The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) is collaborating with the Museum of Science in Boston (MoS), the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in Durham (NCMLS), Explora in Albuquerque, the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University (CRMSE), and TERC in Cambridge, MA to develop, create and evaluate "MathCore for Museums," long-term math environments that children can interact with over multiple visits and over several years. The project is prototyping and producing 12 open-source, validated interactive exhibits about proportion: fractions, ratios, similarity, scaling, and percentages, basic concepts for understanding Algebra. The eight best exhibits will be replicated for each MathCore museum and the exhibits will be supported by a limited-access website designed to support and extend repeated use of exhibits and further exploration of ratio and proportion. Selinda Research Associates will conduct a longitudinal evaluation of the project. CRSME will conduct a research study of selected exhibit prototypes to investigate when children start to work on proving relations between similarity and proportion in informal settings, the relationship between children's artwork and mathematical insight, and the roles of bodily activity in learning to see relations in similarity and proportion. Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed publications, at professional meetings, at the Association of Science and Technology Center's RAP Sessions at the NCMLS, and through the project's website.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
J NewlinRicardo Nemirovsky
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Board on Science Education (BOSE) of the NRC is a standing committee of the National Academies. This proposal requests core support for BOSE so that it can continue to provide national leadership in science education. Specifically, BOSE (1) improves the knowledge base for science education; (2) identifies critical issues in science education policy and practice; (3) translates research and disseminates evidence-based information; and (4) builds an interdisciplinary community of scholars to bring knowledge to bear on important issues in science education. To carry out its mandate, BOSE conducts studies, sponsors workshop and works with government representatives to surface emerging policy issues. The Board has identified the following priorities for the next few years: intersection on research on learning and science education, cyber-enabled learning and teaching, analysis of the Education System to enable implementation and scale-up, reaching diverse populations, intersection of science and science education The core support enables two two-day Board meetings each year, coordination with DBASSE and other units of the Academy, and regular meetings between NSF and the Academies.
The University of Minnesota is partnering with several nature centers in the Midwest to transform citizen "technicians" into citizen "scientists." The Driven to Discover project will use existing citizen science programs with strong educational components to engage 12-14 year old youth and their adult mentors in authentic research. The goal of the project is to develop a training model for adults who work with youth in a variety of informal education settings to involve them in authentic scientific inquiry via citizen science rather than just data collection activities. In the proof-of-concept phase, teams consisting of 4-H youth, adult leaders, and several scientists are conducting participatory action research to understand what factors lead youth to full engagement in ecological research. In phase two, project personnel are training 4-H educators, naturalists, and teachers how to engage youth and their adult leaders in other 4-H programs and other informal education programs to conduct ecological research with scientists in advisory roles. Phase one involves approximately 10 adults and 70 youth, whereas phase two involves approximately 40 adults and 300 youth. A front-end study defined the project's target audiences and partners. Formative evaluation study will monitor interactions among members of the research teams and summative evaluation will measure impacts on participants' knowledge, skills development, attitudes, and behavior. Project deliverables include youth-generated ecological research findings, web-based program implementation materials, an annual conference, and a model for engaging youth groups in informal settings in authentic scientific inquiry. The model is expected to impact more than six million youth nationwide.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Karen OberhauserNathan MeyerAndrea Lorek StraussPamela NippoltKatie ClarkRobert Blair
This development project will create, test, validate, and disseminate a suite of evaluation tools for use by professionals who are developing Public Participation in Scientific Research projects. The necessary evaluation tools for what participants learn or believe after participating in citizen science projects (called Public Participation in Scientific Research or PPSR) are generally unavailable to project managers where conference participants. The project will collect examples of cognitive and affective test instruments and try them out in citizen science projects underway. This project grew from discussions at a conference on Developing a Citizen Science Toolkit at Cornell in 2007 where participants noted that evaluation is the most challenging and least understood step in the process of project development. Thus to provide projects with the tools of evaluation that are relevant to the field itself and to the development of the projects on citizen science, the investigators intend to conduct a study to demonstrate how an evaluation framework can be used to assess the impact of projects by conducting evaluations and presenting them as case studies. The investigators will provide evaluation tools for project developers and will facilitate community discussion about the use of these materials. The project also will provide an evaluation of the procedures used to create the tool kit for investigators. The evaluators are expert professionals in the field of attitude measurement, cognitive measurement, informal science program creation, and citizen science management. The investigators will provide webinars for investigators planning to use the tool kit in their projects. This project is intended to strengthen the field of informal science education researchers and administrators by providing a source for acceptable measurement methods of the impact on the public of participating in a scientific research project.
