The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) and their research/evaluation partner, David Heil and Associates (DHA), will conduct front-end research to develop, pilot, and evaluate (formatively and summatively) a peer-reviewed journal and associated multi-media resources designed to catalyze innovative advances and learning across formal and informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education communities. The goal is to identify content that is useful and appeals to the intersection of three target audiences: informal educators, formal educators and researchers conducting research at the intersection of in-school and out-of-school learning. This informal science education (ISE) "journal" would be a multi-media resource, available in both print and electronic forms, that could include videos or digital interactives and provide the potential for audience/reader feedback mechanisms, including input via social media. The publication proposed in this project has the potential to satisfy in part a key need identified in a Wellcome Trust study, Analysing the UK Science Education Community: The contribution of informal providers. The study report identifies the need to build an international depository of what has been and is being learned in ISE experiences at the boundary of in-school and out-of-school STEM learning - including syntheses of research, program evaluations, policy reports and illustrative cases studies. The proposed journal will also provide a vehicle to encourage and develop incentives for practitioners to publish results of their work. The project will use surveys, phone interviews and focus groups to conduct: 1) a landscape assessment, identifying what resources are already available to target audiences, how they are used, and what is missing; 2) front-end research with target audiences prior to publication of pilot issues, assessing interests, needs, and expectations and testing early topics, delivery formats, and discussion vehicles; and (3) formative and summative evaluation, assessing how well the (two-issue) pilot and associated social media vehicles foster synergy and satisfy the needs of the identified target audiences.
This study investigated the professional identity development of teacher candidates participating in an informal afterschool science internship in a formal science teacher preparation programme. We used a qualitative research methodology. Data were collected from the teacher candidates, their informal internship mentors, and the researchers. The data were analysed through an identity development theoretical framework, informed by participants’ mental models of science teaching and learning. We learned that the experience in an afterschool informal internship encouraged the teacher candidates
We investigated the inclusion of a curricular module on global climate change in an Elementary Science Methods course. Using complementary research methods, we analyzed findings from 63 teacher candidates’ drawings, questionnaires, and journal entries collected throughout their participation in the module. We highlighted three focal cases to illustrate the diversity of participants’ experiences. Findings suggest potential positive impacts on teacher candidates’ content understanding related to global climate change, confidence to teach, and awareness of resources to support their future
We investigated curricular and pedagogical innovations in an undergraduate science methods course for elementary education majors at the University of Maryland. The goals of the innovative elementary science methods course included: improving students’ attitudes toward and views of science and science teaching, to model innovative science teaching methods and to encourage students to continue in teacher education. We redesigned the elementary science methods course to include aspects of informal science education. The informal science education course features included informal science
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University of Maryland College ParkKelly RiedingerGili Marbach-AdJ. Randy McGinnisEmily HestnessRebecca Pease
Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change, a volume in the America's Climate Choices series, describes and assesses different activities, products, strategies, and tools for informing decision makers about climate change and helping them plan and execute effective, integrated responses. It discusses who is making decisions (on the local, state, and national levels), who should be providing information to make decisions, and how that information should be provided. It covers all levels of decision making, including international, state, and individual decision making. While most
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National Research Council
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, understanding the need for policy makers at the national level to entrain the behavioral and social sciences in addressing the challenges of global climate change, called on the National Research Council to organize two workshops to showcase some of the decision-relevant contributions that these sciences have already made and can advance with future efforts. The workshops focused on two broad areas: (1) mitigation (behavioral elements of a strategy to reduce the net future human influence on climate) and (2) adaptation (behavioral and social
Everyone--government agencies, private organizations, and individuals--is facing a changing climate: an environment in which it is no longer prudent to follow routines based on past climatic averages. State and local agencies in particular, as well as the federal government, need to consider what they will have to do differently if the 100-year flood arrives every decade or so, if the protected areas for threatened species are no longer habitable, or if a region can expect more frequent and more severe wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, water shortages, or other extreme environmental events
There is a growing commitment within science centres and museums to deploy computer-based exhibits to enhance participation and engage visitors with socio-scientific issues. As yet however, we have little understanding of the interaction and communication that arises with and around these forms of exhibits, and the extent to which they do indeed facilitate engagement. In this paper, we examine the use of novel computer-based exhibits to explore how people, both alone and with others, interact with and around installations. The data are drawn from video-based field studies of the conduct and
The current world research agenda is comprehensive. The results of many studies and experiments in which scientists are currently engaged will undoubtedly have profound impacts on the lives of citizens in developed and developing nations. Yet few people even know what research is being conducted, much less understand why it is being done and what the potential implications may be. This is a critical shortcoming of our public information system. Given the frenetic pace of science research in multi-disciplinary fields, it is increasingly vital that the public be made aware of new findings in a
In this chapter we introduce the notion of islands of expertise, explore links between related socio-cultural and information processing theory, and overview a study of family conversations while parents and children look at authentic and replica fossils in a museum.
At the Maryland Science Center, a new permanent exhibition with a companion mobile game is focused on electricity. Multimedia Research, an independent evaluation firm, implemented a summative evaluation to assess how using the PowerUp! game in the exhibition influences engagement and knowledge acquisition. The evaluation collected timing and tracking observations and pre- and post-interview data from 18 ten-year-olds who used the game within the Power Up! exhibition area and 16 ten-year-olds who did not use the game. Game players experienced the Power Up! exhibition area differently from non
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Maryland Science CenterBarbara FlaggIlona Holland