As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is conducting regional STEM workshops in partnership with local science museums, entitled NFB STEM2U, for blind youth [youth], grades 3 – 6 and 9-12. During the third regional workshop in Columbus, Ohio, the NFB operated two different programs simultaneously: one program for youth, and a second program for their parents/caregivers. A third program, for COSI (science center) staff, was conducted earlier to prepare the museum staff to assist with the youth program. A separate report will discuss
Parent-child 'everyday' conversations have been suggested as a source of children's early science learning (Ash, 2003; Callanan & Jipson, 2001). If such conversations are important then it would be pertinent to know whether children from different family backgrounds have different experiences talking about science in informal settings. We focus on the relation between parents' schooling and both their explanatory talk in science-related activities, and the styles of interaction they use with their children. Families from different schooling backgrounds within one underrepresented group in
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Deborah SiegelJennifer EsterlyMaureen CallananRamser Wright
This article begins with two examples that demonstrate adult interactions with young learners during conversations in informal learning environments. Family visits to informal learning environments provide opportunities to learn together, interact, engage in conversations, and learn more about one another. This article explores family learning in informal environments and suggests ways for parents to guide young learners in conversations to make sense of exhibit and program content. Parents can maximize learning and draw children into equitable learning conversations through the strategies
A team of researchers and practitioners developed a museum program to coach families in the skills of scientific inquiry at interactive exhibits. The program was inspired by the increasing focus on scientific inquiry in schools and the growing number of open-ended exhibit designs in science museums. The development process involved major decisions in two arenas: which inquiry skills to teach, and what pedagogical strategies to use to teach them. After many rounds of refinement based on evaluation with families, the final program, called Inquiry Games, improved visitors' inquiry behavior in
Understanding a community's concerns and informational needs is crucial to conducting and improving environmental health research and literacy initiatives. We hypothesized that analysis of community inquiries over time at a legacy mining site would be an effective method for assessing environmental health literacy efforts and determining whether community concerns were thoroughly addressed. Through a qualitative analysis, we determined community concerns at the time of being listed as a Superfund site. We analyzed how community concerns changed from this starting point over the subsequent