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.

How Kids Learn Conference: CSAS Presentation

Coalition Director Carol Tang recently presented at the How Kids Learn Conference in Berkeley, CA.  She talked about why STEM and after school make such a great pair.  One of her central points is that both STEM learning and after school learning principles celebrate process, discovery, creativity and self-direction over product.  They also both rely on teamwork and mentoring relationships.

If you are an out-of-school time science educator, you will especially appreciate Carol's presentation of the best predictor of which students will become scientists.  And if you are an after school educator with little or no science background, hear about why you might actually be better at leading science learning than someone with a formal science background!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Another presenter at the conference was Erik Peterson, the  Policy Director at the Afterschool Alliance.  His presentation offered perspectives that parents, policy makers and educators have about after school learning.  He also talked about the tension between the importance of unstructured play and the pressure to map after school activities back to improved school performance and test scores.

Closing the STEM Gender Gap through Mentoring Programs

Happy New Year!  As you probably already know, January is National Mentoring Month, which makes now the perfect time to resolve to learn how your organization can impact gender equity in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields through a mentoring program.   

Why is mentoring so important in establishing equity in the STEM fields?  Isn’t it enough to provide high quality science programs in after school settings, spark boys’ and girls’ interest in science, and offer them support to explore, build, experiment and discover?

According to the Collaborative for Gender Equity in Emerging Technologies, young women don’t consider careers in science because they don’t have female role models in the field or because they feel dissuaded by adults to pursue a career in science.  Furthermore, there are powerful implicit assumptions, held by both men and women, that prevent girls from continuing on in STEM fields.  

One implicit assumption often made is that boys are just ‘naturally’ better at math than girls.  However, in a recent cross-cultural analysis of math abilities across gender by Jonathan Kane and Janet Mertz, no significant difference was found between boys’ and girls’ math abilities.  The report suggests that we need to make social and cultural changes if we want to close the gender gap.  As Mertz explains:

"None of our findings suggest that an innate biological difference between the sexes is the primary reason for a gender gap in math performance at any level. Rather, these major international studies strongly suggest that the math-gender gap, where it occurs, is due to sociocultural factors that differ among countries, and that these factors can be changed."

The partners of the Gender Equity Collaborative, and we at the Coalition for Science After School, believe that mentoring is a critical sociocultural key that can help debunk implicit assumptions about gender and science, and keep us moving towards equity in the STEM fields.   

Mentoring programs can and should look different depending on the needs of the youth in your community, and the strengths of your organization.  

• 4-H’s mentoring program Tech Wizards is designed for all youth, not just girls, who tend to be underrepresented in STEM fields.

• Techbridge highlighted in this article by EdWeek, serves over 600 elementary and secondary girls, most of whom are minorities.  The website has great resources for potential mentors. 

• New Coalition member Chidren First CEO of Kansas recently announced the launch of their mentor program.  They are currently recruiting college women seeking STEM degrees, as well as girls in middle and high school to participate in monthly meetings.

• Girls Inc of the Island City, Girls Inc of Alameda County and the Center for Science Education at the Sciences Laboratory are creating a mentoring program for 5 ‘generations’ of females - elementary, middle, undergraduate, graduate students and scientists - will participate in after school science studies together.

• At the Exploratorium, the Biology Department has created an internship program for one high school student.  This video shows that even the smallest of mentoring programs can have a tremendous impact on how a mentee feels about pursuing a future in STEM. 

If Mentoring Month, the stories listed above, or your reflections on your own career path have motivated you to make a difference in a young person’s life and in the future of the STEM field, visit mentoring.org on information on how to start a mentor program.  And if you’re already involved with a mentoring program, you’re not off the hook!  This is the perfect time time to think about evaluating your program.

How are you and your organization resolving to impact equity in the STEM fields through a mentor program?

