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Education WEEk
A Special Report on Informal Science Education www.edweek.org/go/ScienceReport
ScieNce learNiNg
A Supplement to the April 6, 2011, Issue
Vol. 30 • No. 27
Outside the Classroom
This report was underwritten by a grant from the Noyce Foundation

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eDUcaTiON WeeK
SPecial rePOrT:
Science learning
Outside the classroom
aPril 6, 2011
Copyright ©2010 by
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Kitty Clark Fritz for Education Week
Kitty Clark Fritz for Education Week
S2 awareness grows of
importance of learning
Science Beyond School
S2 Science Though the TV Screen
S6 researchers Playing catch-Up
in gauging Beyond-School
effects
WEB eXclUSiVeS
For more on informal science education:
•
•
•
CLICK to gEt to ARtICLES
read Staff Writer Sarah D. Sparks’ story that delves into
the growing world of online communities where science
is the topic and see videos of the science experiments she
writes about. www.edweek.org/go/experiments
Then, join an online forum to post your favorite videos of
experiments and share how you use these videos in the
classroom.
www.edweek.org/go/experimentsForum
View a photo gallery of the explora science center.
www.edweek.org/go/explora
S8 Science-rich institutions
Provide Venues For children to
enjoy exploration
S10 Science Competitions
integrated into classroom
Curriculum
S12 games and Simulations
Draw children into New
Vistas for accessing Science
•
S13 independent Play Fosters
Discovery in Youngsters
S14 National Science Foundation
Seen as leader in advancing
informal learning
S15 Environmental Issues
inspire children
To Dig into Science
Join assistant editor erik W. robelen and guests for
a free Webinar on the evolving field of informal science
education—what we know about its impact, what it
looks like in practice, the potential, and the
challenges.
Sabrina reyes, a 2nd grader at
east San Jose elementary
School, investigates the effect
of airstream on a group of
pinwheels during Family
Science Night at explora,
a science center in
albuquerque, N.M.
explora regularly hosts the
event to promote informal
science learning for area
students and their families.
Read the digital (PDF) edition of the informal
PreSeNTerS
science education report and forward copies
John H. Falk, professor of free-choice learning at
to your colleagues.
Oregon State University and founder and director INFORMAL SCIENCE EDUCATION
emeritus of the institute for learning innovation
www.edweek.org/go/
alan J. Friedman, former director and ceO of the
ScienceDownload
New York Hall of Science, consultant in museum
development and science communication, and member
of the National assessment governing Board
Date: Tuesday, april 19, from 2 to 3 p.m. eDT
www.edweek.org/go/webinar/learningScience
cOVer iMage:
Jackeli Queli views her
multiplying faces inside a giant
kaleidoscope at explora. The
5th grader and her classmates
at Tomasita elementary School
brought family members to the
science center to explore its
many exhibits.
Kitty Clark Fritz for Education Week
Click
on the
Digital Edition

awareness grows of importance
Of learning Science Beyond School
BY
eriK W.
rOBeleN
When a fresh
round of
national
and international
data on
student
achievement
in
science
came out recently, the results—
widely seen as disappointing—
prompted familiar hand-wringing
from political leaders and
education experts about the steps
needed to improve science instruction
in the public schools.
What’s often missing from the
national dialogue on the issue is
a concerted focus not simply on
what happens in the classroom,
but also on the opportunities to
learn about science—and to inspire
a passion for the subject—
that come outside the school day
S2
Science
Through the
TV Screen
PhotoS by AP ExCEPt WhERE IndICAtEd
and the formal curriculum.
But many leaders in the field
often referred to as “informal science
education” say that is beginning
to change. There are signs
that this sector is garnering wider
attention and starting to be included
in broader discussions on
how to improve science learning
among young people.
David A. Ucko, a former senior
official at the National Science
Foundation, said the field now
has greater external recognition
of its impact on public awareness,
understanding, and engagement
with science and related subjects.
“There is definitely momentum
building,” agreed John H. Falk, a
professor of free-choice learning
at Oregon State University, in
Corvallis. “The good news is that
the field is of late being invited to
some tables and being taken seriously
as important, but it’s still
roughly an order of magnitude
less than formal education.”
One boost to the cause was the
2009 release of a major National
Research Council report, “Learning
Science in Informal Environments.”
With the prestige of the
National Academies behind
it, the nrc document served
as a clarion call.
“Efforts to enhance scientific capacity
typically target schools and
focus on such strategies as improving
science curriculum and teacher
training and strengthening the
science pipeline,” the report said.
“What is often overlooked or underestimated
is the potential for
science learning in nonschool settings,
where people actually spend
the majority of their time.
“Beyond the schoolhouse door,”
it said, “opportunities for science
learning abound.”
Indeed, they do. Visits to sciencerich
cultural institutions, such as
zoos, aquariums, science centers,
and natural-history museums
immediately come to mind. But
it’s really a host of opportunities.
Astronomy and robotics clubs. After-school
programs and science
competitions. Collecting rocks or
taking a walk in the woods. Watching
television programs such as
“MythBusters” or turning to the
Internet to learn more about cancer
or global warming. The list
goes on and on.
President Barack Obama, who
has aggressively used his bully
pulpit to promote education in the
s t E m fields of science, technology,
engineering, and
mathematics, seems to
BY SaraH D. SParKS
In one of the best-remembered tv science
experiments, donald J. herbert, aka mr. Wizard,
and one of his student-helpers peered over a
waist-high acrylic box filled with set mousetraps,
representing fissionable material in an atomic
bomb. on each perched a pingpong ball,
representing the neutrons. When one additional
ball dropped into the mix, the entire box went up in
an explosion of white plastic.
When mr. herbert died in 2007, after more than
a half-century in educational entertainment,
science television shows had exploded more fully
than his ping-pong balls. the national Research
Council’s 2009 landmark study of informal science
highlighted evidence that children’s shows such
as “bill nye the Science guy” can increase not
just students’ interest in science, but also their
understanding of complex scientific concepts.
here’s a look at some of the top science television
series through the years.
Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport l april 6, 2011
Opportunities are
plentiful, from afterschool
programs to
computer simulations
to visiting a zoo.
WAtCh mR. WIzARd (1951)
the granddaddy of all children’s science
shows, “mr. Wizard” first aired on WmAQ,
Chicago’s nbC station. It spanned more
than 600 shows during the 1950s and ’60s,
and another 78 shows, as the cable-based
“mr. Wizard’s World,” in the 1980s and ’90s,
according to tom nikosey, the president of
mr. Wizard Studios in West hills, Calif.

share an appreciation for learning
outside the classroom. He hosted
an Astronomy Night on the White
House lawn in 2009 and, last fall,
the first White House science fair,
celebrating winners of s t E m-focused
student competitions.
“In many ways, our future depends
on what happens in those
contests,” Mr. Obama said at the
October event. “It’s in these pursuits
that talents are discovered
and passions are lit, and the future
scientists, engineers, inventors,
and entrepreneurs are born.”
NO TeSTS Or graDeS
In an increasingly data-obsessed
education landscape, one challenge
is meeting the demand for
concrete evidence on how individuals
benefit from informal learning
opportunities.
The n r c report found “abundant
evidence” that people of all
ages learn science across a wide
range of venues and activities.
But that report, and interviews
with experts in the field, suggest
there’s still a long way to go in better
evaluating and understanding
the impact.
Advocates for informal learning
emphasize that it’s vital not simply
to align measures for out-ofschool
learning with the focus on
standardized achievement tests
so prevalent in public education.
Instead, the idea is to gauge scientific
skills and understanding in
ways that are more appropriate to
the various settings and activities,
as well as to look at interest in
science topics and a person’s selfidentification
as someone knowledgeable
about science.
nAtIonAL gEogRAPhIC (1964)
the first television specials by the national
geographic Society aired on CbS and have since
spawned innumerable documentaries, additional
television series like “national geographic
Explorer,” and, in 2001, a full cable channel
dubbed natgeo.
“If we allow the things that are
easy to measure in school districts
as the only definitions of learning
we’re going to consider, we are
leaving off the table an awful lot
of things,” said Kevin J. Crowley,
the director of the University of
Pittsburgh’s Center for Learning
in Out-of-School Environments
and an associate professor of education
and psychology. “We need
to have compelling, theory-based,
reliable measures, and we’re just
beginning to chip away at that
right now.”
The n r c report said one important
feature of informal learning
settings is the absence of tests,
grades, and other familiar approaches
used by schools to document
the effect of education.
“Assessments should not be limited
to factual recall or other narrow
cognitive measures of learning,”
it said, but instead “should
address the range of intellectual,
attitudinal, behavioral, social, and
participatory capabilities that informal
environments effectively
promote.”
In fact, tools are now emerging
that show the potential to link
individuals’ learning across a lifetime
of different experiences. (See
story, Page S6.)
One domain that is seeing a
strong push to promote learning
and engagement in science is the
after-school setting. In fact, 2011
was billed as the “Year of Science
in After-School” by several leading
groups, including the Afterschool
Alliance, the National AfterSchool
Association, and the National
Summer Learning Association.
“We’re all speaking with one
voice to say this is important,” said
Anita Krishnamurthi, the director
of stEm policy for the Afterschool
Alliance, an advocacy group based
in Washington.
Meanwhile, initiatives have recently
emerged in California and
Missouri to establish sustainable
statewide systems that support
and promote high-quality afterschool
programming in the stEm
fields. The initiative in Missouri,
Project Liftoff, is working to spark
“
JOHN H. FalK
Professor of Free-choice learning
Oregon State University
There is
definitely
momentum
building.”
similar undertakings in other
Midwestern states as well. Among
the efforts planned are identifying
a menu of first-rate curricular
materials in the stEm fields, better
preparing after-school program
staff members to provide engaging
stEm activities, and supporting the
evaluation and improvement of
such after-school offerings.
The project is getting financial
backing from the Noyce Foundation,
which also underwrote this
special report, and the Charles S.
Mott Foundation, which helps underwrite
economic-stimulus coverage
in Education Week.
Some advocates have eyed policy
changes at the federal level to
thE WoRLd oF JACQuES
CouStEAu (1966)
mr. Cousteau, the founder of the French
navy’s undersea Research group in 1946 and
a commander of the research ship Calypso,
almost singlehandedly developed underwater
wildlife documentaries with multiple cinematic
films, television specials, and the series, which
was later renamed “the undersea World of
Jacques-yves Cousteau” and ran through 1976.
gain better leverage for informal
science learning. A prime target is
the main federal source of afterschool
aid, the $1.2 billion 21st
Century Community Learning
Centers program.
Last year, a White House advisory
panel on science and technology—as
part of a larger report on
improving stEm education—urged
the government to create a setaside
in the program for those
fields. It suggested that the funding
could be pooled with other
federal aid to create a new, coordinated
initiative across agencies to
support high-quality out-of-school
activities that “inspire” students
in the stEm subjects. Such activities
could include after-school and
summer school programs, as well
as contests, the report said.
The news and entertainment
media have long served as powerful
vehicles for educating the public
about science, from newspapers
and magazines to TV and radio
programs, documentaries, and
i m a x films. Even science-fiction
movies have helped inspire young
people to learn about science. The
National Science Foundation is
a key supporter, having issued
an assortment of grants over the
years for educational programming,
including the science desk
at n p r, television programs like
DragonFly TV, and giant-screen
movies like “Tornado Alley,” which
premiered in March.
Private foundations have also
played a role. In February, for
instance, the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute, based in Chevy
Chase, Md., announced the launch
of a $60 million documentary-film
initiative to bring compelling science
features to television.
Further, new technologies hold
novA (1971)
tremendous promise to advance
science learning and interest,
with the advent of increasingly
sophisticated computer games and
simulations, among other developments.
