These 16 articles offer a gentle introduction to nano science and technology, and can be used as marketing pieces for discussing nano with the press during NanoDays or other nano event promotion.
The NISE Network content map articulates the key ideas for our educational products, including programs, exhibits, and media experiences. It presents the content knowledge the network has identified as the most important for engaging the public in learning about nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. Content map resources include the full written text document, a powerpoint presentation outlining the map, and a one-page graphic summary of the map.
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NISE Network
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
We've created a selection of useful products to help members of NISE Network promote the network within their own institution or with potential collaborators. These materials are updated regularly.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
NISE Network
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Because the NISE Network bridges the cultures of museums and the academic research world, participants from one profession may not always know the lingo of the other. At the same time, a shared vocabulary is essential for educators and researchers who want to truly collaborate on projects such as writing grant proposals. Therefore, we present the NISE Network Glossary of Two Worlds.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This education project is a time sensitive opportunity related to the March 9, 2016 Total Solar Eclipse occurring in a remote part of the world located in Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia, a U.S. affiliated Pacific Island nation. The path of totality is only 100 miles wide and passes through only a few Pacific Island nations ending in Hawaii. This project uses this unique phenomenon to educate a large US and international audience about solar science using multi-platforms with integrated video, social media, and public programs. Project deliverables include the production of a broadcast of the eclipse live from Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia on March 9, 2016 making it accessible to hundreds of countries and millions of people around the world via satellite and live streaming on the Internet. Additional deliverables include on-site educational programs at science centers and planetariums as well as media resources for long-term use. These resources will enhance the interest and preparedness for additional public engagement when the 2017 eclipse occurs in the U.S. Making new research understandable and accessible to the public is an important activity of the U.S. research enterprise. NSF is making a substantial investment in solar physics research by funding the construction of the world's largest solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope which is slated to begin operations in late 2019 and operated by the National Solar Observatory. This new facility will revolutionize researchers' capability to study the Sun and its magnetic fields. This education project leverages that investment with a major public engagement opportunity that has the potential for reaching millions of students, teachers, and the public both in the U.S. and worldwide through the Internet.
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ExploratoriumRobert SemperNicole MinorRobyn Higdon
Nationally, there is tremendous interest in enhancing participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Providing rich opportunities for engagement in science and engineering practices may be key to developing a much larger cadre of young people who grow up interested in and pursue future STEM education and career options. One particularly powerful way to engage children in such exploration and playful experimentation may be through learning experiences that call for tinkering with real objects and tools to make and remake things. Tinkering is an important target for research and educational practice for at least two reasons: (1) tinkering experiences are frequently social, involving children interacting with educators and family members who can support STEM-relevant tinkering in various ways and (2) tinkering is more open-ended than many other kinds of building experiences (e.g., puzzles, making a model airplane), because it is the participants' own unique questions and objectives that guide the activity. Thus, tinkering provides a highly accessible point of entry into early STEM learning for children and families who do not all share the same backgrounds, circumstances, interests, and expertise. This Research-in-Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. The project will take place in the Tinkering Lab exhibit at Chicago Children's Museum. The research will investigate how reflective interactions between parents and children (ages 6-8) during tinkering activities ultimately impact child engagement in STEM. Design-based research (DBR) is well-suited to the iterative and contextually-rich process of tinkering. Using a DBR approach, researchers and museum facilitators will be trained to prompt variations of simple reflection strategies at different time points between family members as a way to strengthen children's engagement with, and memory of these shared tinkering events. Through progressive refinement, each cycle of testing will lead to new hypotheses that can be tested in the subsequent round of observations. The operationalization of study constructs and their measurement will come organically from families' activities in the Tinkering Lab and will be developed in consultation with members of the advisory board. Data collection strategies will include observation and interviews; a series of coding schemes will be used to make sense of the data. The research will result in theoretical and practical understanding of ways to enhance STEM engagement and learning by young children and their families through tinkering. A diverse group of at least 350 children and their families will be involved. The project will provide much needed empirical results on how to promote STEM engagement and learning in informal science education settings. It will yield useful information and resources for informal science learning practitioners, parents, and other educators who look to advance STEM learning opportunities for children. This research is being conducted through a partnership between researchers at Loyola University of Chicago and Northwestern University and museum staff and educators at the Chicago Children's Museum.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This project will develop and study a cyber-enhanced informal learning environment to improve observational practices and classification skills among citizen scientists. The project will focus on the taxonomic identification skills needed by volunteers to provide high-quality data for water quality monitoring of local streams, lakes, estuaries, wetlands, and ground water resources. To make the task of identifying freshwater insects easier and more engaging, the project will develop an innovative educational resource, the Macroinvertebrate Identification Training Environment, that will use zoomable high-resolution images, interactive media, and annotations of diagnostic features to improve perceptual skills. The goal is to increase the confidence and accuracy of volunteers engaged in identification tasks, while also increasing the reliability and quality of the data they are generating for purposes of scientific research and conservation efforts. This interdisciplinary design research and development project will use networked gigapixel image technology to create a visual environment where users can move seamlessly from full panoramic views of macroinvertebrates to extreme close-ups, with embedded text, images, graphics, audio, and video at various locations and zoom levels. This system will be developed in concert with a cognitive apprenticeship training model designed through a series of design studies. The design studies will be conducted over a two-year period and will include examination of the distinguishing features of various biomonitoring programs, reviews of existing training materials and strategies, expert performance analysis of professional entomologists, and development of user interface features. Project developers will collaborate with five regional volunteer biomonitoring organizations to engage a diverse set of volunteers in the design process, including rural populations, older adults, urban youth, and the trainers who support them. The project work will consist of four integrated strands of activity: design-based learning research, creation of an entomological teaching collection, cyberplatform development, and the external evaluation of the training system. The resulting Macroinvertebrate Identification Training Environment will be evaluated in terms of its impacts on volunteer accuracy, confidence, and engagement in taxonomic classification activities related to macroinvertebrates. The impacts of the learning system on trainers and volunteer biomonitoring organizations will also be examined.
Over the last decade there has been a proliferation of out-of-school environments that foster building, making, tinkering, and design activities, creating an unprecedented opportunity to engage a wide range of participants in mathematics that is both purposeful and powerful. To date, this opportunity has been almost universally unexploited. The conference, which will take place at and in collaboration with the New York Hall of Science, will gather fifty researchers and practitioners from informal mathematics education and the burgeoning "making and tinkering" movement for two days to collaboratively generate approaches to integrating mathematics in making and design environments and programs. The project, which includes pre- and post-conference activities, will produce a sampler of Math in Making activities, a guidebook, a white paper for research and practice, a retrospective online discussion, and further dissemination of project deliverables. It is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. Through the conference and pre- and post-conference activities, the project team will: - Initiate and sustain conversations between researchers and practitioners; - Establish collaborations that lead to changes in the way math is framed and highlighted in making and design environments; - Create resources to help people in the making/design community highlight the math in their environments; and - Frame a research agenda to guide studies of mathematical reasoning and attitudes towards math in making and design environments. The work includes an extensive evaluation process of the conference and of pre- and post-conference activities.