This article is a summary of remarks at a special half-day session on April 28, 2000, part of a joint effort of the Informal Learning Strand of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching and the American Educational Research Association's Informal Learning Environments Research Special Interest Group. Topics included finding a unified voice and hinderances in the field of informal learning research.
This article discusses the QUT Museums Collaborative, a project comprised of museum educators and administrators and university researchers in Australia, which examined the experiences of young children visiting museums. This report includes a discussion of the research plan and methodology, emerging and anticipated outcomes, and the significance of the study.
This article presents an overview of two studies from a broader program of research designed to extend prior laboratory-based research on children's scientific thinking to the everyday contexts where it actually occurs. Author Kevin Crowley, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center, discusses their work designed to create a body of empirical findings and new theoretical models that could make a direct practical contribution to improving the ways that families learn about science during trips to museums. This article focuses on applied side of
This article analyzes findings from the PISEC Family Learning Project in Philadelphia to better understand gender-based visitor behavior in science museums. It includes a brief review of the PISEC project, a discussion of gender differences among PISEC families, and a comparison of PISEC data to findings from from another study conducted by Kevin Crowley of the Learning Research Collaborative at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning and Research Development Center.
Many scientists and science educators are concerned about the public’s ambiguous relationship with science and this public includes elementary teachers. Like many citizens, too many elementary teachers find science disconnected from everyday life and thinking. Science is a “school” subject − not an important part of everyday life. Some may believe that science conflicts with important personal beliefs they hold about other areas of life such as religion and art. Elementary teachers who feel this disconnection with science will at best approach science teaching as something one does if school
The project includes a simulation based Family Learning Program to be administered through the International Challenger Learning Center (CLC) network. The goal is to develop families' skills in learning as a team through science, math and technology (SMT) in an environment where parents and children are co-travelers in a world of ideas. PACCT is disseminated through ten of the Challenger Learning Centers reaching 22,000 families nationwide. Many of these activities are completed in the home at no cost to the anticipated 12,500 participating families. Through this network of centers, all types of communities are served in many states. The activities include Sim-U-Voyages, where family teams work at home; Sim-U-Challenges, where families create a physical model responding to a challenge; Sim-U-Visits, where families hear from scientists and work as scientists in a team solving a problem; and Sim-U-Ventures, which result in flying a mission. Cost sharing is 8%.
The California State University, Los Angeles (CSLA) ACCESS Center [consortium] requests $216,949 to pilot a collaborative with the Los Angeles County Department of Community and Senior Services Community Centers and several community-based organizations to provide informal science experiences to underserved 11-14 years old youth and their families. The pilot will engage families in hands-on science activities, participate in community-based science clubs, and provide opportunities for leadership roles by enhancing their interest and knowledge in science, mathematics and technology. California State University Los Angeles (CSLA) School of Natural and Social Sciences, Charter School of Education, School of Health and Human Services' Social Work Department, and ACCESS Center's partners for this pilot project include he following organizations: Girls, Incorporated, of Los Angeles (Girls, Inc) Con Los Padres Grandma's House Los Angeles Unified Districts Division of Adult and Career Education The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) The California Science Center
This project is a collaboration between the Miami Museum of Science and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater Miami (BBBS) to empower single-parent families to become actively engaged in the science, mathematics, and technology education (SMT) of their children. It will involve, over the course of the project, parents, mentors, and community elements to create and expand a resource network and support primarily father-absent homes. The design of the project is focused on providing resources and advocacy critical to the success of young children in SMT education. It is a project designed to get parents actively involved with their children's science, mathematics, and technology education. The program will serve Dade County, Florida families. Museum staff and volunteers of BBBS will work closely in the development of mentor materials to be nationally distributed. The strategies that are used and refined will be packaged in a Tripod Toolkit and Mentor Handbook that can be used by other community groups to aid and assist parents in becoming more active in the science, mathematics, and technology education of their children. In addition to the toolkit materials, a set of Science/math Matters activities will be included designed to promoted science learning in the home with parents and their children. These materials will be produced in both English and Spanish to meet the needs of a diverse and multicultural American society.
