The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will design and fabricate the La Brea Tar Pits Mobile Museum to provide kindergarten to 2nd grade students with hands-on, immersive experiences based on its Ice Age fossil collections. The traveling exhibition will reach 20 underserved schools and 7,500 students annually. Programming will use early childhood play-based models. These models allow students time to explore and observe followed by periods of play that allow time to process, reflect, and retain. A museum educator will prepare classroom teachers for the school residency by providing a workshop and orientation to the Tar Pits, pre-visit classroom activities and lesson plans aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. The mobile museum will also be deployed at community parks, festivals, and special events on weekends and during the summer, reaching a total of 15,000 youth and families each year.
Children spend 80% of their waking hours outside of school in the community. Deep inequities exist in access to high quality informal STEM learning opportunities (museums, zoos, safe and beautiful parks). Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL) infuses playful learning opportunities into everyday community spaces where families spend time. This project represents a strength-based model for designing play spaces deeply connected to communities’ cultural assets.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Andres BustamanteVanessa BermudezJulie SalazarLeiny GarciaKreshnik BegolliKarlena OchoaJune AhnKathy Hirsh-PasekAnnelise PeschRigoberto RodriguezPaola Padilla
Nature-based playgrounds—known as playscapes—offer numerous opportunities for young children to learn about nature. In the current study, we focus on teacher talk on playscapes, namely to capture the spontaneous utterances teachers offer when engaging with young children during playscape visits. Two different playscapes were contrasted, both of which featured loose parts, native plants, and running water. The difference in playscape was whether it featured ecosystems: While the rural playscape had a natural forest and a wetland, the urban playscape had a man-made stream and a garden. Ten
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Heidi KloosCatherine MaltbieRhonda BrownVictoria Carr
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) and Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment (BASE) contracted RK&A to conduct an evaluation of their partnership’s progress and outcomes over three years. The goal of the summative evaluation is to explore students, families, and teachers’ perceptions of and relationship to BBG and the BBG-BASE partnership. The evaluation also explored attitudes and understandings of how to engage in nature exploration, scientific inquiry, and environmental stewardship in a meaningful way.
How did we approach this study?
RK&A developed questionnaires to be
We propose a thoughtful process for scientists to develop their “impact identity”, a concept that integrates scholarship in a scientific discipline with societal needs, personal preferences, capacities and skills, and one’s institutional context. Approaching broader impacts from a place of integrated identity can support cascading impacts that develop over the course of a career. We argue identity is a productive driver that can improve outcomes for scientists and for society. Widespread adoption of the concept of impact identity may also have implications for the recruitment and retention of
The purpose of the Lenses on the Sky project is to create diverse skywatching-related experiences for youth across Oregon with a special focus on underserved Hispanic, African American, Native American, and rural communities. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) will create and implement the project in collaboration with Portland’s Rose City Astronomers amateur astronomy club, Rosa Parks Elementary School in Portland, the Libraries of Eastern Oregon (LEO), and ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum in southern Oregon. The goals of the project are for participants to 1) understand the “big idea” that “humans have used observational tools and techniques across culture and time to understand space phenomena”, 2) recognize the relevance, value, and scientific achievements of NASA missions, and 3) be inspired to learn more about topics related to space science, STEM careers, and NASA. Audiences will explore these topics through three main “lenses” or frames: a NASA lens, a tools lens, and a cultural lens. The project will result in 1) a small, permanent, bilingual (Spanish/English) exhibition in OMSI’s free, public spaces adjacent to its planetarium, 2) three observational astronomy events held in Portland, Southern Oregon, and Eastern Oregon, 3) hands-on activities conducted at partner museums/libraries and shared with other educational institutions, 4) an Educator's Guide including lesson plans aligned with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and 5) over 150 email communications to hundreds of recipients featuring space news updates.
Wilkerson Center for Colorado River Education will create "Texas Colorado River Mobile Learning Experience," a mobile learning exhibition that will teach middle school audiences about the Colorado River watershed and human interaction with water sources. The mobile interactive water science center and accompanying curriculum will build core science knowledge and skills relative to watersheds, and provide youth a complementary, interpretive educational experience. Through the exhibit, the center aims to increase participants' water-conserving behaviors, decrease water use, and decrease behaviors leading to negative impact on water quality.
