If one of aims of science today is to respond to the real needs of society, it must find a new way to communicate with people and to be acquainted with their opinions and knowledge. Many science museums in Europe are adopting new ways to actively engage the public in the debate on topical scientific issues. The Museum of Science and Technology "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan (partner of the SEDEC project) has thus experimented some formats for dialogue with teachers and with the public in general. Our experience shows that museums can be places where science and the public on the one hand and
In the course of the last decade the European debate on the concept of citizenship has shown that a definition of this concept in strictly legal and jurisprudence terms is reductive. Indeed a behavioral element is present, which goes beyond the defence and request for defence of rights and duties, but actually stresses the importance of acting within a community (or within several communities). A citizenship belonging to a given space/time context which, to be authentic, requires know-how and know-how-to-be that can be gained in different training opportunities (formal, informal etc.) with
In the field of scientific communication in Europe, science centres have gained increasing importance over the last ten years. Italy, beyond the City of Science in Naples, is also planning the set up of more science centres throughout the country. Their hands-on style makes them something between a museum and a fun fair and, beyond the issue of merit, no doubt the success of many science centres also depends on the fun offered. It is important then to be able to assess to what extent people can actually make use of the proposed themes. This report tries to point out the dialogue opportunities
The Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Network) is a national infrastructure that links science museums and other informal science education organizations with nanoscale science and engineering research organizations. The Network’s overall goal is to foster public awareness, engagement, and understanding of nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. As part of the front-end effort, this report, Part IIB, documents 19 nanoscale STEM programming, media, and school-based projects that have been completed or are in development as of 2005.
The aim of this project is to communicate the basic laws of particle physics with Feynman diagrams - visual tools which represent elementary particle processes. They were originally developed as a code to be used by physicists and are still used today for calculations and elaborations of theoretical nature. The technical and mathematical rules of Feynman diagrams are obviously the exclusive concern of physicists, but on a pictorial level they can help to popularize many concepts, ranging from matter and the antimatter; the creation, destruction and transformation of particles; the role of
The fact that inquiry-based science teaching has been defined in various ways makes claims about its effectiveness with students difficult to synthesize. In this meta-analysis, the authors generate a two-dimensional framework to analyze studies of the effectiveness of inquiry-based science instruction in improving student learning outcomes.
Through this review of research on public engagement with science, Feinstein, Allen, and Jenkins advocate supporting students as “competent outsiders”—untrained in formal sciences, yet using science in ways relevant to their lives. Both formal and informal settings can be well suited for work in which students translate scientific content and practices into meaningful actions.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Makerspaces are social spaces with tools, where individuals and groups conceptualize, design, and make things using new and old technologies. Literacy practices are the ways people use representational texts to navigate and make sense of their worlds. They are used in particular contexts with particular goals. By “representational texts” we mean written words, talk, photographs, diagrams, videos, schematics, computer code, electrical circuit diagrams
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Science fairs have been taking place for more than 60 years. Yet in spite of their wide implementation and long history, there are few empirical studies that have examined the relationship between student participation in these fairs and their learning and interest in science. Additionally, there have been no studies to understand the real cost of these programs relative to the student benefits. Our 4-year study will be the first step to understanding the
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This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The University of Washington Bothell in partnership with three informal science learning institutions coordinate and develop afterschool science programs for high school students. Upon successful completion of the programs, high school students are awarded college credit. The program design and method for issuing college credit is through the design, implementation and issuing of digital badges. The project aims to support programs that engage high school
This is a report of a project titled ‘The Contribution of Natural History Museums to Science Education’, funded by the Wellcome Trust and ESRC with a Phase 1 grant from the Science Learning+ initiative. The project explored how Natural History Museums (NHMs) and schools can complement one another to maximise learning among school-age learners, and researched the long-term benefits to learning and engagement with science that NHMs can provide. During the course of our work, our team, which consisted of museum professionals and academics in the UK and the US, worked in the UK and the US with
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Through My Window is engineering education that applies research from the learning sciences—including the use of cognitive tools such as narrative and knowledge building—in an idea-centered digital environment. Together these approaches support deep learning and address the critical need of preparing young learners to participate in the knowledge society. The curriculum includes young adult novels; interactive, online learning modules; and offline enrichment