To promote ocean and climate change literacy that addresses the needs of the Gulf of Mexico region, six aquariums based on the Gulf are partnering to educate the communities on both risks and ways to contribute locally to sustainability. The aquariums are combining community outreach programs, stewardship promotion, social networking and workshops for non-formal educators to reach broad audiences throughout the Gulf in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas and Mexico. Each partner is developing content that emphasizes local ecosystems and consequences of climate change, tailoring stewardship activities to address them. Over five years, the aquariums will reach out to diverse audiences in their communities, which have populations that total over five million people. With evaluated programs, exhibits, and websites in place, the partners will be able to continue building stewardship and educating their communities after the award ends.
There is broad consensus in the international scientific community that the world is facing a biodiversity crisis — the accelerated loss of life on Earth brought about by human activity. Threats to biodiversity have been variously classified by different authors (Diamond 1989, Laverty and Sterling 2004, Brook et al. 2008), but typically include ecosystem loss and fragmentation, unsustainable use, invasive species, pollution, and climate change. Across the globe, traditional and indigenous cultures are affected by many of the same threats affecting biological diversity, including the
There is a compelling need to ensure that the points of view and preferences of stakeholders are fully considered and incorporated into natural resources management strategies. Stakeholders include a diverse group of individuals in several sectors that have an interest in how natural resources are managed. Typically, stakeholders with an interest in groundwater resources include groups who could be affected by the manner in which the resource is managed (e.g., farmers who need water for irrigation; municipalities and individuals who need drinking water, agencies and organizations that want to
Sea Studios Foundation will extend the Strange Days on Planet Earth multimedia initiative to raise public science literacy on pressing environmental issues. Based on pioneering Earth System Science research, Phase Two will be a media and outreach project focused on the ocean and water issues. The goal of the project is to increase public awareness and understanding of the scope and scale of key issues affecting the ocean. At the core of the project is a four part television documentary series for PBS primetime entitled Strange Days, Ocean. The programs will concentrate on four content areas: overexploitation of ocean resources, pollution, coastal development, climate change and the role of the ocean in Earth's system. Each episode is structured around a compelling scientific questions designed to engage the audience in a search for answers based on the most current research from the varied Earth System Science disciplines. The series focuses on explaining how scientists come to know what they know. The series will be complemented by activity-based learning supported by a national consortium of informal learning institutions, a citizen science program, training sessions for informal educators, and a project website. Collaborators include the National Geographic and three new major partners: Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Program to expand citizen science programs around invasive species; Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), dedicated to organizing college campus educational events; The Ocean Project (TOP), a network of 600 organizations; plus the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and eight other informal science institutions. Knight Williams Research Communications, and Public Knowledge and Cultural Logic will assess the impact of the series. The project will contribute to the field of informal science education by providing widely applicable communication lessons on ocean and water issues and a model methodology for creating science education media that is credible, informative, and relevant. The results of two unique adult learning case studies will be shared with the field through presentations at national meetings and workshops, and posted online.
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Mark ShelleyDavid EliscoTierney Thys
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, in collaboration with the Institute for Learning Innovation, will implement "Sharing the Universe." This research and implementation project is designed to include both a comprehensive, two-phased research component, as well as a large-scale national dissemination. The intended impacts are to improve the quality and effectiveness of informal science education activities provided by amateur astronomers; increase the frequency of public engagements in astronomy; and broaden the variety of events and diversity of the outreach to include underserved and underrepresented audiences. The project will create a community of practice using club leaders to improve astronomy clubs nationwide through research tools, training and outreach skills. Project deliverables include Phase I research which is designed to gain an understanding of how outreach-orientated clubs function and identify strategies that make successful clubs effective. Phase II will examine a core group of 20 clubs in detail to further understand the outreach culture while using interventions developed from the Phase I results such as a training DVD, Online Resource Library, Outreach Toolkit and a robust community of practice. The final deliverable will be the dissemination of proven strategies and best practices revealed by the research to 200 diverse astronomy clubs across the country. Strategic impact will be realized in increased outreach capacity among amateur astronomers and a strong model for astronomy clubs with proven best practices and resources. It is anticipated this project will reach more than 4,400 amateur astronomers and indirectly impact more than one million Americans in astronomy clubs in four years. Inverness Research will conduct the summative evaluation of the project.
The ScienceMakers: African Americans and Scientific Innovation is a three-year project designed to increase awareness of the contributions of African American scientists, raise awareness of STEM careers, and increase understanding of STEM concepts through the creation of education, media, and career resources. The project team is supplemented with an extensive advisory board of STEM education, museum, and community professionals, as well as representatives from partnering science centers. Project partners include the St. Louis Science Center, Liberty Science Center, New York Hall of Science, Pacific Science Center, Franklin Institute, COSI Columbus, Lawrence Hall of Science, SciWorks, Detroit Science Center, and MOSI Chicago. Additional collaborators include middle and high schools with high minority populations. Project deliverables include a fully accessible multi-media archive of video oral histories of 180 African American scientists and web resources and contests utilizing Web 2.0 and 3.0 applications such as social networking tools that foster engagement and build community around the ScienceMakers. Public programs for youth and adults at science museums, after-school programs, and community organizations highlight African American contributors, and encourage interest in science and science careers and the ScienceMakers DVD Toolkit expand the reach of this innovative project. Intended impacts for youth and adults consist of increased awareness of STEM concepts and career options, exposure to African American scientists, awareness of the contributions of minority scientists, and 21st century skills. Intended impacts on professional audiences include increased awareness and understanding of STEM careers and workforce diversity, 21st century skills, and STEM career options. The project evaluation, conducted by Knight-Williams Research Communications, utilizes a mixed-methods approach. The evaluation assesses the impact of the oral history archive, public programs, and other deliverables on public and professional audiences' knowledge, interest, and awareness of the contributions of African American scientists, STEM concepts, and STEM careers. The evaluation also includes an ethnography which examines factors that contribute to success in STEM careers by African-American scientists. The ScienceMakers significantly expands the world\'s largest searchable oral history archive and may have an enduring impact on research and practice in the field of informal science education. The project has the potential to enrich programs and exhibits, while raising awareness of the contributions of African-American scientists among informal science education professionals and the general public.
