This 2006 paper reviews the ways in which structured informal learning programs for youth have been characterized in the research literature. The paper synthesizes opportunities for and challenges to research in this domain; it categorizes programs and gives concrete examples of various program types. A proposed Vygotskian research framework is organized around key dimensions of the informal learning context, including location, relationships, content, pedagogy, and assessment.
In this paper, Anderman and colleagues examine the skills adolescents need in order to learn science effectively. They note that many negative experiences associated with science learning could be avoided if educators were more aware of the abilities of adolescents and the types of environments that foster particular abilities. They offer seven recommendations to practitioners.
This Hundal and Keselman paper describes the design of an afterschool curriculum aimed at supporting argumentation skills in the context of environmental health. It frankly describes the tensions between the teachers and researchers in the co-design of the project. It acknowledges differences in perspectives in a way that may guide the co-design efforts of others.
This study examines the effectiveness of a teacher professional development program that sought to address the integration of Native American students’ cultures with classroom science teaching. Informal science education practitioners interested in reaching non-dominant populations can use this study as evidence that professional development focusing on cultural points of intersection has a positive effect.
Through a critical ethnography, Birmingham and Calabrese Barton examined why and how a group of six middle school girls took civic action, defined as “educated action in science,” after studying green energy in an afterschool science program. The paper follows the students’ process in planning and implementing a carnival to engage their community in energy conservation and efficiency issues.
Lundh and colleagues compare afterschool science offerings to the model of informal science education defined in the National Research Council’s report on learning science in informal environments. Case studies explore how common site-based constraints and the support of external partners influence science program differences as seen through the lens of the NRC model.
Dabney and colleagues examine the relationship between university students’ reported interest in STEM careers and their participation in out-of-school time science activities during middle and high school. The researchers examined the specific forms of OST science activities associated with STEM career interest and the correlations among those forms.
This study focused on girls’ engagement with science and how they negotiate identities with and in opposition to science in a three-year study of community-based afterschool initiatives. Rahm conducted a multi-sited ethnography, observing girls’ whose families had recently immigrated to Montreal, Canada and were participating in a community organization creating science newsletters and science fair projects.
Hamlin provides a how-to guide for leveraging traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) to teach science in indigenous contexts. Her process uses the Vitality Index of Traditional Ecological Knowledge with ethnography to identify TEK. She describes how a community-driven program used TEK to expand the learning opportunities of a historically oppressed group: Maya women in Guatemala.
Hobbyists are excellent learners. They are self-motivated; they seek out new information; they practice and refine their skills. As a result, some develop considerable expertise in their specialist areas. Studying the ways in which hobbyists engage with content may help both formal and informal educators to better understand and support learning.
Fields and Enyedy studied how two students who learned computer programming in an OST program leveraged their skills in the classroom to broker positions as experts in the classroom community. Expert identity is reinforced by the interactions among what students do, how they see themselves, and how others see them.
This article examines middle school girls’ participation in school-day science classes and out-of-school time science clubs to understand the girls’ identification with and relationship to science. Looking at the girls’ science experiences across settings, researchers compared how the identities developed from these experiences supported or worked against the girls’ future trajectories in STEM.