(See story, Page S12.)
‘UrBaN aDVaNTage’
Ensuring access across the U.S.
population, especially among lowincome
and minority families,
is seen as an important goal for
many informal initiatives and
institutions, from after-school
programs to science centers and
museums, such as Explora, in Albuquerque,
N.M. Explora offers
free memberships for low-income
families and hosts Family Science
Nights in partnership with the
city school district as a way to better
acquaint such families with its
offerings. (See story, Page S8.)
The Family Science Night idea
also illustrates another theme:
the value of fostering direct connections
between schools and
informal learning environments.
Around the country, there’s no
shortage of such collaborations.
Explora, like many other science
centers, also offers professionaldevelopment
programs for teachers.
And it offers a menu of more
than 200 hourlong experiential
programs for students, called “explorations,”
pegged to the state’s
academic standards.
In New York City, Urban Advantage,
a program led by the American
Museum of Natural History,
has brought together the city
school system and an assortment
of science-rich institutions, including
the New York Hall of Science,
First launched by Wgbh in boston, the one-hour
series won the national Science Foundation’s
inaugural Public Service Award in 1998. It
repeatedly has won honors while spurring debate
in Congress for coverage of controversial topics,
such as the “miracle of Life” (1983), which earned
Peabody and Emmy awards. It spun off a news
show, “novA sciencenoW,” in 2005.
april 6, 2011 l Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport
PAgE 5>
S3

Children’s television Workshop
3-2-1 ContACt
(1980)
this science and technology
show developed by the
Children’s television
Workshop ran seven seasons
in a magazine format. Its
features included interviews
with scientists and popular
skits with a group of child
detectives called the
bloodhound gang, who used
scientific knowledge and
procedures to solve mysteries.
bILL nyE thE SCIEnCE guy
(1993)
KIng-tv, Seattle’s nbC affiliate, first aired the
show by the Cornell university engineer while he
was moonlighting as a stand-up comic, according
to his biography site. the show won 18 Emmys
in its five years on air and has spun off several
science shows, such as the Science Channel’s
“100 greatest discoveries,” “the Eyes of nye”
on PbS, and Planet green’s “Stuff happens.”
liFelONg learNiNg
16 WAKIng houRS
Ages
0-5
CoSmoS:
A PERSonAL
voyAgE (1980)
the internationally renowned
astrophysicist Carl Sagan
presented and co-wrote both
this 13-episode series and an
accompanying book, which
PbS first aired. According to
its website, it remains the most
popular PbS series in the world.
A relatively small percentage of waking hours across the
life span are spent in formal educational environments.
9.25%
18.5% 7.7% 5.1%
Grades 1-12
Kindergarten
SouRCE: Learning in Informal and Formal Environments Center
Undergraduates
S4 Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport l april 6, 2011
A link to these shows
is provided at
edweek.org/links.
mythbuStERS (2003)
thE CRoCodILE huntER
(1997)
this wildlife documentary hosted by the
exuberant Australian naturalist and zoo
owner Steve Irwin proved a breakout hit for
the cable channel Animal Planet in more
than 130 countries before mr. Irwin was
killed in 2006. It spun off several specials
and a children’s program, “bindi, the
Jungle girl,” hosted by mr. Irwin’s schoolage
daughter.
the discovery Channel launched this series, hosted by two
hollywood special-effects designers and their assistants,
who test urban legends, Internet rumors, and historical myths
through experiments. In 2009, President barack obama asked
the team to re-create (and eventually bust) the legend that
the ancient greek Archimedes used a “solar death ray”
of mirrors to ignite invading ships in 212 b.C.
PhotoS by AP ExCEPt WhERE IndICAtEd
Formal Learning Environments
Informal Learning Environments
Postgraduates Workers Retirees

Jim henson Company
SId thE SCIEnCE KId (2008)
The Jim henson Co. and KCEt/Los Angeles developed
the program for PbS KIdS as the first science show
targeted at preschool-age children. In each show,
the title character asks a child’s typical question,
such as “Where did my snowman go?” and discovers
the answer in the course of the program.
ContInuEd FRom PAgE 3
the Queens and Brooklyn botanical
gardens, and the Bronx Zoo, to provide
rich opportunities to improve
middle school students’ understanding
of scientific inquiry.
The value of such collaborations
between schools and informal institutions
was brought into clearer
focus by a 2010 report from the
Center for Advancement of Informal
Science Education, a partnership
of several organizations that
was founded with nsf support.
The report said formal-informal
collaborations can enhance students’
and teachers’ conceptual
understanding of science, improve
student achievement, strengthen
students’ disposition toward the
field, and help teachers integrate
inquiry and new materials into the
classroom.
“Despite scores of such examples,
these collaborations have generally
failed to institutionalize: In many
communities, they come and go
with changes in funding and leadership,”
it said. “The walls between
formal and informal learning professional
fields are only beginning
to crumble. There is too little transfer
of practice, learning, and community.”
‘a MODeST cHaNge’
Even as informal science education
is gaining more prominence,
people who know the field say
insufficient money remains a big
barrier to expanding its role.
In a recent essay, Mr. Falk from
Oregon State University, along
with Lynn D. Dierking, also a professor
of free-choice learning at
that university, noted that far more
funding goes to public schooling in
science than informal learning opportunities.
“Even a modest change in this
ratio could make a huge difference”
to Americans’ science literacy, they
wrote in the December issue of
American Scientist magazine,
though they emphasized that they
were not suggesting lessening support
to schools.
Martin Storksdieck, the director
of the Board on Science Education
at the National Academies,
suggests that advocates still have
a lot of work to do in convincing
policymakers and the public that
informal science learning merits
increased investment.
He points to a telling illustration.
The federal economic-stimulus
legislation enacted in 2009
included on a short list of institutions
barred from receiving funds
not only casinos, golf courses, and
swimming pools, but also zoos and
aquariums. (The Senate-passed
bill sought to add museums, theaters,
and several other
categories to the list,
but that language
was removed.)
