Dinosaur Island is a 3D computer simulation with herds of sauropods and ceratopsians, flocks of pteranodons, hunting packs of carnivores and authentic plants and trees from over 65 million years ago all controlled by the user. You can think of Dinosaur Island as a digital terrarium in which a balance between the species and their diets must be maintained or the ecosystem will collapse. It is up to the user to determine how many and what kinds of dinosaurs and plants populate the island. Start off simple with just a few sauropods and some plants; but you better make sure that those big plant-eaters have the right food to eat. Did you know that many of the plants from the Jurassic were poisonous? You also need to make sure that there are some carnivores around to keep those sauropod herds in check; otherwise they will quickly outstrip their food supplies. Dinosaur Island is an Adventure: Yes, it is a bit like those famous movies because you can take 'photographs' of your dinosaurs, save them, post them and share them with your friends (you can even 'name' your dinosaurs, 'tag' them and track them throughout their lives). You will be able to walk' with the dinosaurs without being trampled under their giant feet. You will be able to follow along when a female T-Rex goes out to hunt without fear of becoming dinner for her family. You will be able to 'garden' by 'planting' vegetation where you like and watch the plants grow over time. Dinosaur Island is Educational: Our reputation – both in our 'serious games' and our contracted simulations – is for historical accuracy. All of our computer games, serious games and simulations are meticulously researched. Dinosaur Island will also include an extensive hyperlinked interactive 'booklet' about the dinosaurs that live on Dinosaur Island, their habitat and the plants and vegetation that grow there. Designasaurus, the game that we created in 1987, was named Educational Game of the Year. We will exploit the computer environment that is now available (more memory and faster machines allow for 3D rendering) to make Dinosaur Island even more of an immersive educational experience. Dinosaur Island is Fun: Playing with herds of dinosaurs is just good fun. You can 'pick them up' and move them around, plant crops for them to eat or you can even 'get inside' a dinosaur and control its actions. Regardless of your age, Dinosaur Island is guaranteed to be hours of fun.
Educators from K-12 and higher education are collaborating on a new school of the future projects involving humanoid robots and other forms of robots and student and teacher productivity tools. We are working in the areas of STEAM Plus. (science, technology, engineering, visual and performing arts, mathematics, computer languages and foreign languages) All team members will share their action research results through a traveling exhibition to all twelve public libraries in the city of Long Beach, California. Kids Talk Radio through its Backpack Science, Journalism, and Backpack Robotics programs will create video and audio podcasts of the action research and share findings over the Internet with schools, libraries and museums around the world.
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Super School SoftwareBob BarbozaWalter Martinez
The Pueblo of Santa Clara's Community Library will continue its important role as a community anchor in fostering 21st-century learning and information use with a range of interactive projects that will engage community members of all ages. Technology Access Nights will foster responsible technology use and awareness among young learners and their families, especially promoting safe social media practices. For hands-on technology learning, youth, elders, and their families will collaborate on two oral history projects. One will gather stories of Santa Clara Pueblo women's achievements and cultural endurance, and the other will document strategies for academic success. Also, a youth mentor/internship initiative will create a cadre of "Bookworm Interns" trained in the Every Child Ready to Read Program®, allowing the interns to practice their new skills during the Summer Reading Program, which will be extended from one to five weeks.
The Boys and Girls Club Afterschool Outreach Program, designed by UC Irvine Science Educators in conjunction with Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit faculty, aimed to increase elementary students' interest, enthusiasm, and learning outcomes in STEM fields through the development of hands-on physical science science lessons. External evaluation results showed the program was successful in altering students' perceptions of scientists and supported their internalization of science as a potential career choice. Now in its third year, the program continues includes support from undergraduate student, graduate student, and faculty volunteerism.
