In this review paper, Oliver calls for greater cross-pollination between neuroscience research and educational practice. She asks, “What can educators learn from an understanding of educational neuroscience?”
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting held in Washington, DC. It presents the programs in production for Season Three of SciGirls, a series of six episodes following groups of girls and their mentors as they take part in citizen science projects. Season Three is produced in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Girls Collaborative Project.
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TPT Twin Cities Public TelevisionRichard Hudson
This theoretical paper attempts to make the case for the use of narrative (i.e., fictional written text) in science education as a way of making science meaningful, relevant and accessible to the public. Grounded in literature pointing to the value of narrative in supporting learning and the need to explore new modes of communicating science, this paper explores the use of narrative in science education. More specifically, in this paper we explore the question: What is narrative and what are its necessary components that may be of value to science education? In answering this question we
Many science educators encourage student experiences of “authentic” science by means of student participation in science-related workplaces. Little research has been done, however, to investigate how “teaching” naturally occurs in such settings, where scientists or technicians normally do not have pedagogical training and generally do not have time (or value) receiving such training. This study examines how laboratory members without a pedagogical background or experience in teaching engage high school students during their internship activities. Drawing on conversation analysis, we analyze
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Pei-Ling HsuWolff-Michael RothAsit Mazumder
The purpose of this study was to investigate how two female students participated in science practices as they worked in a multimedia case-based environment: interpreting simulated results, reading and writing multiple texts, role-playing, and Internet conferencing. Using discourse analysis, the following data were analyzed: students' published web posters, Internet conferencing logs between American and Zimbabwean university students, and a focus group interview. Three constructs supported the development of these students' identities in practice: (a) multimedia cases creating emotional
Some 400 years after Galileo, modern telescopes have enabled humanity to "see" what the natural eye cannot. Astronomical images today contain information about incredibly large objects located across vast distances and reveal information found in "invisible" radiation ranging from radio waves to X-rays. The current generation of telescopes has created an explosion of images available for the public to explore. This has, importantly, coincided with the maturation of the Internet. Every major telescope has a web site, often with an extensive gallery of images. New and free downloadable tools
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Lisa SmithJeffrey SmithKimberly ArcandRandall SmithJay BookbinderKelly Keach
Learning to see inequity in science is critical to anyone who is actively encouraging young people to invest their education, career, and life in the discipline. If the culture of science is grossly inequitable, why should students take the risk of entering this discipline over careers in other arenas? Many scholarly publications from the fields of psychology, science education, and sociology have described inequities in science; proposed theoretical frameworks for understanding them; and explored practical strategies for addressing such inequities, but progress in jettisoning these inequities
Elementary school children are capable of reproducing sophisticated science process skills such as observing, designing experiments, collecting data, and evaluating evidence. An understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge requires more than teaching and learning the performance of these skills. It also requires an appreciation of how these actions lead to knowledge generation and shape its durable and tentative nature. Our understanding of activities that support the teaching and learning of the nature of scientific knowledge is still growing. This study compares how scientific
The “deficit model” of public attitudes towards science has led to controversy over the role of scientific knowledge in explaining lay people’s attitudes towards science. In this paper we challenge the de facto orthodoxy that has connected the deficit model and contextualist perspectives with quantitative and qualitative research methods respectively. We simultaneously test hypotheses from both theoretical approaches using quantitative methodology. The results point to the clear importance of knowledge as a determinant of attitudes toward science. However, in contrast to the rather simplistic
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Patrick SturgisNick Allum
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This report presents the findings of a two-day invitational workshop held at MIT on September 23–24, 2013 as part of the Evolving Culture of Science Engagement Initiative, an ongoing collaboration between a new nonprofit organization, Culture Kettle, and several MIT departments led by the Program in Science, Technology & Society and the MIT Museum. The initiative explores a new wave of public science engagement activity that appears to be dissolving the once-bright line between science and popular culture.
EDC’s Center for Children and Technology (CCT), a nonprofit research and development organization (cct.edc.org), conducted the formative evaluation of the BAS project for the last three years. Iridescent has assisted CCT researchers in the successful implementation of the evaluation (e.g., organizing site visits and meetings with partners, administering surveys, collecting consent forms). As discussed in more details below, Iridescent has always taken seriously the evaluation findings and recommendations, and has acted upon them to make program improvements. This research partnership has led
There is a growing call for greater public involvement in establishing science and technology policy, in line with democratic ideals. A variety of public participation procedures exist that aim to consult and involve the public, ranging from the public hearing to the consensus conference. Unfortunately, a general lack of empirical consideration of the quality of these methods arises from confusion as to the appropriate benchmarks for evaluation. Given that the quality of the output of any participation exercise is difficult to determine, the authors suggest the need to consider which aspects