“At the end of
the day, we haven’t
made the value
proposition in the
political arena or to
consumers as much as we
should,” Mr. Storksdieck said, “of
just how fundamentally beneficial
these learning spaces are, and how
much we as a society and as individuals
benefit when we take part
in what they have to offer us.” l
SPecial rePOrT 2011
iNFOrMal ScieNce eDUcaTiON
PRESIdEnt &
EdItoR-In-ChIEF
virginia b. Edwards
ExECutIvE EdItoR
gregory Chronister
ExECutIvE PRoJECt
EdItoR
Karen diegmueller
SEnIoR WRItER
Erik. W. Robelen covers
curriculum for Education Week.
dEsIGN dIRECtoR
Laura Baker
dEPUty dEsIGN dIRECtoR
Gina tomko
ContRIbutIng WRItERS
Sarah d. Sparks
covers education research
for Education Week.
Sean Cavanagh
covers state policy and is a former
science and math reporter
for Education Week.
Katie Ash
covers technology
for Education Week
and Digital Directions.
mary-Ellen Phelps deily
covered out-of-school learning
for Education Week and is deputy
editor of its Commentary section.
Caralee Adams
covers higher education
for Education Week.
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S5

esearchers Playing catch-Up
in gauging Beyond-School effects
BY
SaraH D.
SParKS
Emerging research shows the science
school-age children learn in
informal settings—from museums
and clubs to online communities
and television shows—can have a
big impact on their lives. Yet the
open format and distinct structures
of informal science make it next to
impossible for researchers to evaluate
the quality of those experiences
in the same way they can gauge
formal schooling.
School assessments generally
focus on cognitive measures, such
as what a student knows and can
demonstrate about particular content.
In contrast, informal learning
is dominated by noncognitive
measures such as motivation, interest,
and identity, according to
Larry E. Suter, the National Science
Foundation’s program director
for informal science education.
Moreover, traditional “gold standard”
research methods such as
randomized controlled trials can
be detrimental to activities that
base their strength on people’s
choosing to participate, rather
than being assigned.
Such research raises the risk,
Mr. Suter said, that “if you touch
it, you’re going to kill that thing
you’re trying to study.”
That has led to some creative
research alternatives. Alan J.
Friedman, a former director and
chief executive officer of the New
York Hall of Science and the editor
of the n s f’s 2008 framework
for evaluating informal science
education, recalls judging the effectiveness
of an astronomy exhibit
by the number of visitors
who chose an astronomy poster
over a different prize. Barbara N.
Flagg, the director of the Multimedia
Research consultant
group in Bellport, N.Y., said
she has used smudged museum
walls indicating where
visitors have touched exhibits,
changes in Google and Amazon
search terms over time, and phone
interviews with parents and children.
“If you’re comparing this to other
education research, you’ve got to
S6
turn back the clock 30 or 40 years,”
said Kevin J. Crowley, the director
of the University of Pittsburgh’s
Center for Learning in Out-of
-School Environments and an associate
professor of education and
psychology. “We are just now in the
Wild West frontier, and people are
just starting to gear up the longitudinal
studies on how this will coalesce
into a coherent narrative of
how people learn science.”
Now, the tools being born of that
creativity show the potential to
link children’s education across a
lifetime of different experiences,
and in the process uncover more
of how and what children learn
than has ever been measured in a
school test alone. Children, after
all, spend more than 80 percent
of their waking hours outside the
classroom.
“The research has evolved,” Mr.
Crowley said. “In the past, the
great flaw of the informal-learning
science was we looked at it in situ-
“ We’re
just now in
the Wild
West
frontier
... [on]
how people
learn science.”
KeViN J. crOWleY
associate Professor of education and Psychology
University of Pittsburgh
ations; we weren’t really
looking at a lifelong trajectory
in science learning. For
the first time, we’re asking questions
about how learning and participation
are moving across place
and across time.”
“Brenda’s” school performance,
for instance, didn’t really show her
scientific achievements or level of
interest in the subject. Teachers
reported the first-generation Haitian
daughter of a single mother
in Seattle had little interest in
science and consistently “failed to
engage” with the chemical-mixing
tasks in her school lab.
Yet because researchers at the
University of Washington, in Seattle,
had been observing the 4th
grader across formal and informal
settings for more than 2,000 hours,
they knew that school didn’t tell
Brenda’s whole story. Not only did
she regularly measure and mix
chemicals and record the results
for her perfume-making hobby,
but she also had told the researchers
she was considering becoming
a chemist when she grew up.
“School science underrepresents
her developing expertise,” Philip
Bell, an associate professor of
learning sciences at the university
and the director of ethnographic
and design-based research at the
Everyday Science and Technology
Group there, said during a recent
lecture. “Just in terms of how people
learn, our literatures don’t do
justice to the varied pathways that
people take through their experiences
to make progress on things
they care about.”
iNTereST VS. graDeS
That’s a dangerous disconnect,
experts say, because
mounting evidence shows
that early engagement,
even through informal pathways,
eventually can lead to
careers in the stEm fields of science,
technology, engineering, and
mathematics more surely than top
grades in school.
In a 2006 study published in
the journal Science, Robert H. Tai,
an associate professor at the University
of Virginia’s Curry School
of Education, in Charlottesville,
tracked thousands of students via
the National Educational Longitudinal
Study. He found that
students who had only average
grades in middle school but expressed
interest in science were
two to three times more likely to
earn bachelor’s degrees in a science
or engineering field 12 years
later than high-achieving students
who did not voice interest.
The landmark 2009 study that
Mr. Bell co-wrote, “Learning Sci-
Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport l april 6, 2011
What’s measured in the
classroom—what students
know and can do— differs
from what’s currently measured
outside—such as motivation
and interest.
