What is Inquiry?

Yesterday I helped facilitate a local workshop about inquiry-based learning as part of the California After School Network's  The Power of Discovery: STEM2 initiative.  The Alameda County Office of Education and Gateways East Bay STEM Learning Network are the Regional Support Providers that are implementing The Power of Discovery at the regional and local levels.  Their vision is to create, empower and guide cross-sector partnerships among diverse stakeholders to build professional capacity of out-of-school time programs to offer high-quality STEM learning opportunities.

The focus of the workshop was inquiry based learning and the presentation was by Kourrney Andrada of Girls Inc. of Alameda County.  Her presentation was chock full of helpful links, which I'll recap below.  Some of her resources were videos from the Lawrence Hall of Science's' Afterschool KidzScience program.

Here is my favorite video from the list - it covers elements of questioning, guiding exploration and encouraging collaboration.  

This would be a great video to show after school science leaders as a starting off point for a conversation about facilitation techniques.  

Here are the links to resources from yesterday's training:

4-H's Science in Urban Communities

“Asking Questions”

This link is from Developmental Studies Center, creators with Lawrence Hall of Science of KidzScience, Kidzmath, KidzLit, etc. 

Lawrence Hall of Science Educator Tools and Resources 

How Do People Learn? - video

Leading Curiosity - video

Leading Exploration - video

www.Y4Y.ed.gov     

"Sparking Curiosity" coachingsegment

The Y4Y links use the following definition from the Exploratorium:

Inquiry is an approach to learning that involves a process of exploring the natural or material world that leads to asking questions and making discoveries in the search for new understandings.

Inquiry, as it relates to science education, should mirror as closely as possible the enterprise of doing real science.

Encourage your students to discuss and question openly, to gain a better understanding of what they’re thinking. It’ll help you uncover misunderstandings you can challenge and identify places to introduce concepts and explanations for what they’re experiencing.

Can there be too much technology in museums?

Today I read an interesting article on Slate.com about how videos, mobile apps and other technologies are a "waste of time" in artifact museums.  The authors described a recent visit to Discovery Times Square in Manhattan to see an exhibit called "Spy: The Secret World of Espionage."  Rather than having a titillating experience with cool, declassified CIA gadgets, the authors emerged feeling assaulted by too much technology.

They went on to cite the work of Dirk vom Lehn and Christian Heath, who found that museum visitors are often 'seduced' by technology, and sometimes wind up focusing on screened presentations rather than the actual artifacts on display.

I found this critical look on technology in museums both refreshing and timely, as the Association of Science-Technology Centers conference begins this week.  Although the article focuses on artifact museums it made me wonder, could there be such a thing as too much technology in our science museums, too?

Luckily, the Coalition for Science After School is headquartered at the Lawrence Hall of Science, so with this question in mind I went upstairs to take a look at one of our new exhibits.  Nano is a collection of experiences and exhibits created in part by the NISE (Nanoscale Informal Science Education) Network, and it was designed to expose people to the teeny, tiny world of nanotechnology.  I wondered how the exhibit would approach explaining things too small to see.  Would I be overwhelmed with a bank of scanning electron microscopes, or videos simulating zooming in closer and closer to an atom?

I was pleased to find that the exhibit, while it does include a video, is for the most part truly a hands-on experience.  Visitors manipulate and explore objects to observe and compare results.  The questions that arise during these experiences are further explored in the video.  I watched a young visitor and her grandmother explore ferrofluid with magnets for several minutes, delighted by the unexpected behavior of the tiny iron particles in water.  I can imagine that after having a hands-on experience with ferrofluid that watching a video about it would be much more meaningful!

My favorite part of Nano was another incredibly simple, low-tech piece:

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by too much technology in a science museum?

What I Learned at the Association of Science-Technology Centers Conference

This is Kalie, Manager at the Coalition for Science After School, just back from four great days in Baltimore at the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) conference. I spent the first two days of the conference in the exhibit hall, where I was seated next to representatives from the Afterschool Alliance. The exhibit hall gave me a chance to meet representatives from many of our science center members, as well as introduce new people to the Coalition and the National After School Science Directory.

There is no doubt that science center leaders are interested in connecting with afterschool programs, or looking to include afterschool content in their educational programming. If you’re from a science center looking to partner with or include more afterschool programming, join the Coalition to receive our newsletter and engage with this dynamic community of out-of-school time STEM stakeholders.