The Wildlife Conservation Society is developing and implementing a five-year science program for 420 parents and 210 teachers of children in grades K-8. Linked directly with school curricula and the new National Science Education Standards, the program will bridge the gap between parents and schools, and position the Zoo as a partner and intermediary to help parents and teachers improve the quality and quantity of science education. The program consists of four interrelated components: 1) A series of workshops that will prepare the 420 parents and 210 teachers to work in teams for better and more widely available science education; 2) A series of education projects that will enable workshop participants to teach thousands of other parents and educators about the importance of science literacy, the need for active parental engagement in children's education, and the crucial role that informal science institutions play in augmenting formal science instruction; 3) A series of four Science Advocacy Fairs at the Zoo that are expected to raise the visitor's consciousness on a large scale about the above issues; and 4) A symposium for educators from schools and informal science centers in the region to disseminate successful methods for involving parents in science education.
KCTS, Seattle's PBS affiliate, is producing a series of three one-hour prime-time science education television specials starring Bill Nye. The specials will be aimed at a family audience and will be designed to promote informal science learning through an entertaining presentation of science in everyday life. Topics currently being considered for the specials are The Science of Sports, The Science of Learning, and The Science of the Future, thought other topics, such as Pseudo Science, also are being considered. Each program will maintain the entertainment values of enthusiasm for science so prominent in the Bill Nye the Science Guy series but will have a strong narrative element and air of suspense as Bill embarks on a journey of discovery, greater depth of content and presentation, and longer uninterrupted segments. The programs will be supported by a multi-pronged outreach program to reach parents and children through local PBS stations and science museums, community organizations serving disadvantaged populations and, possibly, a tie-in with a national chain of quick family restaurants. Many of the same team that created Bill Nye the Science Guy will work on this project including Bill Nye; Elizabeth Brock, Executive Producer; and Erren Gottlieb and James McKenna, producers. The production team will work with fourteen scientists and science educators who will advise the project on presentation and outreach. This group also will review and comment on all scripts and drafts of outreach material.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
William NyeJames McKennaErren GottliebBurnill ClarkRandy Brinson
The project includes a simulation based Family Learning Program to be administered through the International Challenger Learning Center (CLC) network. The goal is to develop families' skills in learning as a team through science, math and technology (SMT) in an environment where parents and children are co-travelers in a world of ideas. PACCT is disseminated through ten of the Challenger Learning Centers reaching 22,000 families nationwide. Many of these activities are completed in the home at no cost to the anticipated 12,500 participating families. Through this network of centers, all types of communities are served in many states. The activities include Sim-U-Voyages, where family teams work at home; Sim-U-Challenges, where families create a physical model responding to a challenge; Sim-U-Visits, where families hear from scientists and work as scientists in a team solving a problem; and Sim-U-Ventures, which result in flying a mission. Cost sharing is 8%.
The Vermont Center for the Book currently reaches over 1,000 parents in Vermont through the informal science education program, Mother Goose Asks "Why?." Through the program, exemplary children's literature and related science activities are brought to parents of preschool children in a series of four reading/discussion/activity sessions. Participants explore such questions as "What Is It?", "How Many", "How Do You Do It?", and "How Does It Grow?" and gain the expertise and confidence to introduce science to their 3-7 year old children. Many of the parents involved are reached through programs such as Head Start, Adult Basic Education, and Parent Centers. In this current project, the Vermont Center for the Book with make the program available to parents in 12 other states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands by equipping their state libraries and state centers for the book to conduct the program in local libraries and library service outreach sites in housing projects, on Native American reservations and in prisons. The Vermont Center will train library professionals in the content and process of the program and provide technical support as the new sites begin implementation of the program. At the same time, the Vermont Center will create another program, "You Can Count on Mother Goose," that will be based in books and activities through which parents can introduce their preschool children to basic mathematics ideas. Once created and field-tested, this new program will be disseminated to all of the participating sites.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Sally AndersonJoan NagyGregory DeFrancis