The Maryland Science Center (MSC), in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), and Morgan State University (MSU), has sought the support of the National Institutes of Health SEPA (Science Education Partnership Award) Program to develop "Cellular Universe: The Promise of Stem Cells," a unique exhibition and update center with related programs that highlight the most current science in cell biology and stem cell research. Visitor surveys have shown that science museum visitors are very interested in learning about stem cell research, but know little about the science of stem cells or cell biology, which form the basis of stem cell research. The goal of this project is to help visitors learn about advances in cell biology and stem cells so that they will make informed health-related decisions, explore new career options, and better understand the role of basic and clinical research in health advances that affect people's lives. Topics to be covered include the basic biology of cells, the role of stem cells in human development, current stem cell research and the clinical research process. This exhibition will also address the controversies in stem cell research. Our varied advisory panel, including cell biologists, physiologists, adult and embryonic stem cell researchers and bioethicists, will ensure the objectivity of all content. "Cellular Universe: The Promise of Stem Cells" will be a 3,500 square-foot exhibition to be planned, designed and prototyped in Fall 2006-Winter 2009, and installed in MSC's second-floor human body exhibition hall in Spring 2009. This exhibition will build on the successful model of "BodyLink," our innovative health science update center funded by a 2000 SEPA grant (R25RR015602) and supported by partnerships with JHU and UMB.
The management of health risks related to scientific and technological innovations has been the focus of a heated debate for a few years now. In some cases, like the campaigns against the use of GMOs in agriculture, this debate has degenerated into a political and social dispute. Even risk analysis studies, which appeared in the 1970s in the fields of nuclear physics and engineering and were later developed by social sciences as well, have given completely different, and at times contradictory, interpretations that, in turn, have given rise to bitter controversies.
I have been involved in College education since my days as a student in the Universidad de Buenos Aires. At that time, 1960, I helped to teach the course of Scientific Russian given in the Faculty of Sciences; strange as it might seem, the aim of the course was to allow the students to use scientific books especially in the area of Physics and Mathematics.
As recognized by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the human community has reached a point in which it is faced with an array of choices that will determine the quality of our lives and the state of the global environment for present and future generations. One possibility is that at long last we will pave a path toward environmental stewardship and sustainable development. But it is also quite possible that we will travel a less enlightened course, running down the earth's natural capital and severely limiting the choices our descendants will face.
Florence's La Specola Museum stirs up strong emotions. Among its collections, the valuable anatomical wax models created between the end of 17th and the beginning of 18th century stand out owing to their marvellous and provocative nature. The aim of this essay is to analyse the communication models epitomised by some of these works by means of historical semiotics, to nourish the widespread, but often underestimated assumption that science and the means used to spread it have always been influenced by intellectual suppositions and constantly interact with contemporary culture.
These front end studies were done before the gallery reopened and show how visitors perceive particular habitat cases. The findings were later used to inform what species would be illustrated on guide cards for the habitat cases.
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Oakland Museum of CaliforniaDana Neitzel
The authors explored the perceived effects of an environmental expressive writing exercise by using a modified phenomenological method. The authors asked preservice teachers enrolled in a required public university science and society education course to compose multigenre compositions describing personal environmental impacts, followed by written reactions to the assignment. A group of 5 students from the course participated in interviews in which the authors investigated their backgrounds, attitudes, and experiences related to the expressive writing project. Analysis of the participants'
This study focused on informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues. It sought to explore how content knowledge influenced the negotiation and resolution of contentious and complex scenarios based on genetic engineering. Two hundred and sixty-nine students drawn from undergraduate natural science and nonnatural science courses completed a quantitative test of genetics concepts. Two subsets (n = 15 for each group) of the original sample representing divergent levels of content knowledge participated in individual interviews, during which they articulated positions, rationales
This paper discusses three case studies – an exhibition on biodiversity, a hotel water conservation program, and a partnership between a nature center and urban public schools – to establish parameters for designing learning experiences that accommodate the varied worldviews and attitudes of learners. Positive outcomes occurred in all three cases, but could best be interpreted if sub-samples of participants were distinguished based on their readiness to embrace conservation messages. The studies demonstrated the limitations of narrowly defined learning outcomes as benchmarks for success or
This paper focuses on an early stage of developing curricular materials to support students' learning of scientific inquiry. The materials being developed and tested, called Classroom FeederWatch (CFW), aimed to support science inquiry and were developed by a collaborative team of private curriculum developers and scientists (ornithologists). Inquiry dimensions were influenced at the outset by the newly released National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996) and by prior successful experiences of ornithologists with inquiry
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Deborah TrumbullRick BonneyNancy Grudens-Schuck
Museums are favorite and respected resources for learning worldwide. In Israel, there are two relatively large science centers and a number of small natural history museums that are visited by thousands of students. Unlike other countries, studying museum visits in Israel only emerges in the last few years. The study focused on the roles and perceptions of teachers, who visited four natural history museums with their classes. The study followed previous studies that aimed at understanding the role teachers play in class visits to museums (Griffin & Symington, 1997, Science Education, 81, 763