Led by Washington University, Making Natural Connections: An Authentic Field Research Collaboration (DRL-0739874), is a series of two field-based informal science education programs in environmental biology targeting St. Louis area teenagers. The project aims for engagement of science research institutions and career scientists in the execution of informal science education programming, bringing real and dynamic context to the science content and allowing for deep and transparent career exploration by teenage participants. Project goals include (1) providing a model for integration of informal science education into the research and restoration projects at biological field stations and nature reserves, (2) communicating current environmental biology research to audiences outside the research community, and (3) influencing the entry of pre-college students into the science career pipeline. The project is a collaborative partnership between Washington University’s Tyson Research Center and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve. The Shaw Institute for Field Training (SIFT) program trains St. Louis area high school students in scientific exploration of the natural world at Shaw Nature Reserve. During a one-week training session in June, teens are introduced to a variety of Missouri ecosystems and gain skills necessary to conduct field research, including plant and animal identifications, biotic sampling and census techniques, testing of abiotic factors, and training in the use of maps, compass and GPS. During the rest of the summer and school year, teens are involved in important research and restoration activities at Shaw, Tyson Research Center and other field research sites in the St. Louis area. Fieldwork opportunities may include invasive species management, prairie reconstruction, plant and animal inventories, and prescribed burns. The Tyson Environmental Research Fellowships (TERF) program places high school students as summer interns on ecology and environmental biology research teams at Tyson Research Center. Selected teen participants have successfully completed the SIFT program and apply their field skills to ongoing research projects at Tyson and other partnering research sites. During the summer, the four-week program provides teens with exposure to a variety of field science experiences and skills. TERF teens work alongside university scientists, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduate students. The TERF program provides a cultural apprenticeship in university-based environmental biology research and training in scientific communication. It is an advanced summer experience modeled on the undergraduate research internships offered at Tyson. During the following school year, participants work on posters and presentations for symposia at Washington University and Tyson and at community fairs, and their posters are displayed at Shaw Nature Reserve. A national dissemination workshop for informal science educators, high school biology teachers, and research scientists provides the necessary materials and background to replicate the project design in other locales. The summative evaluation will address impacts on teenage participants (engagement, cognitive and emotional support, competence, career viability, experiential learning) and professional audiences (implementation of teen program, program components, impacts on mentoring scientists). The strategic impact of this project results from the integration of teenage immersion experiences into research activities at a university-based facility. This model of informal science training activities leading into participation in authentic research may be transferable to other STEM disciplines.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Phyllis BalcerzakPeter RavenSusan FlowersKim Medley
The New York Hall of Science, the Institute for Learning Innovation, Hunter College of the City University of New York, and a consortium of five regional science center/zoo partnerships will collaborate to develop, implement, and evaluate a project with the working title "Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think." It will develop a research-based traveling exhibition for science centers that explores animal cognition and cross-institutional programming strategies for zoos as a case study for the ISE field. The project's primary goal for public audiences is to foster a deeper understanding of similarities between people and animals in terms of cognition, i.e., how we think. Wild Minds will explore two interrelated hypotheses: (1) a deeper insight into how animals think will create or strengthen the awareness of an evolutionary link between animals and humans; and (2) that this sense of a strong connection can stimulate interest in the welfare of animals in the wild and in our homes. The project will create a 1,500 s.f. traveling exhibition with 15-20 exhibit components exploring aspects of animal cognition for general audiences at five major science centers with zoo partners. The Institute for Learning Innovation project will conduct applied research that will expand on the results of the summative evaluation of the exhibition by investigating whether changes in awareness, understanding, and knowledge about action are sustained over time and/or lead to attitudinal change, behavioral intention, and observable behavior. In addition, process research with the science center and zoo collaborators will provide an analysis that will identify factors contributing to or inhibiting an integrated local informal science education infrastructure in a community. The project will also conduct exploratory research to identify the challenges and benefits encountered during collaboration between science centers and zoos.
Michigan Technological University will collaborate with David Heil and Associates to implement the Family Engineering Program, working in conjunction with student chapters of engineering societies such as the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the Society of Hispanic Professionals (SHP) and a host of youth and community organizations. The Family Engineering Program is designed to increase technological literacy by introducing children ages 5-12 and their parents/caregivers to the field of engineering using the principles of design. The project will reach socio-economically diverse audiences in the upper peninsula of Michigan including Native American, Hispanic, Asian, and African American families. The secondary audience includes university STEM majors, informal science educators, and STEM professionals that are trained to deliver the program to families. A well-researched five step engineering design process utilized in the school-based Engineering is Elementary curriculum will be incorporated into mini design challenges and activities based in a variety of fields such as agricultural, chemical, environmental, and biomedical engineering. Deliverables include the Family Engineering event model, Family Engineering Activity Guide, Family Engineering Nights, project website, and facilitator training workshops. The activity guide will be pilot tested, field tested, and disseminated for use in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Strategic impact will result from the development of content-rich engineering activities for families and the dissemination of a project model that incorporates the expertise of engineering and educational professionals at multiple levels of implementation. It is anticipated that 300 facilitators and 7,000-10,000 parents and children will be directly impacted by this effort, while facilitator training may result in more than 27,000 program participants.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Neil HutzlerEric IversenChristine CunninghamJoan ChaddeDavid Heil
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This project will establish a research foundation for archaeological education in informal learning environments. It will investigate the use of archaeological content and concepts to help museums and other informal learning organizations increase and diversity their audiences. In addition to generating information and a data base, the effort will develop a research framework for presenting this subject to various public audiences with emphasis on underrepresented groups. The plan is to develop and implement a Delphi survey for a variety of stakeholders, including 60 museums, to determine what they do to attract diverse audiences, what is needed to create effective archaeology learning opportunities, and how successful they have been in communicating archaeological content and concepts. The result will be a synthesis that informs a broad spectrum of the informal science education community.
