In collaboration with TERC and informal learning organizations across the United States, COSI’s Center for Research and Evaluation (CRE) is part of an NSF-funded project, Research to Understand and Inform the Impacts of Ambient and Designed Sound on Informal STEM Learning.
In collaboration with TERC and informal learning organizations across the United States, COSI’s Center for Research and Evaluation (CRE) is part of an NSF-funded project, Research to Understand and Inform the Impacts of Ambient and Designed Sound on Informal STEM Learning.
Immersion in well-designed outdoor environments can foster the habits of mind that enable critical and authentic scientific questions to take root in students' minds. Here we share two design cases in which careful, collaborative, and intentional design of outdoor learning environments for informal inquiry provide people of all ages with embodied opportunities to learn about the natural world, developing the capacity for understanding ecology and the ability to empathize, problem-solve, and reflect. Embodied learning, as facilitated by and in well-designed outdoor learning environments, leads
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katherine GillJocelyn GlazierBetsy Towns
Marino et al. (2010) recently published a critique of a three-year National Science Foundation—funded investigation of the impact of zoo and aquarium visits on the public's understanding of animals and their attitudes toward conservation (Falk, Heimlich, & Bronnenkant, 2008; Falk, Reinhard, Vernon, Bronnenkant, Deans, & Heimlich, 2007; Heimlich, Bronnenkant, Witgert, & Falk, 2004). This critique of that critique will show that Marino et al. seriously misrepresent both the intent of the research and the methods used. The methods used by Falk and his colleagues were consistent with current