ViTal liNKS
learning Science in informal environments: People, Places,
and Pursuits (2009)
The National Research Council of the National Academies,
Edited by Philip Bell, Bruce Lewenstein, Andrew W. Shouse, and Michael
A. Feder
this landmark study by the National Academies’ Committee on
Learning science in Informal Environments documented evidence
that children and adults do learn science outside of direct school
instruction. Both designed science settings such as zoos or
museums and spontaneous settings such as a walk in the park can
help children understand science. the book laid the foundation for a
more evidence-based approach to informal science education.
Surrounded by Science: learning Science in informal
environments (2010)
National Academies, Marilyn Fenichel and Heidi A. Schweingruber
A follow-up to the National Academies’ Learning science in Informal
Environments, this practitioner-focused guide provides case studies,
framework tools, and other examples of how high-quality informal
science education programs and exhibits can look.
Framework for evaluating impacts of informal Science
education Projects (2008)
National Science Foundation, edited by Alan J. Friedman
Based on an NsF workshop on informal science education, this
framework lays out the criteria for measuring informal science, based
on a participant’s awareness, knowledge, or understanding of a
science topic; engagement or interest in science; attitude toward
science or careers in the field; changes in scientific behavior such
as inquiry; and the improvement of specific skills related to science,
such as experimenting or data analysis.
Measuring the impact of a Science center on its
community (2011)
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, John H. Falk and Mark D.
Needham
By studying Los Angeles residents and museum-goers before and a
decade after a massive overhaul of the city’s California science Center,
researchers showed that the museum had increased the public’s
understanding of and interest in the science covered in the new
exhibits. the researchers used public understanding of homeostasis as
a conceptual marker to track improved scientific understanding.
soURCE: Education Week
Links to these reports are provided at edweek.org/links.

ence in
Informal
Environments,”
for
the National
Research Council,
synthesized a
vast array of research,
including Mr. Tai’s, to conclude
that “abundant evidence”
exists that informal experiences
can effectively support learning.
What’s more, it found that those
free-choice, low-stakes pathways
can engage children from groups
underrepresented in science fields:
students in poverty, those from ethnic
and language minorities, and
women.
Still, while the number of research
proposals submitted to the
n s f about informal education has
doubled in the past five years, from
300 to 600 annually, Mr. Suter said,
the vast majority have been and
continue to be from practitioners
evaluating their individual programs,
clubs, and exhibits, often
using self-made assessments.
BeTTer aligNMeNT
In 2008, the Program in Education,
Afterschool, and Resiliency at
Harvard University and McLean
Hospital in Boston found that of 64
widely used informal science evaluation
tools, none met all five of
the nsf’s five domains of informal
learning: engagement and interest,
attitude toward science and behavior,
content knowledge, competence
and reasoning, and career knowledge
and acquisition.
Program founder Gil G. Noam
and Rick Bonney, the director of
program development and evaluation
at the Cornell University Ornithology
Lab, in Ithaca, N.Y., and
the creator of several nationwide
citizen-science projects, are working
to change that. Mr. Noam has
established the Assessment Tools
in Informal Science database of
existing tests. He said that he and
Mr. Bonney are about a year away
from using the tests to develop a
single, unified assessment of informal
science learning.
“Our big goal in all this is to
bring into this field some proof
that the informal science work
makes a difference,” Mr. Noam
said.
Likewise, Mr. Crowley’s organization,
ca i s E, has gathered five
years’ worth of evaluation reports
from n s f informal science projects—many
never published—and
has started to cull best practices
and other lessons learned from
across the many types of informal
learning.
“Only recently has the learning
theory caught up with those
hunches, and now we’re at a place
where we really can test design
hypotheses based on what we
know about the science of learning,”
he said.
Ultimately, John H. Falk and
Lynn D. Dierking, both professors
in free-choice learning at Oregon
State University, in Corvallis,
hope the field will move toward
more “synergy” studies, like Mr.
Bell’s longitudinal work, that can
Did You Know?
80% of new jobs in the next
decade will require some
form of math or science.
National Science Foundation, 2004
explore how people learn science
across the formal and informal
experiences of their lives.
The Oregon State researchers
now are monitoring how children
in Portland, Ore., come to learn
scientific concepts across the
city’s many formal and informal
science offerings during a fouryear
period. Portland provides
a perfect microcosm for science
Teachers are trained on:
• The importance of STEM education to all students
• What the research says about when students
disengage and why
• Research-based classroom strategies and resources to
bring science to life, make it more meaningful, and
enable students to envision themselves doing science
• How to incorporate these strategies into existing
curriculum, including science, math, and language arts
learning, Mr. Falk said, because
it has one science center, zoo, and
public-broadcasting station and
a few school districts that will
allow the researchers to track individual
students over time.
“In order to see real systemic
improvement, you have to have a
whole greater than the sum of its
parts, and now the whole is less
than the sum of its parts because
there’s no alignment among these
pieces,” Mr. Falk said. “We need to
develop ways to better integrate
practitioners across formal and informal
education. We don’t understand
how people navigate, make
sense of, and make use of the resources
in their community.” l
Links to the studies in this article
are provided at edweek.org/links.
TM
Sally Ride Science
Bringing science to life
Professional Development
Classroom Materials
Classroom Programs
Sally Ride Science Professional Development—designed
to help teachers fuel students’ interest in science and
make the study of science more meaningful.
This research-based training has been shown to be e�ective in changing both teacher
practices and student attitudes—providing elementary and middle school teachers the
motivation, background, strategies and resources to ignite students’ interests in science.
For more information, please call 800.561.5161 or visit www.sallyridescience.com
LEARn moRE About thIS AdvERtISER
“At Sally Ride Science, we believe that
every student deserves the encouragement
and the tools to explore his or her interests
in science. We see the excitement in the
eyes of young students when they
understand a concept or discover
something for themselves.”
- Dr. Sally Ride
april 6, 2011 l Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport S7

Science-rich institutions Provide Venues
For children to enjoy exploration
BY
eriK W.
rOBeleN
Albuquerque, N.M.