Outside of the exhibit hall’s open hours, I was able to attend some interesting sessions focusing on education in science centers. I took some notes to share with our members. Descriptions of each session are below; some of them run a bit long, so skip ahead to the session titles that interest you the most:

1)   Integrating Scientists Into Educational Programming

2)   How to Demonstrate the Value of Science Centers

3)   The Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE): Year 4 Initiatives and the Future

4)   Innovative and Collaborative Sharing of Educational Resources Online

5)   Activating Young Science Learners

Thank you to the team at ASTC for putting on a great conference! I learned a lot and plan on attending again next year when the conference moves to Ohio. See you in Columbus!

Integrating Scientists Into Educational Programming

This session focused on showcasing the ways in which museums work with scientists to enhance their education programs and events. We heard from two representatives from the American Museum of Natural History, who offers a Science Café night for adults and a two-year mentoring program for high-school youth that matches them with a scientists mentor. We also heard from Elizabeth Babcock of the California Academy of Sciences, who talked about the museum’s Careers in Science program and efforts to make their scientist researchers accessible to museum visitors by opening up their glass-fronted research lab. Monique Scott of the Anchorage Museum talked about an exhibit on mammoths and mastodons and their programming that brought research scientists and community members together on the museum floor. Steve Tritz of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) told us about a great summer camp program that takes place all across the Pacific Northwest, in which students travel with scientists researchers and help them with their fieldwork.

Student connection to professional scientists is an important motivator for showing students that they can become scientists too. For example, Mr. Tritz of OMSI talked about how his program works with tribal scientists to connect American Indian students to the research that they do. Challenges in integrating scientists into education programs include finding scientists who are natural communicators to the public, as well as reaching out to scientists outside of personal networks. Several presenters mentioned that working with post-docs or graduate students has been a good strategy, as those students and recent PhDs often have an interest in outreach and a natural connection with students. For afterschool programs looking to partner with scientists, reaching out to a local college’s STEM departments could be a great way to find scientists interested in outreach.

For more information about this topic, stay tuned on our blog for a summary of the workshop we’ll be facilitating at the Up Your Game conference on October 31^st in San Diego, where we will be focusing on connecting scientist volunteers and afterschool programs.

How to Demonstrate the Value of Science Centers

In this session, we heard from representatives from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on their research and evaluation efforts to demonstrate how valuable museums and libraries—including those that focus on science content—are to their communities. IMLS recently put out a study on 21^st century skills, which is available for download at their website and may be a useful tool for afterschool groups seeking to integrate skill-building STEM activities into their programs.

We also saw a video produced by the California Science Center highlighting some of their great exhibits, programs, and community recognition over the years. William Harris, Senior Vice President of Development and Marketing at the California Science Center Foundation, said that they have saved everything positive said about them over the years—ranging from local news coverage to a donation letter sent by a six-year-old visitor. These testaments to their educational impact, combined with videos of some of their most exciting exhibits and programs, was informative while also creating a deep emotional impact. He also said that they made their first video of this nature using a flip-phone camera—something relatively cheap that many people already have. Producing a video of this nature would be a great asset for an afterschool program to show potential funders and policymakers.

The Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE): Year 4 Initiatives and the Future

The Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) is a partnership between several projects, initiatives, and institutions that seeks to bring together and advance the field of informal science educators. Funded by the National Science Foundation, CAISE is continuously growing and expanding to bring together more partners and stakeholders across multiple STEM fields. Check out their website for more information about their projects, partnerships, and constituents.

Innovative Collaborative Development and Sharing of Educational Resources Online

This session introduced participants to a variety of educational resources and tools—all collaborative in nature and available online. Many of the resources found on these sites may be useful for afterschool programs looking to increase their STEM content—or for STEM providers seeking new venues for distributing their work.

