PEEP Family Science is designed for parents and their three- to five-year-old children, especially those from low-income families who are served by home visiting organizations. A media-based project featuring the preschool public television science program PEEP and the Big Wide World, it includes animated stories, live-action videos with real children, hands-on science activities, and educational resources designed to support parents and home visiting educators. PEEP Family Science comes in the form of four apps, one for each science unit: ramps, colors, sounds, and shadows. Once downloaded
The PEEP Family Science apps were designed specifically for low-income parents and their preschool children to explore science together at home. A major issue we confronted early on in the design and development was how families would be able to access the PEEP media, which included videos from the award-winning children's show, PEEP and the Big Wide World. Many of the families we tested the apps with did not have reliable internet connections. We initially made the decision to choose an app format instead of a website to help bridge the digital divide. But the app format has also enabled us
Young people's decisions to study post-compulsory science are strongly influenced by the attitude of their parents, but many families, especially those from deprived backgrounds, see science as ‘narrow’ and ‘not for us’. We asked whether family attendance at a science festival — a growing but under-studied activity — could shift attitudes. Our mixed-methods study found parents from more deprived areas were disproportionately likely to say attendance had improved their perception of science. Parents from the most deprived areas were significantly more likely to feel increased positivity about
Science Hunters is an outreach project which employs the computer game Minecraft to engage children with scientific learning and research through school visits, events, and extracurricular clubs. We principally target children who may experience barriers to accessing Higher Education, including low socioeconomic status, being the first in their family to attend university, and disability (including Special Educational Needs). The Minecraft platform encourages teamwork and makes science learning accessible and entertaining for children, irrespective of background. We employ a flexible approach
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Laura HobbsCarly StevensJackie HartleyCalum Hartley
The making and tinkering movement has become increasingly mainstream over the past decade, pioneered in part through the popularity of magazines like `Make', events such as Maker Faire and DIY websites including `Instructables'. Science centres and museums have been developing their own ideas, notably the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium. In this commentary piece, we reflect on why this movement has a strong appeal for the Life Science Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne and why we are in the process of developing a new making and tinkering space to help us enact our centre's vision to `Enrich
This paper contributes a theoretical framework informed by historical, philosophical and ethnographic studies of science practice to argue that data should be considered to be actively produced, rather than passively collected. We further argue that traditional school science laboratory investigations misconstrue the nature of data and overly constrain student agency in their production. We use our “Data Production” framework to analyze activity of and interviews with high school students who created data using sensors and software in a ninth-grade integrated science class. To understand the
The challenge to the science communication field put forward by Bruce Lewenstein, of the sector becoming a ‘ghetto’ of women's over-representation (see the commentary by Lewenstein in this issue), is a very timely wake-up call. This Commentary however, elaborates and frames the pivotal and constructivist premises on which this phenomenon should be interrogated and understood on many levels. It is critical that we undertake a deeper introspection, beyond just simplistic head counts of the number of women and men in the field, if we are to make sense of the seeming paradoxes that pervade the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth Rasekoala
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
There is a significant under-representation of women in STEM which is damaging societal progress for democratic, utilitarian, and equity reasons. However, changing stereotypes in STEM requires a solution denied by the problem — more visible female role models. Science communicators are critical to curate the conditions to bypass this Catch 22. We propose that enhancing self-efficacy for female scientists and engineers to mentor others will generate more supportive workplaces. Similarly, enhancing self-efficacy for public engagement improves the visibility of diverse female role models for
Fostering interest in science is critical for broadening engagement with science topics, careers, and hobbies. Research suggests that these interests begin to form as early as preschool and have long-term implications for participation and learning. However, scholars have only speculated on the processes that shape interest development at this age, when children’s exposure to science primarily occurs during family-based learning experiences. Moving beyond speculation, we conducted a qualitative study with seven low-income mothers and their four-year-old daughters from Head Start to (a) develop