Arizona State University is conducting a May 2010 two-day workshop that will bring together "Next Generation" (NextGen) science communicators (writers, journalists, bloggers, documentary filmmakers, museum professionals); NextGen scholars/researchers in science and technology policy; and publication editors. The goals are: to help improve the communications skills of these professionals, to encourage collaborations of communicators and scholars, and, ultimately, to help the public gain a better understanding of the policy dimensions of STEM by encouraging more effective communications about STEM and policy issues that affect their lives. The workshop provides direct experience in a writing genre called "narrative nonfiction" or "creative nonfiction," a domain in which Gutkind has been a leader. The co-PI, Guston, is a scholar in science and technology policy and an active partner of the NSF-funded Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network. In addition, the Spring 2011 issue of Issues in Science and Technology will include works by the collaborating communicators/scholars. This workshop precedes and informs a larger conference on science policy, The Rightful Place of Science?," funded by others, including NSF's Science, Technology, and Society program.
Video games have been heralded as models of technology-enhanced learning environments as they exemplify many of the ideas emerging from contemporary learning sciences research. In particular, such games promote learning through goal-directed action in simulated environments, through producing as well as consuming information, embedded assessments, and through participation in self-organizing learning systems. Research suggests that participation in such environments involves many forms of scientific thinking and may lead to increased civic engagement, although to date, there are few examples of game-based learning environments that capitalize on these affordances. This project will investigate the potential of online role playing games for scientific literacy through the iterative design and research of Saving Lake Wingra, an online role playing game around a controversial development project in an urban area. Saving Lake Wingra positions players as ecologists, department of natural resources officials, or journalists investigating a rash of health problems at a local lake, and then creating and debating solutions. Players will solve challenges within an interactive, simulated lake ecosystem as they attempt to save the lake, working for one of several constituencies. This design-based research project will span the full life cycle of a project, from case studies of learning in small, constrained settings to controlled experimental studies of games implemented across classrooms. In addition to asking if participation in scientific role-playing games can produce robust conceptual understandings, it will also examine if role playing games might serve as assessment tools for comprehending scientific texts, assessing conceptual understandings within scientific domains, and designing innovative solutions to environmental problems that draw upon scientific understandings. The education plan includes the production of game-based media that can be used to support a variety of research studies, an online professional development community of educators using games for learning, support for graduate students trained in game theory, the learning sciences, and new forms of assessment, and new courses in game-based learning and assessment.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kurt Squire
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The proposed CAREER study uses a comprehensive mixed-methods design to develop measures of motivational beliefs and family supports for Spanish and English speaking Mexican-origin youth in high school physical science. The research examines a three-part model which may provide a deeper understanding of how Mexican families support youth through their general education strategies, beliefs about physical science, and science specific behaviors. This approach incorporates motivation and ecodevelopmental theories while pursuing an innovative line of research that examines how the contributions of older siblings and relatives complement or supplement parental support. The study has four aims which are to (1) to develop reliable, valid measures of Mexican-origin adolescent motivational beliefs and family supports in relation to high school chemistry and physics, (2) to test whether family supports predict motivational beliefs and course enrollment, (3) to test how indicators in Aim 2 vary based on gender, culture, English language skills and relationship quality, and (4) to examine how family supports strengthen or weaken the relationship between school-based interactions (teachers and peer support) and the pursuit of physical science studies. Spanish and English-speaking Mexican-origin youth will participate in focus groups to inform the development of a survey instrument which will be used in a statistical measurement equivalence study of 300 high school students in fulfillment of Aim 1. One hundred and fifty Mexican high school students and their families will participate in a longitudinal study while students progress through grades 9-12 to examine Aims 2- 4. Data to be collected includes information on science coursework, adolescent motivational beliefs, supports by mothers and older youth in the family, and family interactions. All materials will be in English and Spanish. The educational and research integration plan uses a three pronged approach which includes mentoring of doctoral students, teacher outreach, and the evaluation of the ASU Biodesign high school summer internship program using measures resulting from the research. It is anticipated that the study findings will provide research-based solutions to some of the specific behaviors that influence youth motivation in physical sciences. Specifically, the study will identify youth that might be most affected by an intervention and the age of maximum benefit, as well as valid, reliable measures of youths' motivation that can used in interventions to measure outcomes. The study will also identify family behaviors that may be influenced, including education strategies for school preparation, beliefs about physical science, and sciece-specific strategies such as engaging in science activities outside school. The findings will be broadly disseminated to science teachers, scholars, and families of Mexican-origin youth. This multi-tiered approach will advance current scholarship and practice concerning Mexican-origin adolescents' pursuit of physical science.
