Children have a wonderful curiosity about nature and the environment, which, if encouraged through afterschool activities can have a profound impact on their health and well-being. Children also take readily to concepts of conservation which will make them excellent stewards of the future of our environment. This issue brief explores the relationship between children's health, academic enrichment and community awareness through developing a relationship with the wonders of their natural environment.
In the fall of 2007 the Doig River First Nation, an Aboriginal group from northeastern British Columbia, launched its Virtual Museum of Canada-funded Web exhibit Dane-Wajich: Dane-zaa Stories and Songs: Dreamers and the Land. This exhibit was produced by the First Nation in collaboration with ethnographers, linguists, and multimedia professionals. It integrates subtitled Dane-zaa and English video narratives, interpretive e-text, photographs of the production process, recordings of songs, and contemporary and archival images of traditional lands in order to showcase Dane-zaa culture and
Conservation education at zoos, parks and other free-choice conservation settings is geared towards teaching and/or reinforcing certain key conservation messages that relate to the mission of the institution. These messages are communicated through a variety of channels ranging from interpretive signage, to resource elements (e.g., animals, scenic vistas, etc.) and personnel (e.g., docents and interpreters. A number of studies have focused on the outcome of visits to such settings, but little is known about the accuracy of message communication through these channels, or the factors that
Produced by National Geographic Television and funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Alien Deep is a multi-platform media project designed to increase public literacy about: the fundamental principles and concepts underlying ocean systems and functions, the importance and challenges of oceanographic research and exploration, and the impact of the ocean on humanity and humanity’s impact on the ocean. The centerpiece of the project is a five-part mini-series that premiered on the National Geographic Channel in 2012. In addition to the five episodes, which were also made
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Knight Williams Inc.Valerie Knight-WilliamsDivan WilliamsRachel TeelEric AndersonGabriel Simmons
In the past 15 years, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as an ideal technology for delivering child-computer interaction that is adapted to children’s psychomotor and cognitive skills development. The rapid evolution of these tangible technologies has meant that there has been little or no time to build a foundation for the design of games and learning applications that could offer pleasant and useful experiences to children. Our research group specializes in multimodal and natural human-computer interaction and conducts child-focused research that highlights children’s real needs
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Javier MarcoSandra BaldassarriEva CerezoDiana Yifan XuJanet Read
Citizen science enlists members of the public to make and record useful observations, such as counting birds in their backyards, watching for the first budding leaf in spring, or measuring local snowfall. The large numbers of volunteers who participate in projects such as Project FeederWatch or Project BudBurst collect valuable research data, which, when pooled together, create an enormous body of scientific data on a vast geographic scale. In return, such projects aim to increase participants' connections to science, place, and nature, while supporting science literacy and environmental
This report details a nine-month summative evaluation of the Underwater Dome Exhibit at the Seattle Aquarium. The study was undertaken to inform the Aquarium's development of short- term, cost-effective updates to improve visitor satisfaction and experience in the dome. The study sought to develop a baseline understanding of how visitors use and react to the exhibit, as well as to determine whether or not visitors understand that the dome represents the Puget Sound. Data was collected using observational and survey instruments (included in the appendix of this report).
Suitable for planners, educationalists and environmentalists, this book introduces the theory and the practice of children's participation, and its importance for developing democracy and sustainable communities.
This report offers an assessment of environmental literacy in America that is both sobering and hopeful. This summary of almost a decade of NEETF (National Environmental Education & Training Foundation) collaboration with Roper Reports provides a loud wake-up call to the environmental education community, to community leaders, and to influential specialists ranging from physicians to weathercasters. At a time when Americans are confronted with increasingly challenging environmental choices, we learn that our citizenry is by and large both uninformed and misinformed.
This is a report of the NSF Advisory Committee for Environmental Research. It contains a call to action, research priorities, and sections on environmental research and citizen science.
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
NSF Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education
This study investigated middle school students’ identity development as learners of science during learning conversations at an informal science education camp. The central research question was: What is the role of conversation in influencing science learner identity development during an informal science education camp? Identity in this study was defined as becoming and being recognized as a certain type of person (Gee, 2001). This study focused particularly on discursive identity, defined as individual traits recognized through discourse with other individuals (Gee, 2005; 2011). The study
This report presents findings based on the largest and most international study of zoo and aquarium visitors ever conducted worldwide. The study used a pre- and post-visit repeated-measures survey design to evaluate biodiversity literacy - biodiversity understanding and knowledge of actions to help protect biodiversity - in zoo and aquarium visitors. In total, more than 6,000 visitors to 30 zoos and aquariums around the globe participated in the study. Appendix contains survey.
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
World Association of Zoos and AquariumsAndrew MossEric JensenMarkus Gusset