Advances in technology, science, and learning sciences research over the past 100 years have reshaped science education. This chapter focuses on how investigators from varied fields of inquiry who initially worked separately began to interact, eventually formed partnerships, and recently integrated their perspectives to strengthen science education. Advances depended on the broadening of the participants in science education research, starting with psychologists, science discipline experts, and science educators; adding science teachers, psychometricians, computer scientists, and sociologists
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marcia LinnLibby GerardCamillia MatukKevin Mcelhaney
This book contains project ideas, articles, and best practices from educators at the forefront of making and hands-on education. The Stanford University FabLearn Fellows are a group of K-12 educators teaching in Fab Labs, makerspaces, classrooms, libraries, community centers, and museums—all with the goal of making learning more meaningful.
In this book, the FabLearn Fellows share inspirational ideas from their learning spaces, assessment strategies and recommended projects across a broad range of age levels. Illustrated with color photos of real student work, the Fellows take you on a
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Paulo BliksteinSylvia Libow MartinezHeather Allen Pang
This article makes a case for the importance of brokering future learning opportunities to youth as a programmatic goal for informal learning organizations. Such brokering entails engaging in practices that connect youth to events, programs, internships, individuals and institutions related to their interests to support them beyond the window of a specific program or event. Brokering is especially critical for youth who are new to an area of interest: it helps them develop both a baseline understanding of the information landscape and a social network that will respond to their needs as they
The Indianapolis / City as Living Laboratory (I/CaLL) project was a civic collaboration that used the city of Indianapolis as an informal science learning (ISL) environment. The 21 Urban Water Science Concepts Resource Handbook is designed for all people who are interested in exploring science topics related to urban waterways, particularly in Indianapolis. Specifically, educators, artists, and community members in Indianapolis may find this publication useful. With a small amount of extra research for examples in their area of interest, urban environmental educators across the country will
DACUM (Developing A CUrriculuM) was developed in Canada in the 1980s as a tool for industry to improve training. It has been championed in the USA by the Center for Education for Employment at The Ohio State University where they have conducted thousands of DACUMs and trained scores of people to conduct them. As used today, DACUM is a unique, innovative, and very effective method of job, and/or occupational analysis. It is also very effective for conducting process and functional analyses. The DACUM analysis workshop itself involves a trained DACUM facilitator and a committee of 5-12 expert
This poster was presented at ASTC 2016 in Tampa, Florida. Climate change can be abstract to visitors, but seeing, touching and smelling permafrost can make it seem more real. This poster shares lessons about bringing an ISE program to rural Alaska, and how this University & Museum partnership leverages real objects from frozen ground to engage child and adult learners alike in the emotions of climate change.
At the end of the NISE Network’s 10th year, the Evaluation workgroup created a reflection document to describe how we managed the evaluation of the NISE Network, one of the largest informal education networks ever formed. This document goes into specifics of how we set up our team, what impacts we decided to measure, and what methods we used to collect data on a national scale. It also talks about ethical considerations we took into account and how we shared our work with multiple audiences. This reflection document is not meant to be a prescriptive "how-to" manual, but an example of one
The Welcoming Guidelines Task Force was launched in 2014 to compile preferred practices for museums to use in working with LGBTQ professionals and communities. These practices are organized across functions and areas of professional practice with the goal to create a workable document that can be used by professionals and institutions of all kinds. The Guidelines are envisioned as a checklist/assessment that can be applied by individual LGTBQ museum professionals and our allies as a resource to effect change at institutions that serve LGBTQ persons and families and employ LGBTQ staff and
This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing efforts of the museum sector to build a museum perspective of innovation. More specifically, the paper presents a new framework for innovation in museums called the Museum Innovation Model (MIM). The model emerged as a result of Ph.D. research that included a number of museums in the United States and the United Kingdom. The theoretical framework of the model is based on three concepts—open innovation, social enterprise, and social innovation—each of which, the research observed, are growing trends in the museum sector. The proposed paper offers an
This is an extended discussion of the question that appeared in the Viewpoints department of the January/February 2016 issue of Dimensions magazine. It presents perspectives from museums and science centers on using out-of-the-box methods to attract visitors.
Today’s science centers are becoming more aware of changes in their local contexts and are concerned about playing a role in building and contributing to society. The Mechelen Declaration, resulting from the Science Centre World Summit 2014 held in Mechelen, Belgium, clearly expresses this commitment with two of its goals (SCWS, 2014):
1. “We will investigate how to engage even more effectively with local communities and increasingly diverse audiences.”
2. “We will take the lead in developing the best methods for engaging learners and optimizing their education in both formal and
This is a supplement to an article that appeared in the March/April 2016 issue of Dimensions magazine. We asked science centers, museums, and aquariums to share how they are making their facilities and their practices more green and energy efficient, and how they have used these efforts to educate their visitors and communities about energy efficiency and sustainability.