Boston's Museum of Science (MOS), with Harvard as its university research partner, is extending, disseminating, and further evaluating their NSF-funded (DRL-0714706) Living Laboratory model of informal cognitive science education. In this model, early-childhood researchers have both conducted research in the MOS Discovery Center for young children and interacted with visitors during the museum's operating hours about what their research is finding about child development and cognition. Several methods of interacting with adult visitors were designed and evaluated, including the use of "research toys" as exhibits and interpretation materials. Summative evaluation of the original work indicated positive outcomes on all targeted audiences - adults with young children, museum educators, and researchers. The project is now broadening the implementation of the model by establishing three additional museum Hub Sites, each with university partners - Maryland Science Center (with Johns Hopkins), Madison Children's Museum (with University of Wisconsin, Madison), and Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (with Lewis & Clark College). The audiences continue to include researchers (including graduate and undergraduate students); museum educators; and adults with children visiting the museums. Deliverables consist of: (1) establishment of the Living Lab model at the Hub sites and continued improvement of the MOS site, (2) a virtual Hub portal for the four sites and others around the country, (3) tool-kit resources for both museums and scientists, and (4) professional symposia at all sites. Intended outcomes are: (1) improve museum educators' and museum visiting adults' understanding of cognitive/developmental psychology and research and its application to raising their children, (2) improve researchers' ability to communicate with the public and to conduct their research at the museums, and (3) increase interest in, knowledge about, and application of this model throughout the museum community and grow a network of such collaborations.
The Zoo and Aquarium Action Research Collaborative research project targets zoo and aquarium staff with a cascading action research model meant to build the capacity of the informal science education field to conduct action research on visitor learning. Research questions focus on the experiences of participating zoo and aquarium staff in conducting action research on visitor experiences and how they use the information from that research to improve and develop educational programs. In the first year of the project, zoo and aquarium staff will implement a well validated educational activity with visitors to their institutions and learn how to develop and implement action research in their context. In the second year of the project, zoo and aquarium staff will take their new skills in action research and develop their own questions to investigate visitor learning in their own organizational settings. Project staff will train zoo and aquarium staff in action research, provide technical assistance and facilitate collaboration among the sites and staff. This project will contribute to learning in the field about how action research can be used to develop ISE staffs\' skills in data collection, data analysis and data-driven decision making. Partners in this project include TERC and Oregon State University, and sites are situated in zoos and aquariums in six states: CA, MO, MA, AZ, MD and WA. At each of these institutions approximately 15 senior staff will participate in the professional development. Evaluation of the project will focus on the learning that is generated about collaborative models for action research and the impact on ISE staff of participating in action research as professional development. Methods for the evaluation will include surveys and interviews with participants, observations, document review and site visits. Outcomes of the project include increased capacity for zoo and aquarium staff to conduct action research on visitor learning, case studies of collaborative action research projects that will be disseminated widely through workshops and conferences, and research papers presented at conferences and published.
The purpose of this three-year collaborative design research project is to examine the role of culture in the development of knowledge and reasoning about the natural world and the subsequent sense-making of and participation in natural resource management. The PIs propose to examine the ways in which culture impacts observational habits, explanation constructing, uses and forms of evidence, and orientations towards socio-scientific challenges such as natural resource management. Collaborating on this project are researchers from the American Indian Center of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. The audience for this study includes the academic informal science education community and indigenous science educators. This project also offers extensive cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary research opportunities for pre- and post-doctoral research trainees. The project will employ a mixed methods approach and proposes evaluation through an advisory board and community input. A community assessment team is proposed to review activities, obtain feedback from the larger community, and identify challenges to the effective implementation of the program. The project is comprised of two main panels of studies: the first consisting of a series of investigations of learning in everyday activities and the second consisting of two community design experiments that engage two Native American communities and two non-Native communities, one rural and one urban for both communities, in a culturally based citizen science (CBCS) project focused on ecosystem disruption (e.g. invasive species; climate change) and natural resource management. The CBCS project will engage participants in question formation, data collection, data analysis, forming policy recommendations, and citizen action around the findings. This project will develop a citizen science model that effectively engages diverse communities towards productive science learning, helpful scientific data collection, and citizen engagement in community planning and local policy decisions. The researchers believe that fundamental advances in STEM teaching and learning are needed across the broad landscape of learning environments and that the success of such advances may pivot on innovations and discoveries made in informal environments. Insights obtained from prior research on learning in indigenous cultures, especially in biological and environmental sciences, combined with the anticipated results from this study could lead to a deeper understanding of cross-cultural similarities and differences in science learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Karen WashinawatokMegan BangDouglas MedinUniversity of Washington