This project will develop a new 4-H Afterschool curriculum called Discovering Technology to be implemented in 7 states potentially reaching 5000 middle school youths and 250 4-H leaders annually. The program would encourage youth in both rural and urban settings to pursue careers in engineering and technology. The project is a partnership of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, the National 4-H Council/4-H Afterschool, North Carolina 4-H and the National Science & Technology Education Partnership (NSTEP).
This project will develop a comprehensive Space Weather Outreach program to reach students, educators, and other members of the public, and share with them the discoveries from this scientific discipline. The Space Science Institute will capitalize on its prior successes and the success of other education programs to develop a comprehensive and integrated program that has the following five components: (1) the Space Weather Center website that includes online educational games; (2) Small Exhibits for Libraries, Shopping Malls, and Science Centers; (3) After-School Programs; (4) Professional Development Workshops for Educators, and (5) an innovative Evaluation and Education Research project. Its overarching goal is to inspire, engage, and educate a broad spectrum of the public and make strategic and innovative connections between informal and K-12 education communities. Partners include UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory; the American Library Association; Macerich: a mall developer with nationwide impact; and the Math, Engineering, Science Achievement program. The project brings together a creative collaboration between exhibit designers, graphic artists, formal/informal educators, and research scientists. The project spans a full spectrum of science communication strategies (formal, informal, and public outreach). The evaluation part of the project will examine how well the project elements work together and a pilot research study will explore the efficacy of online digital games for communicating complex space weather content. Results will be published and the findings presented at professional meetings and online. The three-year project is expected to impact well over two million people, including exhibit and website visitors and outreach visitors at various venues such as libraries and malls.
H2O Chelsea is a community-based water research and surveillance program developed collaboratively by the Municipality of Chelsea, the University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment and Action Chelsea for the Respect of the Environment (ACRE). The goal of the program is to develop a better understanding of ground and surface water resources in Chelsea that will inform municipal planning and management decisions. The project is volunteer-driven, relying on the commitment of over 70 local residents, municipal employees and professors and students from the University of Ottawa.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Municipality of ChelseaUniversity of OttawaAction Chelsea for the Respect of the Environment (ACRE)Isabelle Pitre
A national facility a three-system ground-based mobile radar fleet, the Doppler On Wheels (DOWs). The three systems include two mobile X-band Doppler on Wheels and the 6 to 12 beam "Rapid Scan DOW". These radar systems have participated in research projects that have covered a broad range of topics including individual cumulus cloud studies, orographic precipitation and dynamics, hydrologic studies, fire weather investigations, severe convective storms and tropical cyclones at landfall. DOWs can be frequently utilized on site for educational activities, such as being part of a university atmospheric instrumentation courses. The DOWs can be operated by students with minimal, often remote, technical supervision. The DOWs add significantly to the facility infrastructure of the atmospheric sciences community.
The American Museum of Natural History requests SEPA support for a five-year development and implementation project entitled "Human Health and 'Human Bulletins': Scientists and Teens Explore Health Sciences in the Museum and World At Large." The program has three complementary components: (1) the development of 7 new productions for the Museum's digital media/documentary exhibition program, Human Bulletins http://sciencebulletins.amnh.org) featuring the newest health-related research; (2) a mini-course, entitled Hot Topics in Health Research NOW, an intensive after school program covering genetics, epidemiology, human health and human evolution, including a section on ethics in research; and (3) A "drop-in" Human Bulletins Science Club, where students meet monthly to watch a Human Bulletin visual news program, engage in informal discussions with significant researchers in the fields of evolutionary science and human health. The main goals of this project are: (1) to inform young people about emerging health-related research by using the Human Bulletins as core content for programming and points of engagement; (2) to promote a life-long interest in science among participants by teaching them how health-related science research could potentially affect them or their families; (3) to empower teens to critically assess the science presented to them in the Museum and in the world at large by teaching them to break down the "information bytes" of the Human Bulletins and to analyze how stories are presented visually and how to find answers to questions raised by the Bulletins; (4) for the young people in the program to see themselves as participants in the Museum by developing "mentor" relationships with Museum staff. This will allow students to see AMNH as an enduring institution to be used as a resource throughout their education and careers; and (5) to give students the means to envision themselves with future careers in science, research and in museums (thus fostering new generation of culturally-diverse, culturally enriched scientific leaders) by introducing them to scientists in an informal setting where there are no consequences for making mistakes or asking questions. The students will be given "behind the scenes" looks at new career options through the scientists featured in the Bulletins and the NIH funded researchers on the Advisory Board presenting at the informal sessions. Ultimately, the project aims to give students to critically process the information they receive about public health, see the relevance of human health science to their lives and pursue careers in health science. All of these skills are measurable through formative and summative evaluation. This project will teach young people to understand information about public health that is presented to them through visual and popular media as well as through formal scientific texts. It will also teach them to think about how human health sciences impact their lives and how the decisions they make impact larger human health. Finally, the program will also encourage students to pursue careers and further information about public health.