Science and Art "CreatureCast" on Squid Iridescence

This is one of the most entertaining and scientifically educational videos that I have ever seen.  A young person with an interest in art might find the connection with science very engaging!  This is apparently "Episode 1", so I look forward to future CreatureCasts.

CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

Use Cheap Modern Electronics to Explore Nature

Here is a fun blog post about using new, inexpensive digital microscopes to make nature more interesting. In the poster's words: "I spent the whole afternoon looking at stuff and taking pictures. Skin cells, fabrics, seeds, and of course, bugs, were just part of the wild menagerie of things I examined." He also links to a YouTube video that he created, showing a mite crawling on an ant.

The device that he is using costs under $100. If you are working with kids who like engineering, one of the commenters provided a link to a Do-It-Yourself page to create a digital microscope for about $25.

Link to "Exploring Your Own Backyard" on BoingBoing

Dangerous Things Your Kids Should Do

There is just too much cool stuff on the Internet! I have just discovered TED, a conference (and more!) that began as a change to gather people from "Technology, Entertainment, and Design" to share ideas. I think there best idea may be to limit presentations to 18 minutes. Seriously - can you imagine how much better most of the lectures you have attended lately would be if so edited?

Here is an example of TED that is buzzing around the 'net today and is about a technology/design program for kids. Gever Tulley of the Tinkering School talks about "5 dangerous things you should let your kids do."

What Happened to Chemistry Sets?

Wired Science from KCET PBS has a great story about the old-school chemistry set. Liability, and presumably some common sense, has removed from the toy store shelves such oxymoronic projects as "preparing a safe explosive". This story shows some of those old sets, and demonstrates the interesting and exciting world of chemistry that is available in a safe and controlled environment. Yet another reason to incorporate science into informal learning - it can be fun, but it may also need to be supervised.



Get more Wired Science at their website - I could really post dozens of their stories here. They are great!

More great science demonstrations

I keep finding good science demonstrations on the web. Here is Robert Krampf, a science educator from Florida who has done touring show for 30 years. The videos are very professional looking and the demonstrations cover a range of interesting topics. The one that I have embedded here is currently making the rounds on popular sites like BoingBoing and Digg. Krampf's website includes these videos and information about booking his shows. The videos are also available at sclipo.com, another interesting site for sharing knowledge through video.

5min Videos

I just came across a site called 5min.com, which is like YouTube, but focused on short instructional videos. What makes it unique is its media player, which allows you to watch videos in slow-motion or frame by frame. This is for anyone who ever asks, "How do they do that?" There are a number of science and nature videos. Be wary, though, some are less than scientifically accurate (such as the Philadelphia Experiment video), and many are just clips from old documentaries. But if you look around the site, you should see the potential of web video for instructional purposes. Enjoy this video demonstrating waves with fire:

Futures Channel: Movies and Activities about Sci/Tech

The Futures Channel includes a large collection of movies with related activities for kids (and big kids, like me!) I really like the one with Dava Newman (an amazing engineer!) talking about futuristic space suits. Another provides hands-on math activities to go with a video about robot-builders from NASA. The videos would be good to use as a focus, followed by the activities that connect back to them. You could even have a whole club that does one of these a day.

Thanks to Mike on the ITEA Innovation Station list for the reference!

Fun Forensic Science?

Groundwork, Inc., an outstanding community organization in New York City, shared this video in their most recent newsletter. Apparently, the youth in one of the Groundwork programs discovered that their program director had been "murdered". It took teamwork and sleuthing to find out "whodunit". And, their Film Club produced a trailer video to build up excitement around the event.

More Videos, More Oobleck

I have previously posted (twice) about videos and demonstrations of science activities available on the web. There are more videos on YouTube of Oobleck. Check out:

- Non-Newtonian Egg Protector (Egg in a bag with oobleck)
- People in a pool of oobleck: Spanish TV ; Exploratorium

Another user, ScienceOnline, has also posted some interesting demonstrations. The lemon battery is featured on YouTube's front page right now. Enjoy!