The Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium (MMS) received funding from the National Science Foundation in 2004 to develop and implement After-school Programs Exploring (APEX Science). APEX Science is a three-year project designed to enhance the capacity of community-based organizations (CBOs) to deliver quality science after-school programming for children ages 5-10. This report provides the results of the summative evaluation which focused on the extent to which: 1) APEX Science curriculum increases CBO activity leaders' interest, awareness, and appreciation of science and level of comfort
I-CLEEN, a project led by the Museum of Science of Trento (Italy), has developed and currently manages an information gateway of Earth system science educational resources. The aim of the project is to support Italian science teachers in setting up Earth science student-centred lessons. To do so effectively, the gateway exhibits the following key features: it adopts a bottom – up approach to resource development that relies on strong cooperation between science teachers and professional researchers (who also act as resource referees); it is subject–oriented and enhances the multi- and interdisciplinary traits that characterize geosciences; it embraces the concept of open source, through the technological tools (LifeRay) used and copyright policies adopted. A service usability study was performed after the first launch of the gateway and the results were used to develop the second release, which is currently online. During the preliminary phase of the project, as well as the development and set-up of the gateway, valuable insight was gained in various different fields: On the current situation in geoscience education in Italy – where teachers are encouraged to take up a student-centred approach, experiential education and learning initiatives, but currently opt for academic teaching methods because they lack the support and the tools needed. On the educational resource gateways currently available online, on the materials they provide and on the role of ICT in Earth science education. On the results achieved and the tools developed during previous science communication activities that involved teachers and students in research projects.
This case study explores the affordances a weblog (blog) offered to “Ms. Frizzle,” an urban middle school science teacher and exceptional blogger, to support her professional identity development. The 316 posts she wrote over 1 school year were systematically analyzed and triangulated with data from e-mail exchanges and interviews with Ms. Frizzle and her colleagues. Ms. Frizzle used her blog to tell stories of herself and her classroom, reflect on her practice, work through dilemmas, solicit feedback, and display competence, among other things. By doing so, she was able to wrestle with many
Many attempt to address the documented achievement gap between urban and suburban students by offering special programs to enrich urban students’ academic experiences and proficiencies. Such was the case in the study described by DeGennaro and Brown in which urban students participated in an after-school technology course intended to address the ‘‘digital divide’’ by giving these youth supported experiences as technology users. However, also like the initial situation described in this study, instructional design that does not capitalize on what we know about urban education or informal
A slide presentation for a talk given at the 2008 meeting of the Informal Science Education Association (ISEA) (Texas) annual conference that explores the following questions: Is ISEA about informal science education? Or about getting better at informal science education? Or about getting better at getting better at science education?Inverness Research Associates has served as the external evaluator to NISE, TexNET, COMPASS and other networks in both the formal and informal field.