-microbial products on live bacteria, and learn Gram staining techniques, among other activities. Bodying will further serve school groups, general museum visitors, and remote-learning participants through the interactive website. BodyLink also incorporates an internship program for graduate students from the Maryland Science Center's collaborating universities. These internships give the graduate students an opportunity to interact with the general public to enhance their scientific communication skills and give them first-hand experience with investigating public understanding of scientific research.
In this paper, commissioned as part of a consensus study on successful out-of-school STEM learning, we draw on the research literature to consider (1) what is known about the impact of tinkering and making experiences on school-aged children’s learning (interest in, engagement with and understanding of STEM in particular); (2) the emerging design principles and pedagogies that characterize tinkering and making programs; and (3) the specific tensions and possibilities within this movement for equity-oriented teaching and learning.
This paper, commissioned as part of a consensus study on successful out-of-school STEM learning from the National Research Council's Board on Science Education, explores evidence-based strategies developed in out-of-school time STEM programs for successfully engaging youth from underrepresented demographics in STEM learning.