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resource research Informal/Formal Connections
This report is a literature review of the history of distance education/distance learning. The scan covers the nearly 250 years of documented distance education programs and traces the changes in the technologies that supported the learning purpose.
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resource research Exhibitions
This guide shares some of the successes and challenges behind the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Cardboard City exhibition and our partnership with museums across the country through Cardboard Collaborative.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Marjorie Bequette Laura Geake Megan Goeke Sarah Lukowski Robby Callahan Schreiber Bette Schmit
resource research Exhibitions
The Cardboard Collaborative is the product of 10 years of work at the Science Museum of Minnesota and part of a larger collaboration with local community organizations to center BIPOC family priorities and experiences. This guide is intended to share what they have learned and support others to create their own cardboard maker worlds.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Marjorie Bequette Laura Geake
resource research Informal/Formal Connections
Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data
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TEAM MEMBERS: Remy Dou Heidi Cian Zahra Hazari Philip Sadler Gerhard Sonnert
resource research Public Programs
This piece explores the politics and possibilities of video research on learning in educational settings. The authors (a research–practice team) argue that changing the stance of inquiry from surveillance to relationship is an ongoing and contingent practice that involves pedagogical, political, and ethical choices on the part of researchers and educators. This discussion is grounded in ethnographic data collected in an equity-oriented, after-school program organized around science, engineering, and arts education.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Shirin Vossoughi Meg Escude
resource research Public Programs
This special issue of the Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies (LJCS) highlights the consolidation of the “citizen science” movement, which stems from different forms of direct participation of citizens in scientific projects. This issue also features contributions to the debate on the “open science” movement.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Marisa Mourão Sofia Salgueiro
resource research Public Programs
This review examines how natural history museums (NHMs) can enhance learning and engagement in science, particularly for school-age students. First, we describe the learning potential of informal science learning institutions in general, then we focus on NHMs. We review the possible benefits of interactions between schools and NHMs, and the potential for NHMs to teach about challenging issues such as evolution and climate change and to use digital technologies to augment more traditional artefacts. We conclude that NHMs can provide students with new knowledge and perspectives, with impacts
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TEAM MEMBERS: Tamjid Mujtaba Martin Lawrence Mary Oliver Michael Reiss
resource research Media and Technology
The fields of science education and science communication are said to have developed as disparate fields of research and practice, operating based on somewhat different logics and premises about their audiences. As the two fields share many of the same goals, arguments have been made for a rapprochement between the two. Drawing inspiration from a historical debate between the scholars John Dewey and Walter Lippmann, the present article is a case-oriented theoretical contribution applying models from science education and science communication in relation to a current socio-scientific issue
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TEAM MEMBERS: Erik Fooladi
resource research Public Programs
Supporting more equitable participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) remains a key, persistent educational challenge. This paper employs a sociological Bourdieusian lens to explore how equitable youth outcomes might be supported through informal science learning (ISL). Drawing on multimodal, ethnographic data from four case study youth aged 11–14 from two ISL programs, we identify four areas of practice that were enacted to a greater or lesser extent in the programs in support of equitable youth outcomes. We identify how the equitable potential of these practices
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TEAM MEMBERS: Louise Archer Spela Godec Angela Calabrese Barton emily dawson Ada Mau Uma Patel
resource research Informal/Formal Connections
Abstract STEM education programs are often formulated with a "hands-on activities" focus across a wide array of topics from robotics to rockets to ecology. Traditionally, the impact of these programs is based on surveys of youth on program-specific experiences or the youths’ interest and impressions of science in general. In this manuscript, we offer a new approach to analyzing science programming design and youth participant impact. The conceptual framework discussed here concentrates on the organization and analysis of common learning activities and instructional strategies. We establish
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resource research Public Programs
As the scientific community, like society more broadly, reckons with long-standing challenges around accessibility, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, we would be wise to pay attention to issues and lessons emerging in debates around citizen science. When practitioners first placed the modifier “citizen” on science, they intended to signify an inclusive variant within the scientific enterprise that enables those without formal scientific credentials to engage in authoritative knowledge production. Given that participants are overwhelmingly white adults, above median income, with a
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TEAM MEMBERS: Caren Cooper Chris Hawn Lincoln Larson Julia Parrish Gillian Bowser Darlene Cavalier Robert Dunn Mordechai (Muki) Haklay Kaberi Kar Gupta Na’Taki Osborne Jelks Valerie Johnson Madhusudan Katti Zakiya Leggett Omega Wilson Sacoby Wilson
resource research Public Programs
This paper makes a case for museums to create programs that promote healthy cognitive aging, complementing those designed for visitors already afflicted with dementia. Surveys indicate that the exploding population of older adults is worried about maintaining cognitive health and reducing the risk of dementia. Museums have the opportunity to address this concern by developing programs based on a growing body of neuroscience research that supports the impact of cognitive engagement in maintaining or improving brain health among older adults. Serving this largely untapped audience offers a
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TEAM MEMBERS: David Ucko