The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and The Watermen's Museum, Yorktown, VA, will produce an underwater robotics research and discovery education program in conjunction with time-sensitive, underwater archeological research exploring recently discovered shipwrecks of General Cornwallis's lost fleet in the York River. The urgency of the scientific research is based upon the dynamic environment of the York River with its strong tidal currents, low visibility, and seasonal hypoxia that can rapidly deteriorate the ships, which have been underwater since 1781. Geophysical experts believe that further erosion is likely once the wrecks are exposed. Given the unknown deterioration rate of the shipwrecks coupled with the constraints of implementing the project during the 2011-2012 school-year, any delays would put the scientific research back at least 18 months - a potentially devastating delay for documenting the ships. The monitoring and studying of the historic ships will be conducted by elementary through high school-aged participants and their teachers who will collect the data underwater through robotic missions using VideoRay Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and a Fetch Automated Underwater Vehicle (AUV) from a command station at The Watermen's Museum. Students and teachers will be introduced to the science, mathematics, and integrated technologies associated with robotic underwater research and will experience events that occur on a real expedition, including mission planning, execution, monitoring, and data analysis. Robotic missions will be conducted within the unique, underwater setting of the historical shipwrecks. Such research experiences and professional development are intended to serve as a key to stimulating student interest in underwater archeological research, the marine environment and ocean science, advanced research using new technologies, and the array of opportunities presented for scientific and creative problem solving associated with underwater research. A comprehensive, outcomes-based formative and summative, external evaluation of the project will be conducted by Dr. L. Art Safer, Loyola University. The evaluation will inform the project's implementation efforts and investigate the project's impact. The newly formed partnership between the Waterman's Museum and VIMS will expand the ISE Program's objectives to forge new partnerships among informal venues, and to expand the use of advanced technologies for informal STEM learning. Extensive public dissemination during and after the project duration, includes but is not limited to, hosting an "Expedition to the Wrecks" web portal on the VIMS BRIDGE site for K-12 educators providing real-time results of the project and live webcasts. The website will be linked to the education portal at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the world's largest organization devoted to promoting unmanned systems and to the FIRST Robotics community through the Virginia portal. The website will be promoted through scientific societies, the National Marine Educators Association, National Science Teachers Association, and ASTC. Links will be provided to the Center for Archeological Research at the College of William and Mary and the Immersion Presents web portal--consultants to Dr. Bob Ballard's K-12 projects and JASON explorations. The NPS Colonial National Historic Park and the Riverwalk Landing will create public exhibits about the shipwreck's archeological and scientific significance, and will provide live observation of the research and the exploration technologies employed in this effort.
Describes an outdoor educational program at the University of California Botanical Garden in which children are encouraged to handle the plants and are provided with a taped commentary. By the use of an inquiry method, children learn how the Californian Indians used many of the native plants.
In this article, researchers from Ohio State University discuss evaluation methods and findings of a study of the Old Woman Creek school visitor program. Researchers evaluated changes in knowledge, shifts in attitude, and enjoyment levels of the visiting schoolchildren.
This article summarizes an evaluation report discussed in a 1982 article in the "Journal of Educational Research." The study was a series by J. Falk and colleagues that examined children's experiences on school field trips, especially the effects of novel environments. The attitudes, behavior, and learning of third and fifth graders were compared in two environments: (1) a field trip to a nature center to learn about tree biology and (2) the same lesson given at school outside the students' classroom.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John H FalkJ. BallingVisitor Studies Association
Most environmental learning takes place outside of the formal education system, but our understanding of how this learning actually occurs is in its infancy. By surfing the internet, watching nature documentaries, and visiting parks, forests, marine sanctuaries, and zoos, people make active choices to learn about various aspects of their environment every day. Free-Choice Learning and the Environment explores the theoretical foundations of free-choice environmental education, the practical implications for applying theory to the education of learners of all ages, and the policy implications