•     NSDL SMILE pathway: This great collection of informal math and science activities from science centers all across the country can be found at www.howtosmile.org. Users can search for activities by content, age, cost, and many other parameters. They can also submit reviews, ratings, and suggestions for modifications for each activity. We often recommend the SMILE pathway to afterschool programs looking for short science activities that use inexpensive materials and explain their science content in an easy-to-understand way.
• NISE Network: The NISE Network is a collaborative partnership of science institutions offering resources for understanding and explaining nanotechnology in informal education environments. The presenter, Catherine McCarthy of the Science Museum of St. Paul, also gave an enlightening talk about copyright and the potential issues of sharing digital resources. The NISE Network uses a Creative Commons license, and encourages sharing with attribution. 
• Open Exhibits: This community-based initiative provides free software that uses multi-touch and other human-computer interaction (HCI) technology to museums and other educational organizations. They also use a Creative Commons license. This new project capitalizes on the collaborative nature of science centers and the ease of open-source software development and sharing. Many of the exhibits that have been developed through Open Exhibits use cheap technology that visitors may be familiar with, like Microsoft Kinect and Google Maps. Check out their community site to see some of the projects that have been developed.

Activating Young Science Learners

The Science Learning Activation Lab research project based in the San Francisco Bay Area seeks to identify and explain the factors that “activate” science learning in children before they reach middle school. Their working definition of activation is a dynamic state composed of dispositions, skills, and knowledge that enable success in proximal learning experiences. It is definable, malleable, and predictive of future learning choice. Identifying factors of activation has the potential to present tangible evidence to policymakers and funding organizations that learning outcomes other than test scores can effectively measure science learning and increasing the number of students who go through the STEM pipeline (that is, students who go on to choose STEM majors and careers).

The research team, which includes the Lawrence Hall of Science and the University of Pittsburgh, is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which has long supported Bay Area science research. The researchers are still formulating their tools for identifying and measuring activation. They hope to answer the question of how we, as informal science educators, can activate children’s interest and curious minds in ways that ignite persistent engagement in science learning and inquiry. Although this work is focused in the Bay Area, the research findings and any resulting models or tools for measurement can certainly be used by organizations in other areas.

At the session, we heard from leaders at major Bay Area informal science learning institutions (the Lawrence Hall of Science, the Children’s Discovery Museum, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Exploratorium) about what they hope the research can accomplish as it moves forward. The hope is that by working together, the institutions can dramatically increase the amount of science being offered to Bay Area children.

The research being pursued in this project is highly relevant for afterschool providers who are seeking to offer science content in their programs. The researchers agree that any kind of learning experience has potential for activation, and afterschool learning is certainly a part of children’s learning experiences. Keep an eye on their website for preliminary results, and we certainly hope that they will present the next stage of their findings at next year’s ASTC conference in Columbus, Ohio.

Have you learned How to SMILE?

There's a great new way to find fun science and math activities--and to share your own! Howtosmile.org has just launched as a place where educators in non-school settings--like zoos, museums, and afterschool programs--can communicate and share their STEM activities. As of this writing, there's already over 1000 different science and math activities posted! 


Here's how it works. Once users create an account, they can post guides to their favorite projects. This includes a description, time, materials cost, and subjects addressed, among other things. Other users can post comments on their experience with the activity and even try to tweak it. Activities can be added to user-generated lists to create collections of similar activities, and users can earn badges and points based on their participation.

"SMILE" stands for Science and Math Informal Learning Educators, but howtosmile.org can be used as a resource in lots of settings by non-educators too. Many of the activities are simple enough to be done by parents and kids at home, or by non-scientists in community groups, like Girl Scout troop leaders. The interface is simple enough to use that kids could search for interesting activities on their own. It's free to join, and if you get started soon, you'll have a chance to win an iPad!

Howtosmile is a joint project of science educators and researchers from across the country, including the Lawrence Hall of Science, The Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC), the Children's Museum of Houston, the Exploratorium, the New York Hall of Science, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). 

The Coalition for Science After School is proud to be a national partner!

What do we mean when we say "STEM"?

A recent article in the New York Times Science section has been bouncing around the science education blogosphere, and the topic just so happens to be something very close to our hearts. In "STEM Education Has Little to Do With Flowers", Natalie Angier touches on something that science education advocates struggle with constantly: the "branding" of STEM to students, parents, educators, legislators, and funders. Angier argues that the term is "opaque and confusing" to the public, which makes it harder to emphasize its importance to people outside of the field

So what's the problem with "STEM"? On the one hand, it could be seen as overly inclusive--despite stereotypes, not every student interested in science is also fascinated by math, and vice versa. But the term might a little exclusive too--does it leave out specialized but important disciplines like computer science, medicine and health science, media studies, or archaeology? Some advocates argue for the inclusion of art--to make STEM into STEAM--because no science or technology innovation has ever been done without a little creativity. 