This research project, from The University of Central Florida, and the Museum of Science and Industry, investigates a three-cycle research and development process where middle school student learners will be immersed in a mixed reality environment while interacting with functional metaphors to determine the effects of conceptual change, motivation and scientific habits of mind while engaged in learning physics content. The project is guided by the following research questions: How does the opportunity to embody elements of an immersive simulation affect a learner's propensity to experience conceptual change and develop scientific habits of mind? What design features of missed reality environments best support metaphors? What metrics are most effective for assessing learning through body-based metaphors? What are the practical considerations to creating immersive metaphor-based learning experiences in ISE institutions such as a Science Center? The investigators will use a between subjects mixed method approach with middle school students (N = 360) involving three research cycles that are performed in controlled conditions. The multiple iterations will allow modifications to the study's design to dig deeper into the data and afford more careful analysis, revisions and modifications to simulation content, protocol and data collection instruments and the technology installation. Middle school students will be recruited from local schools and the Museum of Science and Industry visitors. The evaluation plan includes the assessment of perceived values of using whole-body metaphors within mixed reality environments to learn physics. Professional audiences, educators and ISE practitioners will assess the impact, design and content associated with research on learning, mixed reality design, science and physics education. Research on understanding the process of using whole-body interactions in a mixed reality environments will help educational researchers and practitioners in the field understand the effectiveness of metaphor based learning of scientific concepts with whole body interactions. This project contributes knowledge about how people learn within informal settings. This theory-driven design approach has the potential for broad implementation in both formal and informal environments.
This project will develop a prototype intelligent cyberlearning platform for middle school audiences at a museum location to test and evaluate the use of virtual learning technologies. The content for this test is focused on sustainability issues that enable students to develop an age-appropriate understanding of the relationships between specific conservation decisions, energy use, human health, and population growth within Earth's ecosystem. The prototype cyberlearning system will demonstrate how users can learn about science topics by interacting with a display of environmental factors that enable them to explore the impact of social, economic, and technological forces that may change one existing state and condition to another. The system will enable users to understand the interrelationships of those elements by enabling them to change conditions and then observing the effect of the changes they make on the conditions presented in the initial model. The prototype intelligent cyberlearning system will provide a unique integration of a sophisticated agent-based modeling simulation of environmental, social, and economic phenomena with three advanced learning technologies: game-based learning systems, intelligent tutoring systems, and narrative-centered learning systems. The game-based and narrative aspects of the project are embodied in the interactive time-travel focus of the 3D display on a multi-touch surface computing table in which users will play the role of environmental scientists who have been charged with helping earth become a thriving green planet. They will go back in time and be given the opportunity to make different decisions on any range of options. After they make their decisions, they will travel forward in time to see the results of their decisions. All of the interactions will be used to dynamically generate their time-travel adventures. The intelligent tutoring system will track user\'s problem-solving activities in the simulated world. As users make decisions, the intelligent tutoring system will draw inferences about their level of understanding of key environmental concepts. Given the current problem-solving goal (e.g., reduce green house gases) and the current state of the environment (e.g., climatological state, earth's population, factory emissions), the intelligent tutoring system will draw on its knowledge of common environmental misconceptions to assist students as they progress through the sustainability narratives. The intelligent tutoring system will receive the updated state from the agent-based simulation, which will then provide explanatory commentary and advice through the virtual human to the users about the causal connections underlying the results of the decisions they have made. Similarly, during the course of decision-making, users will be able to request advice, and the same computational framework will drive the virtual human\'s advice generation functionalities. The project will design, development, deploy, and evaluate a prototype intelligent cyberlearning platform for sustainability that supports independent, but guided, exploration of science topics. Because all users interactions will be accompanied by a virtual environmental scientist who will narrate their journeys and offer problem-solving advice, users will be afforded rich learning opportunities that support independent inquiry but also provided guided exploration of complex science topics. With a focus on group learning experiences in the out-of-school setting, the virtual environmental scientist will answer questions that will engage groups of users in a collaborative effort to understand the rich interrelationships of sustainability. The project will demonstrate the transformative potential of intelligent cyberlearning systems that integrate agent-based modeling with game-based learning, intelligent tutoring systems, and narrative-centered learning in an out-of-school setting to enable users to experience science in fundamentally new ways.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
James LesterBradford MottJames MinoguePatrick Fitzgerald