LIGO's Science Education Center is in charge of Education and Public Outreach Component for the LIGO Livingston Observatory. The three prime efforts are: (1) Professional development for teachers utilizing lab facilities and cross-institute collaborations. (2) Outreach to students K-16 (targeting 5- 9th grade), with on-site field trips to the LIGO Lab and Science Education Center, as well as off-site visits & presentations. (3) Outreach to the general public and community groups with on-site tours and Science Education Center Experience, as well as off=site visits and presentations. LIGO's Science Education Center is located at the LIGO Observatory, and has an auditorium, a classroom and a 5000 square foot exhibit hall with interactive exhibits at its disposal to complete its mission. In addition LIGO-SEC staff serve to help press and documentary film makers complete their missions in telling the "LIGO story" and encouraging budding scientists.
Several major international studies recognize that children (and adults) pursue lifelong STEM interests and understandings, in and out of school, using a variety of community resources and networks. In most communities though, these resources are not well connected with one another, nor is there understanding on the ground of how children and adults can best access and use these resources to support their lifelong STEM interests and learning. The SYNERGIES project is predicated on the assumption that better understanding how 10-14 year old youth become interested and engaged with STEM (or not) across settings, time and space, will make possible a more coordinated network of educational opportunities, involving many partners in and out of school, and in the process, create a community-wide, research-based educational system that is more effective and synergistic. Using the under-resourced Parkrose community of Portland, Oregon as a case-study, the SYNERGIES team has been longitudinally studying the STEM interest and participation pathways of 200 youth for four years. Data from this investigation formed the foundation for a community-wide, multi-year STEM education improvement plan jointly developed by the schools, after-school providers, museums, libraries, parks, colleges, parents and businesses.
At the CSMC, we have three main goals for our Outreach and Education activities, and we do our best to accomplish all three goals with all of our programs and activities. These goals include increasing young peoples' interest in STEM, increasing adults' appreciation of the importance of publicly funded research, and professional development for our students, post docs and PIs. With that in mind, we have created a suite of education and outreach programs that highlight professional development for the people doing the outreach while also accomplishing our outreach goals. Our programs include hosting local and regional Science Pub events, participating in Meet-a-Scientist style outreach events at schools and science and technology centers, and something called the Oregon Outreach Days tours. These tours combine a Science Pub event for the public in the evening with meetings with business, political and educational leaders during the day.
Wyoming EPSCoR's education, outreach and diversity programs include undergraduate and graduate research and student achievement support, K-12 educational programs and teacher trainings, diversity programs targeted at increasing the representation of URGs in the sciences, and research infrastructural improvements on the community college level. Our current Track-1 Award through NSF EPSCoR is related to understanding the water balance through hydrology, ecology, and geophysics; and most of our programs include a heavy emphasis in that area.
The UMN MRSEC conducts an ambitious and multi-faceted education and outreach program to extend the impact of the Center beyond the university, providing undergraduates, college faculty, high school teachers, and K-12 students with opportunities that augment their traditional curriculum and increase their appreciation of materials science and engineering (MS&E). Our summer research program provides high-quality research and educational experiences in MS&E to students and faculty, drawn primarily from undergraduate institutions with limited research opportunities, while placing a strong emphasis on inclusion of women and members of underrepresented groups.
The Education and Outreach (EO) program is an essential part of the CRISP MRSEC located at Yale and SCSU. CRISP offers activities that promote the interdisciplinary and innovative aspects of materials science to a diverse group of participants. The objective of the program is to enhance the education of future scientists, science teachers, K-12 students, parents, and the general public. CRISP’s primary informal science activities include public lectures, family science nights, New Haven Science Fair and museum partnerships.
The LTER Network is an innovative platform for training the next generation of natural scientists in collaborative, integrative, long-term research in ecology. An important objective of the network is to share knowledge with other communities. The LTER Network Office addresses this objective by managing a Communication and Outreach program that targets key communities—scientists, policy makers, educators and students, and the mass media as a proxy of the rest of the non-specific audiences—and maintain strategic partnerships and collaborations that provide improved access to these communities.
Socioscientific issues in connection to energy production, use or influence on climate change continue to be at the forefront of local, national, and global debates. The pressing nature of these issues requires citizens not only to understand relevant disciplinary knowledge but also to have the ability to use that knowledge to take action. This paper investigates the work of youth in an after school science program designed to examine socioscientific issues as they took educated action in science by putting on a “green carnival” for their peers and community members in relation to green energy