This article discusses the Youth in Science Action Club (SAC), which uses citizen science to investigate nature, document their discoveries, share data with the scientific community, and design strategies to protect the planet. Through collaborations with regional and national partners, SAC expands access to environmental science curriculum and training resources.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Laura HerszenhornKatie LevedahlSuzi Taylor
As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) developed, implemented, and evaluated the National Center for Blind Youth in Science (NCBYS), a three-year full-scale development project to increase informal learning opportunities for blind youth in STEM. Through this grant, the NCBYS extended opportunities for informal science learning for the direct benefit of blind students by conducting six NFB STEM2U regional programs included programs for blind youth, their parents/caregivers, blind teen mentors (apprentices), and museum educators.
Science Club Summer Camp (SC2) is a practicum-based teacher professional development program for elementary school teachers, aligned to the recently released Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). It seeks to address well-described gaps in the scientific training of elementary teachers that threaten the effective implementation of NGSS and interrupt development of early youth science skills. We offer that the best way to prepare a future STEM and biomedical workforce is to help improve NGSS-aligned instruction at the K-5 level.
SC2 uses an integrated approach to train Chicago Public School teachers and youth in the nature of science. An interdisciplinary team of scientists, master science teachers, NGSS experts, and youth development staff will collaborate to incorporate the NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), Crosscutting Concepts, and science and engineering practices into both out-of-school time learning at a summer camp and academic year instruction. Program participants will also learn about NGSS connections to health and biomedicine through interactions with practicing scientists, visits to research labs, and inquiry into health phenomena.
Over the course of the program, we will train 64 teachers and more than 2000 youth in authentic science and health practices. A multi-faceted evaluation plan will assess the impact of our program on teacher beliefs, knowledge, and understanding of the NGSS, and the degree to which their training results in changes to their instructional practice. Additionally, we will help teachers design critical NGSS-aligned assessment tools as measures of student learning. These instruments will provide early evidence on the connections between NGSS-aligned instruction and deeper student learning.
In addition to addressing the acute need for NGSS-aligned teacher professional development strategies, and high quality summer learning opportunities for disadvantages youth, it is our expectation that this “dual use” approach will serve as a model for future teacher professional development programs that seek to bridge learning in formal and informal environments and strengthen academic-community partnerships.
Scientific literacy is an important educational and societal goal. Measuring scientific literacy, however, has been problematic because there is no consensus regarding the meaning of scientific literacy. Most definitions focus on the content and processes of major science disciplines, ignoring social factors and citizens’ needs. The authors developed a definition of scientific literacy for the California 4-H Program from the citizen’s perspective, concentrating on real-world science-related situations. The definition includes four anchor points: science content; scientific reasoning skills
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting. Led by Washington University, Making Natural Connections: An Authentic Field Research Collaboration (DRL-0739874), is a series of two field-based informal science education programs in environmental biology targeting St. Louis area teenagers. The project aims for engagement of science research institutions and career scientists in the execution of informal science education programming, bringing real and dynamic context to the science content and allowing for deep and transparent career exploration by teenage participants. Project goals
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Washington University in St. LouisSusan FlowersKim MedleyKatherine Beyer
Led by Washington University, Making Natural Connections: An Authentic Field Research Collaboration (DRL-0739874), is a series of two field-based informal science education programs in environmental biology targeting St. Louis area teenagers. The project aims for engagement of science research institutions and career scientists in the execution of informal science education programming, bringing real and dynamic context to the science content and allowing for deep and transparent career exploration by teenage participants. Project goals include (1) providing a model for integration of informal science education into the research and restoration projects at biological field stations and nature reserves, (2) communicating current environmental biology research to audiences outside the research community, and (3) influencing the entry of pre-college students into the science career pipeline. The project is a collaborative partnership between Washington University’s Tyson Research Center and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve. The Shaw Institute for Field Training (SIFT) program trains St. Louis area high school students in scientific exploration of the natural world at Shaw Nature Reserve. During a one-week training session in June, teens are introduced to a variety of Missouri ecosystems and gain skills necessary to conduct field research, including plant and animal identifications, biotic sampling and census techniques, testing of abiotic factors, and training in the use of maps, compass and GPS. During the rest of the summer and school year, teens are involved in important research and restoration activities at Shaw, Tyson Research Center and other field research sites in the St. Louis area. Fieldwork opportunities may include invasive species management, prairie reconstruction, plant and animal inventories, and prescribed burns. The Tyson Environmental Research Fellowships (TERF) program places high school students as summer interns on ecology and environmental biology research teams at Tyson Research Center. Selected teen participants have successfully completed the SIFT program and apply their field skills to ongoing research projects at Tyson and other partnering research sites. During the summer, the four-week program provides teens with exposure to a variety of field science experiences and skills. TERF teens work alongside university scientists, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduate students. The TERF program provides a cultural apprenticeship in university-based environmental biology research and training in scientific communication. It is an advanced summer experience modeled on the undergraduate research internships offered at Tyson. During the following school year, participants work on posters and presentations for symposia at Washington University and Tyson and at community fairs, and their posters are displayed at Shaw Nature Reserve. A national dissemination workshop for informal science educators, high school biology teachers, and research scientists provides the necessary materials and background to replicate the project design in other locales. The summative evaluation will address impacts on teenage participants (engagement, cognitive and emotional support, competence, career viability, experiential learning) and professional audiences (implementation of teen program, program components, impacts on mentoring scientists). The strategic impact of this project results from the integration of teenage immersion experiences into research activities at a university-based facility. This model of informal science training activities leading into participation in authentic research may be transferable to other STEM disciplines.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Phyllis BalcerzakPeter RavenSusan FlowersKim Medley
The “Being Me” program was developed to bring the educational process to life through hands-on learning that promotes children’s awareness of health issues and encourages scientific inquiry in an art-focused curriculum supporting National Science Content Standards (now Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS). In 2009, the “Being Me” partnership – Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC), the National Children’s Museum (NCM), and George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development (GW) – received a five-year National Institutes of Health Sciences Education
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Children’s Research InstituteJohn Fraser