On a recent evening,
hundreds
of children and
their families
climbed off
school buses
and filed into a
science center
in this city’s historic
Old Town
neighborhood. The event that drew
them, dubbed Family Science Night,
was no invitation to hear a lecture
on climate change or quantum
physics, or to catch a documentary
on a gigantic i m a x screen.
Instead, families from two highpoverty
public schools dived into an
array of hands-on, interactive exhibits
separated into small alcoves
in a place aptly named Explora,
Spanish for “explore.”
And explore they did. Children got
their hands wet—literally—as they
manipulated objects in water-based
displays in the Water of Life, Life of
Water exhibit area. They tapped on
a keyboard in the Shapes of Sound
section that produced not tones but
deep vibrations felt through the
bench on which they sat. Over in
the Moving Air section, they sliced
up paper cups to see how different
sizes and shapes would float
or twirl when placed atop a barrel
with a fan inside blowing air toward
the ceiling.
“Hey, Daddy, come and look at
this!” a young boy blurted out as
his paper creation in the Cup Copter
exhibit danced in the air.
Amid concern that the United
States is failing to adequately prepare
young people with the knowledge
of science and related fields
they need to thrive as individuals
and keep the nation globally
competitive, recognition is
growing that the vast American
landscape of science-rich
institutions can play a powerful
role in addressing the situation.
Science centers and museums,
botanical gardens, zoos, aquariums,
and natural-history museums,
among others, help the public gain
a better understanding of science.
They also excel at inspiring curiosity
and a passion for science-related
topics in ways that experts say are
all too rare in the classroom.
Such organizations have a big
audience. In 2008, a majority of
Americans said they had visited an
informal science institution such as
a zoo or natural-history museum
over the past year, according to a
report from the National Science
Board. About one in four had visited
a science center like Explora.
Science centers and museums,
in particular, have mushroomed in
recent decades, both in the United
States and abroad, notes Alan J.
Friedman, a former director and
chief executive officer of the New
York Hall of Science in New York
City. Still uncommon in the 1960s,
they can be found today in virtually
every major metropolitan area of the
country—and plenty of smaller communities,
too—from Liberty Science
Center in Jersey City, N.J., to the
Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum in
Michigan, to one of the pioneers, the
Exploratorium in San Francisco.
The most explosive growth occurred
during the 1970s and 1980s,
according to Mr. Friedman, who said
there are now more than 350 science
centers, museums, and related institutions
across the nation.
“That’s just astonishing to
build cultural institutions
at that rate,” he said.
Experts say most science
centers and museums, like
schools, have a core mission of
educating the public, but plenty of
big differences exist. Perhaps most
obvious, they are “free choice” environments:
People can take them
or leave them. And visitors decide
where to linger and what to ignore.
Also, most visitors come only on
rare occasions.
The forte of these institutions is
highly engaging, and usually handson,
activities and exhibits that try
to bring theoretical concepts to life
with power and immediacy.
‘iNSPiraTiONal
DiScOVerY’
Explora, with a stated mission of
“creating opportunities for inspirational
discovery and the joy of life-
long learning through interactive
experiences in science, technology,
and art,” was born in 1995 as a result
of the merger of a small science
center and a children’s museum. Financial
support comes from several
sources, including earned income,
public dollars from the city and
the state, and corporation and
foundation grants.
With about 20,000 square feet
of exhibit space, Explora is on
the small end among science
centers and museums, dwarfed
by venues such as the California
Science Center in Los Angeles
and the Museum of Science and
Industry in Chicago, which, according
to its website, is home to
some “35,000 artifacts and nearly
14 acres of hands-on exhibits.”
Indeed, while some of these institutions
have significant collections,
and even house full-fledged
natural-history museums, Explora
does not.
Its exhibits are essentially learning
activities, said Paul Tatter, the
associate director.
“The place is organized into clusters
of very small exhibits,” he said.
“Most of the exhibits are things that
you can hug. You can get your arms
around them. They fit on tabletops.”
Visitors are invited to investigate
with their hands, rather than spend
a lot of time reading explanatory
text. One kindergarten teacher
visiting recently with her class
gushed that her students “get
to touch everything.”
At the Cup Copter display,
visitors experiment with how
changing variables about the
paper cups, such as modifying the
wing length and angle or changing
the weight, alter how they
float or spin.
“Part of it is the process of investigation,”
said Betsy Adamson, Explora’s
exhibits director. “Visitors get
experience with scientific concepts
even if they don’t get the names.”
Mr. Tatter, previously the center’s
executive director, said Explora is
not designed to teach specific content:
“We don’t determine ahead of
time what the experience is supposed
to be.”
Staff members say that great
care is taken in providing materials
that will foster meaningful
exploration and learning. In addition,
the members of the floor staff
are seen as integral to facilitating
the experience.
S8 Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport l april 6, 2011
MUSeUM
MeNU
Explora offers a host of
programs and initiatives
to promote science learning
and engagement.
“The
staff is
part of the
exhibit in a sense,”
said Kristin W. Leigh, the
director of educational services.
The Albuquerque center has
drawn national notice for its work.
Explora is on the “innovative
edge” among science centers and
museums, said Mr. Friedman, who
now consults with such facilities
around the country. “One [example]
is the physical arrangement on the
floor to encourage families to stay
longer and get deeper into each activity,”
he said. “Another is the use
of on-floor staff who pose questions
more than answer them.”
Like many science centers, Explora
has developed a big menu of
educational offerings and activities
that go beyond the exhibit floor. For
example, it runs after-school clubs
and summer camps and provides
professional development for teachers.
It’s established an extensive
youth-intern program that provides
support and training for high school
students who help with various educational
programs—and, in some
cases, run them—and interact with
visitors on the exhibit floor.
Explora also offers a selection
of some 200 hourlong, hands-on
classes, called “explorations,” both
on site and in public schools, community
centers, and senior-living
facilities, that are run by the center’s
staff of full-time educators.