And while STEM might be a handy acronym for those of us who work in the field, it might mystify those who need access to science and technology education the most. If you're not involved in the science education field in some way, you might not know what STEM means, and it's rarely explained in the media. The Coalition advocates for afterschool science for all, and it's hard to convince someone that STEM is important when you're not even speaking the same language as them! 


We don't necessarily need to scrap the term altogether, though. As Dr. Elizabeth Stage--Coalition Steering Committee member and Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science--it's a "false distinction" to "silo out" the different disciplines, because they use the same type of analytical and critical thinking. But as the field of science education advocacy grows and changes, there's no doubt that criticisms such as Angier's will continue to be published.


What are your thoughts on the term "STEM"? Let us know in the discussion page at the Coalition for Science After School LinkedIn page.

Exciting and Unique Job Opening at the Coalition for Science After School and Lawrence Hall of Science!

Do you or does someone you know have a passion for promoting science in after school? Are you looking to be a leader in this emerging and exciting field? The Coalition for Science After School and the Lawrence Hall of Science is looking for a Director to lead the new Center for Quality Science Learning Afterschool and the Coalition. Read on, and pass along the news to your colleagues and associates. We look forward to hearing from you!

Job Number: 10-104
Job Type: Coordinator of Public Programs VI-VIII
Job Area:  Lawrence Hall of Science
Job Notes:
Title: Director, Center for Quality Science Learning Afterschool (Coordinator of Public Programs VI-VIII)
Location: Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley
Salary Range: $76,800-98,900 annually

Duties and Responsibilities:
The Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) is seeking a visionary leader to envision, plan and build a new Center for Quality Science Learning Afterschool (QSLA). As Center Director he or she will be responsible for creating an agenda that enables quality educational programs and innovative practices to flourish in afterschool. This senior academic appointee will play a visible role nationally in the field by serving as a spokesperson, advocate, and coalition builder to raise the profile of the Hall. The director will supervise staff as well as serve on the nine member LHS leadership team to promote institution-wide collaboration and excellence. The QSLA Center Director will be responsible for facilitating mutually beneficial relationships with outside agencies as well as build collaboration within the Hall's current efforts in afterschool science education. The QSLA Center Director will serve as author and project director on grants and fundraising documents to raise support for the work of the center. Through leveraging the Hall's existing excellence in research and evaluation, materials development, direct service, and technology innovation, the QSLA Director will be expected to build a strong and coherent program that make a measurable impact on the diversity of afterschool audiences.
The QSLA Center Director will concurrently serve (30-40%) as the Executive Director of the Coalition for Science After School (CSAS), a national network of over 1500 organizations, experts and committed individuals, dedicated to advancing after school science education. CSAS plays a national role in collecting and disseminating knowledge about best and promising practices in the field, serves as platform for advocacy, and a convener of communities of practice.  The Executive Director, working together and guided by the CSAS Steering Committee, will enact the bold vision to make science a routine part of after school, such that CSAS will no longer need to exist in ten years.

Qualifications:                  
" Masters in science or mathematics, science or mathematics education, youth development, or the equivalent required; Ph. D. desirable.
" A minimum of ten years of experience in science and/or mathematics education, in formal, informal, and/or afterschool settings; working with policymakers, diverse learners and stakeholders.
" Experience designing, implementing, leading, and managing complex projects; including building teams and raising funds
" Knowledge of science education and afterschool trends and policies required; knowledge of UC system policies and practices desirable.
" Excellent written and oral communications skills, computer skills, service-oriented with a strong customer service background required; bilingual and/or experienced with second language learning issues desirable.
" Self-starter with ability to work independently with minimal supervision, to set priorities, take initiative, exercise authority, and execute tasks while maintaining confidentiality, exercising judgment.

QSLA Center Description:
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/qsla/QSLA_Description.pdf

CSAS Strategic Plan:
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/csas/CSAS_Biz_Plan.pdf

Approximate Starting Date: February 1, 2011
Total Duration of Appointment: 1 year, renewable upon successful performance and the availability of funds.
Application Deadline: November 1, 2010

Please submit your CV and cover letter by e-mail to:
Sherry Hsi & Michael Radke, Selection Committee Co-Chairs
QSLADirectorSearch@afterschoolscience.org

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER.

You can also view this posting at the UC Berkeley Academic Employment site.