ABSTRACT

To understand the development of science–related thinking, acting, and learning in middle childhood, I studied youth in schools, homes, and other neighborhood settings over a three–year period. The research goal was to analyze how multiple everyday experiences influence children's participation in science–related practices and their thinking about science and scientists.

Ethnographic and interaction analysis methodologies were used to study the cognition and social interactions of the children as they participated in activities with peers, family, and teachers (n=128). Interviews and participant self–documentation protocols elucidated the participants' understandings of science. An Everyday Expertise (Bell et al., 2006) theoretical framework was employed to study the development of science understandings on three analytical planes: individual learner, social groups, and societal/community resources.

Findings came from a cross–case analysis of urban science learners and from two within–case analyses of girls' science–related practices as they transitioned from elementary to middle school. Results included: (1) children participated actively in science across settings—including in their homes as well as in schools, (2) children's interests in science were not always aligned to the school science content, pedagogy, or formal structures for participation, yet children found ways to engage with science despite these differences through crafting multiple pathways into science, (3) urban parents were active supporters of STEM–related learning environments through brokering access to social and material resources, (4) the youth often found science in their daily activities that formal education did not make use of, and (5) children's involvement with science–related practices can be developed into design principles that be used to develop informal and formal educational programs that reach youth in culturally relevant ways.

RESEARCH REFLECTIONS

Where are you and what are you doing now?

I am an assistant professor at Penn State's College of Education, where I continue to build on my prior learning sciences research about how youth learn through participation in everyday activities found in their home, school, community, and museums. Because my dissertation research revealed how important urban children's relationship to plants and animals is to developing their interest and knowledge in science, I started a new research partnership with a local nature center, Shaver's Creek Environmental Center. Through this partnership, I work with graduate students and Environmental Education staff to study families and school groups as they learn science-related practices and concepts through their interactions with natural environment. We are lining up to use both interaction analysis and design-based research methodologies in our set of studies at Shaver's Creek.

In addition to my research, I teach courses on learning across settings and video research methods. I also work with graduate students interested studying everyday cognition related to science and technology.

What are your broader research interests?

I am curious about the processes that children use to learn with and about science and technologies. I am especially fascinated to analyze learning environments that people use to foster their own interests, goals, and expertise. Based on research findings from my everyday cognition studies, I develop design principles for educators, designers, and parents that aim to enable youth do two things: to achieve their own aspirations and to connect learning across settings. For my next project, I am working with colleagues to design technological solutions that enable youth to connect learning from one setting to another so they can pursue their personal goals while participating in authentic science and technology related practices.

What interested you about your research topic?

Working for many years in informal learning environments—natural history museums and science centers—I became curious about how learning in museums and at home connected to what children learned in school and vice versa. I wanted to know how multiple experiences with science in multiple places help youth to understand science, and how these varying experiences might craft identities in relation to science. I decided to go to graduate school to explore these topics because it is important to me—and to the broader field—to wonder what science education would look like if our learning theories and our educational curriculum connected home learning, school learning, museum learning, and youth identities.

What important, interesting, or surprising findings did you learn from your study?

One important finding from my dissertation is that plants and animals are a relevant context for urban children to learn about science and to develop their scientific curiosities. Youth encounter plants and animals in school science, during museum visits, on television programs, in afterschool programs, through pet care opportunities in homes, in books, and when walking outside. These cross-settings connections with plants and animals provide opportunities to integrate different cultural understandings, to build competencies with scientific practices, and to develop expertise relevant to peer and community social groups. I intend to build on this interest with plants and animals in my future work.

How does your research advance the field of informal learning research?

My research helps parents, teachers, informal educators, policy makers, and other researchers understand that valuable learning—along with interest and identity building in practice—occurs both in and out of school. My work also argues for the design of learning environments that enable youth to participate with various aspects of science-related practices in multiple ways. The goal is develop programs that foster authentic scientific knowledge work, even if the learning is not called science learning by the program organizers.

RECENT WORK

Zimmerman, H. T. & Bell, P., (2008, March). Developing scientific practices: Understanding how and when children consider their everyday activities to be related to science. Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) 2008 Annual Meeting. Baltimore, MD.

Zimmerman, H.T. & Bell, P. (2007, April). Seeing, doing, and describing everyday science: Mapping images of science across school, community, and home boundaries. Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) 2007 Annual Meeting. New Orleans, LA.

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