The explorations are benchmarked
to New Mexico’s state standards in
science, math, or art.
Experts say most science centers
try to ensure a diverse audience—
including minority and low-income
families who ordinarily may be less
growing a Scientist
A biweekly program in which
children ages 2-4, accompanied
by an adult, explore basic science
principles together through
playful experiences.
Science to grow On
Children from K-3 learn about
science through questioning,
experiencing, and investigating
in this biweekly program.
Helping Hand
Free annual museum memberships
for low-income families.
Teacher Professional
Development
offers half-day workshops for educators
on topics such as designing
learning environments, asking questions
that support cognitive growth,
and facilitating a science fair.
classroom explorations
offers more than 200 hourlong,
experiential programs, called “explorations,”
for preschoolers through
12th graders facilitated by Explora
educators and benchmarked to
state standards. Examples include
how does your Garden Grow?,
Light and shadow, and triangles
and tribulations. Also offers some
explorations for older adults.
Youth intern Program
At-risk high school students
participate in a three-year internship
in which they are trained
to help with various educational
programs —and in some cases
run them—as well as interact
with visitors on the center’s
exhibit floor.
after-School clubs
Runs clubs both onsite and in
the community, including Robo
task Force, focused on robotics;
Art/tech, which explores
science-art connections,
especially using digital technology;
and Niñas Explorando la
Ciencia (spanish for “girls doing
science”).
Portal to the Public
Local scientists, working closely
with Explora staff members, give
a presentation on the exhibit
floor with materials-based activities
to convey their research to
the public.
Spring Break
and Summer camps
offers half-day or full-day camps
focused on activities that explore
science, technology, and art.
soURCE: Explora

Kitty Clark Fritz for Education Week
alessandra chavez, a 2nd grader
at Tomasita elementary School
in albuquerque, reaches toward
a paper creation floating above a
barrel blowing air at the explora
science center’s Cup Copter
exhibit. The occasion was Family
Science Night.
apt to make use of them—whether
with regular free days, limited free
memberships, or other strategies.
The California Science Center, in
Los Angeles, is free to all comers.
Leaders at Explora take the matter
of access seriously. One strategy
is Family Science Night, which
the center offers about 20 times
a year. It’s a partnership with the
90,000-student Albuquerque public
schools funded through the district’s
federal Title I aid for disadvantaged
students.
“We had these free family
memberships, and we saw
that not a lot of people
were using them,” said
Patrick Lopez, Explora’s
executive director and a
former school administrator.
“OK, they don’t really understand
what a science center
is, so that’s how we got Albuquerque
public schools involved.”
In addition, many Explora floorstaff
members speak Spanish, Mr.
Lopez noted, and some speak Na-
tive American languages.
“We make it a priority to hire
people that reflect the community,”
he said.
Sara Keeney, the principal of Los
Padillas Elementary School, one of
the two local public schools invited
to Family Science Night in late February,
said it’s a big hit.
“This is definitely our biggest family
event of the year,” she said. “All
the families know about it; they all
want to come.”
In December, Explora won a national
award from the Institute of
Museum and Library Services for
what the federal agency described
as its creative approach to lifelong
learning and its success in reaching
out to the community in effective
and inventive ways.
Science museum officials around
the country say connecting with
the community and serving as a
resource in multiple ways are high
priorities.
“You would be hard-pressed
to find museums that only work
“ Visitors get experience
with scientific concepts even
if they don’t get the names.”
BeTSY aDaMSON
exhibits Director, explora
under their roof,” said Kirsten Ellenbogen,
the senior director of
lifelong learning at the Science
Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul.
“Museums are finding more and
more ways to make sure they’re
fully integrated into their communities
and being a resource.”
“Common to all of us is: How do
we connect to the communities
we serve and add relevance and
value?” said Nancy J. Stueber, the
president and chief executive officer
of the Oregon Museum of Science
and Industry, in Portland. “We want
to go from being ‘nice’ to being really
necessary and seen as integral
to advancing stEm learning.”
‘a PereNNial cHalleNge’
To be sure, Explora looks a lot
different from many science centers
and museums, especially
the bigger ones. For example, it
doesn’t have an i m a x theater, nor
does it feature the traveling exhibits
popular at many such centers.
One current touring exhibit
that’s drawn plaudits is Race: Are
We So Different?, put together by
the American Anthropological
Association in collaboration with
the Science Museum of Minnesota.
The exhibit, which got support
from the National Science
Foundation, explores the science,
history, and everyday experiences
of race in America through
interactive exhibits, historical
artifacts, photographs, and multimedia
presentations. Another
recent exhibit, Charlie and Kiwi’s
Evolutionary Adventure, which
debuted in 2009 at the New York
Hall of Science, uses a childfriendly
story line to help young
people discover the link between
dinosaurs and modern birds.
Experts say an issue among science
museums is tension between
the educational mission and the
pressure to bring in revenue.
“This is a perennial challenge for
science museums, because most are
funded to a large degree by earned
income,” said David A. Ucko, a former
senior official at the nsf.
On average, only 17 percent of the
operating revenue for U.S. science
centers and museums comes from
public funds, compared with about
50 percent from earned income, according
to recent survey data from
the Association of Science-Technology
Centers, based in Washington.
And the recent recession has created
still more budgetary pressure,
with at least some museums getting
fewer public dollars and seeing a
decline in visitors, such as students
on field trips.
Few would argue that there’s
anything wrong with science centers’
featuring fun activities that
draw visitors and sell tickets.
But Ms. Ellenbogen from the Science
Museum of Minnesota said
she’s among those who worry that
some blockbuster exhibits, particularly
those sponsored by private
companies, may be high on gloss
and entertainment but thin on
educational value.
She points, for example, to Harry
Potter: The Exhibition, which has
been featured at several major science
museums. “It’s not designed to
be a science learning experience,”
she said.
Mr. Ucko suggests there’s a
larger public-policy matter at issue:
“Should informal science institutions
be getting more dollars from
the large amount of money that the
nation spends on education?”