Having developed the concept of near-peer mentorship at the middle school/high school level and utilized it in a summer science education enhancement program now called Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science or GEMS at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), it is now our goal to ultimately expand this program into an extensive, research institute-based source of young, specially selected, near-peer mentors armed with kits, tools, teacher-student developed curricula, enthusiasm, time and talent for science teaching in the urban District of Columbia Public Schools (specific schools) and several more rural disadvantaged schools (Frederick and Howard Counties) in science teaching. We describe this program as a new in-school component, involving science clubs and lunch programs, patterned after our valuable summer science training modules and mentorship program. Our in-house program is at its maximum capacity at the Institute. Near-peer mentors will work in WRAIR's individual laboratories while perfecting/adapting hands-on activities for the new GEMS-X program to be carried out at McKinley Technology HS, Marian Koshland Museum, Roots Charter School and Lincoln Junior HS in DC, West Frederick Middle School, Frederick, MD and Folly Quarter Middle School and Glenelg HS, in Howard County, MD. Based on local demographics in these urban/rural areas, minority and disadvantaged youth, men and women, may choose science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SMET) careers with increasing frequency after participating, at such an early age, in specific learning in the quantitative disciplines. Many of these students take challenging courses within their schools, vastly improve their standardized test scores, take on internship opportunities, are provided recommendations from scientists and medical staff and ultimately are able to enter health professions that were previously unattainable. Relevance to Public Health: The Gains in the Education of Mathematis and Science (GEMS) program educates a diverse student population to benefit their science education and ultimately may improve the likelihood of successfully entry into a health or health-related professions for participating individuals. Medical education has been show to improve public health.
This project will introduce students ages 8-14, including underserved students; their teachers and families; and the general public to three biomedical research areas inspired by NIH's Roadmap for Medical Research: biological pathways, bioinformatics and nanomedicine. These areas are unfamiliar to many adults and are not introduced in science curricula. Using the metaphor of a hardware store (i.e., building materials, tools, parts, home repair projects), the project will introduce families, students and teachers to three ideas: (1) The body maintains and repairs itself at the molecular, cell, tissue, organ and system levels; (2) Biomedical researchers are uncovering new complexities at the molecular level that can increase our understanding of how the body works; and (3) Developments in nanomedicine can lead to discoveries and treatments. In a hardware store theater and workshop space and in a virtual hardware store, the project will develop and present demonstrations and basic- and intermediate-level labs (for 2nd- and 6th-grade students or families); train museum staff and interns to present the programs; offer orientation workshops to teachers from Title I schools; develop a teacher's guide; conduct outreach in middle schools; engage scientists to talk about their work and help them communicate with the public; and create a manual of materials and activities for other science centers. The evaluation plan will include formative research on activities and assessment of how well repair metaphors facilitate understanding of clinical issues. A team of scientists, museum staff, science teachers, and biology and medical students will guide the development of education components.
This cooperative effort among Purdue University, public schools in Indiana, and The Children's Museum of Indianapolis aims to develop, evaluate and disseminate educational programs for K-12 students, parents, teachers and the public about the science involved in keeping people healthy. Obesity prevention, cancer prevention and asthma will be emphasized. Fitness programs, research programs using animal models, K-12 outreach programs, professional development workshops and recruiting efforts will be networked to fill gaps in health science education, interest schoolchildren in health science research and improve public health. This project will develop and rigorously assess curricular modules for grades three, six and nine. The science behind health advances, the clinical trials process and the role of animals in developing drugs and medical devices will be addressed. In addition, the project will engage schoolchildren in becoming health science researchers by providing them with role models. Researchers will interact with K-12 students during classroom visits, camps and after-school programs. Finally, the project will involve and engage children, parents and the public in educational fitness activities and programs. Dogs will be incorporated into fitness programs as exercise companions. The program includes an interactive traveling exhibit, highlighting the science involved in keeping people healthy.