Intellectual Merit: The Science Museum of Minnesota and Purdue University's Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning are conducting a study within out-of-school contexts that will explore gender differences in the development of engineering interest and understanding in children between the ages of 4 and 11. During the study, the researchers will closely examine three specific informal environments: a pre-school program where parents and children can engage with engineering focused activity, a family-oriented engineering event for elementary students and their parents, and an engineering exhibit within a science museum. These settings, each featuring a high level of parent-child interaction, have been intentionally chosen due to an emerging trend in engineering education research that identifies the parent as playing a crucial role in girls' decisions regarding engineering careers. The project will examine the ways in which engineering practices (such as the iterative design, build, and test cycle) impact the development of interest and understanding. The study focuses on studying children during the critical years before middle school, when girls have been shown to have significantly lower levels of interest in engineering than boys. Broader Impacts: Investigating the processes by which girls develop early interest and understanding in engineering is essential to addressing the persistent underrepresentation of women in engineering fields. Informal learning experiences, such as interactions in the home, visits to museums, and other everyday encounters, represent a rich array of settings for the development of engineering interest that have been minimally researched. The project will share results from the study through traditional academic channels, and also through parent and practitioner workshops for informal science educators that disseminate useful practices and techniques for engaging girls in engineering at a young age. In addition, the partnership between the Science Museum of Minnesota and Purdue University creates a strong foundation for subsequent collaborative projects focused on researching informal engineering education. The project has the potential to significantly impact the ways in which girls begin to cultivate a lifelong interest in engineering, which may ultimately encourage more women to pursue engineering careers in the future.
This project develops an interdisciplinary and transformative in- and out of-school science education and technology program that engages high school aged youth and their teachers in 1) the production of food using hydroponics, and 2) the use of green energy technologies (solar, and wind) to power hydroponic systems. This distinctive program integrates food production, a novel model of parental outreach, a focus on green career development, and an authentic reason (growing their own produce for selling at a market) for learning how and why to use alternative energy technologies. The project creates an approach to sustainability in which students not only give back to their community, but are in a position to provide a continuous revenue stream to the school in order to operate their indoor urban garden indefinitely. The partnership with the Boston Youth Environmental Network provides youth opportunities for summer internships with green energy companies. The project builds upon a learning progressions model in which youth gradually learn about complex scientific systems and economic principles throughout their years in the program. Rather than a onetime experience, youth are engaged in a long-term experience building their knowledge and skills regarding science, economics, and college preparedness. This project has the potential to impact thousands of students informally and over 2000 students (in classrooms) directly with a minimum of 60 students receiving focused and in depth learning experiences during the summer and on weekends during the school year. With the passage of laws encouraging local schools to partner with local farms, the need for locally grown produce will increase; in that context, the program brings the farm to the school in a way that allows food to be grown year round. Thus, a model is developed that any school or informal learning center could adopt to grow their own food while simultaneously creating a living and learning laboratory for youth in their own program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
George BarnettEric StraussDavid BlusteinCatherine WongElizabeth Bagnani
The four New England museums of the Environmental Exhibit Lab (EEC) set out in the Fall of 2011 to create a replicable model of collaborative professional development for small museums. At small institutions, impending deadlines, budget and staffing limitations, and professional isolation all too often get in the way of true innovation. The goal of Exhibit Lab was to help staff who, though conversant with current museum theory, sometimes struggle to apply that theory to their daily work, or to disseminate these ideas through an institution. Exhibit Lab relied on a carefully crafted mix of meetings, workshops and staff exchanges, a combination of outside experts and peer-to-peer mentoring, to foster a community of practitioners, engaged in collaborative learning-by-doing. In short, the participants created a "virtual department" in which we came to rely as quickly on our peers in a partner museum as quickly as we would to a co-worker down the hall had we worked in a larger museum. The Exhibit Lab project focused on the work of the Exhibit and Program/Education staffs, but we feel that the project model holds lessons for other museum departments, and for museums outside the Children's and Science museum sphere.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Worcester Natural History Society dba EcoTariumBetsy LoringAlexander GoldowskySuzanne OlsonChris SullivanPhelan FretzJulie SilvermanNeil GordonDenise LeBlancJoseph P. Cox