Using a design-based research approach, we studied ways to advance opportunities for children and families to engage in engineering design practices in an informal educational setting. 213 families with 5–11-year-old children were observed as they visited a tinkering exhibit at a children’s museum during one of three iterations of a program posing an engineering design challenge. Children’s narrative reflections about their experience were recorded immediately after tinkering. Across iterations of the program, changes to the exhibit design and facilitation provided by museum staff corresponded
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Maria MarcusDiana AcostaPirko TouguDavid UttalCatherine Haden
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
Integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects in pre-college settings is seen as critical in providing opportunities for children to develop knowledge, skills, and interests in these subjects and the associated critical thinking skills. More recently computational thinking (CT) has been called out as an equally important topic to emphasize among pre-college students. The authors of this paper began an integrated STEM+CT project three years ago to explore integrating these subjects through a science center exhibit and a curriculum for 5-8 year old students. We
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Morgan HynesMonica CardellaTamara MooreSean BrophySenay PurzerKristina TankMuhsin MeneskeIbrahim YeterHoda Ehsan
In this paper, we introduce the Exploratory Behavior Scale (EBS), a quantitative measure of young children's interactivity. More specifically, the EBS is developed from the psychological literature on exploration and play and measures the extent to which preschoolers explore their physical environment. A practical application of the EBS in a science museum is given. The described study was directed at optimizing parent guidance to improve preschoolers' exploration of exhibits in science center NEMO. In Experiment 1, we investigated which adult coaching style resulted in the highest level of
Experiences-including museum experiences- that are packaged as stories are more likely to be remembered by both children and adults. For museum visitors, the simple act of narrating what they've done even no more than ten minutes ago can make their experience more meaningful and memorable. How connections are made between a museum experience and lasting learning, are driving the collaboration between practice and research at the Chicago Children's Museum and Loyola University Chicago.
Informal science learning (ISL) organizations that are successful at providing meaningful science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) experiences for Latino children, youth, and their families share some common traits. They have leaders and staff who believe in the importance of developing culturally relevant models and frameworks that meet the needs and acknowledge the legacy of STEAM in Latino communities. Such organizations are willing to take risks to create experiences that are culturally meaningful, garner funding and implement programs by working closely with their
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Cheryl JuarezVerónika NúñezExploratorium
This position paper, co-authored Center for Childhood Creativity's Director Elizabeth Rood and Director of Research Helen Hadani, details the importance of exposing children ages 0-8 to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) experiences. The review of more than 150 empirical studies led Rood and Hadani to conclude that, despite what has been previously thought, modern research supports the understanding that children are capable of abstract thinking and STEM-learning from infancy, beginning before their first birthday.
The Roots of STEM Success, authored in support of classroom
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Helen Shwe HadaniElizabeth RoodAmy EisenmannRuthe FousheeGarrett JaegerGina JaegerJoanna KauffmannKatie KennedyLisa Regalla
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium has been a strong and active partner in education for over 40 years, educating 1.7 million visitors annually. The zoo has become a leader in both informal and formal education by pioneering many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives. In 1996 the zoo moved from being a partner with others to becoming a true collaborator with a diverse group of education institutions. The zoo discovered that a successful partnership requires multiple organizations to come together and share resources for a cause. In partnering with school
To support learning across settings, educators need to develop ways to elicit student interests and prior experiences. McClain and Zimmerman describe how, during outdoor walks at a nature center, families talked about prior experiences with nature, which were mostly from non-school settings. They used the prior experiences to remind, prompt, explain to, and orient one another during shared meaning-making activity.
This study considers the relationship between preschoolers’ early exposure to informal science experiences and their interest in science, with particular attention paid to gender differences. A longitudinal study of children ages 4 to 7 found that early science interest was a strong predictor of later parent-provided opportunities to engage in science learning.
This article explores analogy as a communicative tool used by parents to relate children's past experiences to unfamiliar concepts. Two studies explored how similarity comparisons and relational analogies were used in parent-child conversations about science topics. In Study 1, 98 family groups including 4- to 9- year-olds explored two science museum exhibits. Parents suggested comparisons and overtly mapped analogical relations. In Study 2, 48 parents helped first- and third-grade children understand a homework-like question about infections. Parents suggested relational analogies and overtly
This research project examines the way that children and parents talk about science outside of school and, specifically, how they show distributed expertise about biological topics during visits to a science center. We adopt a theoretical framework that looks at learning on three interweaving planes: individual, social, and cultural (tools, language, worldviews, and artifacts). We analyze conversations to study how these three planes show learning processes as families work together to create explanations of biological phenomena. Findings include: (a) children and parents made epistemic moves