In the Communities of Learning for Urban Environments and Science (CLUES) project, the four museums of the Philadelphia-Camden Informal Science Education Collaborative worked to build informal science education (ISE) capacity in historically underserved communities. The program offered comprehensive professional development (PD) to Apprentices from 8-11 community-based organizations (CBO), enabling them to develop and deliver hands-on family science workshops. Apprentices, in turn, trained Presenters from the CBOs to assist in delivering the workshops. Families attended CLUES events both at the museums and in their own communities. The events focused on environmental topics that are especially relevant to urban communities, including broad topics such as climate change and the energy cycle to more specific topics such as animals and habitats in urban neighborhoods.
Learning to see inequity in science is critical to anyone who is actively encouraging young people to invest their education, career, and life in the discipline. If the culture of science is grossly inequitable, why should students take the risk of entering this discipline over careers in other arenas? Many scholarly publications from the fields of psychology, science education, and sociology have described inequities in science; proposed theoretical frameworks for understanding them; and explored practical strategies for addressing such inequities, but progress in jettisoning these inequities
Science Club is an after school program created in partnership between Northwestern University and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago. Every week throughout the academic year, middle school youth (grades 5-8) work in small groups with their graduate student mentors on challenging, hands-on experiments. The six Science Club curricular modules cover topics ranging from biomedical engineering to food science, all with the goals of helping youth to 1) improve their understanding of the scientific method, 2) develop scientific habits of mind, and 3) increase their interest in STEM fields, particularly health-related careers. Science Club serves 60 youth every quarter with the help of 30 trained scientist mentors. Science Club meets three days a week at the Pedersen-McCormick Boys & Girls Club in Chicago, IL.
Conventional wisdom about young people's use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today's teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networks sites, and text messaging. Yet there is little actual research that investigates the intricate dynamics of youth's social and recreational use of digital media. This book fills that gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings—at home, in after school programs, and in online spaces. By
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University of California, IrvineMizuko Ito
resourceprojectWebsites, Mobile Apps, and Online Media
SETAC is funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union and emerges out of the need to undertake specific action for the improvement of science education. It regards science education as among the fundamental tools for developing active citizens in the knowledge society. SETAC draws on the cooperation between formal and informal learning institutions, aiming to enhance school science education and active citizenship looking further into the role of science education as a lifelong tool in the knowledge society. On the day of the project’s conclusion, 31 October 2010, after two years of work SETAC contributes the following products and results to the field: 1. “Quality Science Education: Where do we stand? Guidelines for practice from a European experience” This is the concluding manifesto that presents the results of the SETAC work in the form of recommendations for practitioners working in formal and informal science learning institutions; 2. “Teaching and Learning Scientific Literacy and Citizenship in Partnership with Schools and Science Museums” This paper constitutes the theoretical framework of the project and innovative ways of using museums for science education and develop new modes of linking formal and informal learning environments; 3. Tools for teaching and learning in science: misconceptions, authentic questions, motivation. Three specific studies, leading to three specific reports, have been conducted in the context of the project, looking in particular into notions with an important role in science teaching and learning. These are on: Children’s misconceptions; Authentic questions as tool when working in science education; Students’ attitudes and motivation as factors influencing their achievement and participation in science and science-related issues; 4. Activities with schools: SETAC developed a series of prototype education activities which were tested with schools in each country. Among the activities developed between the partners, two have been chosen and are available on-line for practitioners to use and to adapt in their own context. These are: The Energy role game, a role game on Energy invites students to act in different roles, those of the stakeholders of an imaginary community, called to debate and decide upon a certain common problem; MyTest www.museoscienza.org/myTest, which aims to encourage students to engage in researching, reflecting and communicating science-oriented topics; 5. European in-service training course for primary and secondary school teachers across Europe. The training course is designed in such a way as to engage participants in debate and exploration of issues related to science education and active citizenship. The course is open to school teachers, headteachers and teacher trainers from all EU-member and associate countries. Professionals interested can apply for a EU Comenius grant. All the products of the project as well as information about the training course are available at the project website, some of them in more than one languages: www.museoscienza.org/setac
This Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) is a collaboration among Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California—Santa Barbara, and the Museum of Science—Boston with participation by Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), the University of Basel (Switzerland), the University of Tokyo (Japan), and the Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and the Sandia National Laboratories. The NSEC combines "top down" and "bottom up" approaches to construct novel electronic and magnetic devices with nanoscale sizes and understand their behavior, including quantum phenomena. Through a close integration of research, education, and public outreach, the Center encourages and promotes the training of a diverse group of people to be leaders in this new interdisciplinary field.