One emerging area of work in the
science museum world that could
help make the case for expanded
public financing is research, driven
in part by the n s f, to gauge more
carefully and in more sophisticated
ways the impact of museum exhibits
and activities. Some institutions,
such as the Oregon and Minnesota
science museums as well as the
Exploratorium, even employ substantial
in-house research teams
to continuously evaluate their offerings
and conduct broader studies
to advance the field of informal
science learning.
An ongoing challenge is figuring
out ways to better connect museums
and other informal learning
institutions to the formal school
world. Plenty of examples of such
partnerships exist. But a recent report
suggests such endeavors have
generally failed to “institutionalize,”
and experts caution that forming
such ties can be tricky.
“The schools have standards
and curricula and assessments,
and none of them are designed to
work with what happens outside
of school,” said Mr. Friedman, who
also serves on the governing board
for the National Assessment of
Educational Progress. “They don’t
measure a lot of things that really
matter to us, like are students interested
in science, do they improve
their interest over time?
“We offer an alternative channel,”
he added. “I cherish all the
ways we are different, and I don’t
want to lose those.” l
april 6, 2011 l Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport S9

hilda m. Perez for Education Week
Science competitions integrated
Into Classroom Curriculum
BY
SeaN
caVaNagH
Competition has
brought out the
best in students
at Lyman High
School: Styrofoam
gliders,
designs for airplane
wings, and
miniature rockets
built to soar
hundreds of feet in the air.
For teacher Bill Yucuis, it’s about
fun, creativity—and day-to-day
classroom instruction.
Each year, students at the Longwood,
Fla., school, outside Orlando,
take part in science and engineering
competitions, which have given
rise to a wealth of air-and-space
creations. They join thousands of
their peers across the country who
sign up for contests designed to inspire
students and allow them to
apply science skills in inventive
and fun ways.
In many schools and districts,
students prepare their scientific
projects for competitions before or
after school, or on weekends, often
as extracurricular activities, sometimes
as part of clubs.
But some teachers, such as Mr.
Yucuis, have carried those activities
a step further. The aerospace
and engineering teacher is one
of many educators who choose to
fully integrate science competitions
within their classes, curricula, and
individual lessons, rather than
treat them as one-shot events that
are won or lost and then forgotten.
The teacher, who gives students
a list of competitions to choose
from, began weaving contests into
his classes because he saw their
potential to inspire teenagers and
cultivate their scientific skills.
“The job of the teacher is to get
students interested in something,
where they can go out and do the
research and find the answers,” explained
Mr. Yucuis. Using competitions,
he said, “meets the requirements
of what I consider better
teaching.”
Many other educators, as well as
organizers of competitions, agree,
and they hope that more school
administrators and teachers will
find ways to follow suit. Weaving
competitions into classroom activities,
they say, provides greater opportunities
for students, including
those of different ability levels, to
delve into science and see how it
is applied.
“The change, the transformation
that happens in these students is
amazing,” said George Blanks, the
executive director of the bEst—
for Boosting Engineering, Science
and Technology—robotics competition,
a nationwide contest serving
middle and high school students.
“They’ve learned how to problemsolve,”
he said. “They’re discovering
competencies that they had no idea
they had until the competition.”
NO eaSY TaSK
Many science educators and advocates
say schools are devoting
less time to science, as opposed
to reading and math, in the era of
the No Child Left Behind Act. As a
result, they say, blending competitions
into the classroom, or doing
anything beyond the required curriculum,
can be difficult.
Even so, in some schools, competitions
have helped shape lessons
and curricula, and even entire
programs. For instance, Mr.
Blanks, who is also the director of
K-12 outreach at the Samuel Ginn
College of Engineering at Auburn
University, in Alabama, says a
number of schools in that state
were at least partly influenced to
establish academies or programs
focused on stEm subjects—science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics—after
seeing the effects of
bEst participation.
S10 Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classrooml www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport l april 6, 2011
Students’ positive experiences
in the competition played a strong
role in administrators’ and teachers’
decision to launch the Engineering
Pathways Integrated Curriculum,
an academy at Davidson
High School in Mobile, Ala.
Seven years ago, teacher Mike
Fletcher and school officials arranged
to have a group of students
take part in the competition, which
that year challenged teams to design
and build a miniature robot
with a fixed base and a movable
arm capable of picking up a series
of balls. Mr. Fletcher ended up creating
a new, semesterlong elective
class structured around the competition.
That class had about a dozen
students. Over the course of the
semester, they spent time in class,
as well as after school and on
weekends, building the project.
Mr. Fletcher graded
students on a
combination
of their completion
of
individual
assignments
Bill Yucuis encourages his
students at lyman High School
in longwood, Fla., to
participate in science
competitions. Seniors, from
left, Brandon Kaiser, Spencer
Brint, and robert Kagel work
on a miniature rocket for an
upcoming contest.
BelOW: Team member Brian
Pavelchak, 17, checks the inside
integrity of one section of the
rocket.
Taking part in
contests both inside
and outside school
enables young
people to delve
deeper into the
subject and witness
its application.

and projects related to building the
robot.
Despite a few initial hiccups, Mr.
Fletcher and school officials were
sufficiently impressed with the impact
of competition on students to
structure more classes around it.
Since then, he and other teachers at
Davidson High have made the bEst
competition a major part of several
elective stEm-related classes.
Big PaYOFF
In one of the engineering-focused
electives, Mr. Fletcher devotes several
weeks to computer-aided design
and various types of programming,
topics that help students with
their bEst projects. He and fellow
teachers also weave in many stEm
concepts, from lessons on mechanics
and electricity to digital sound
and imaging, that have nothing to
do with the competition.
The challenge of competition gives
students in his class the sense that
they’re taking part in an enjoyable
yet high-stakes event, and it emphasizes
the importance of understanding
each day’s lessons and how to
apply them, Mr. Fletcher observed.
“They don’t realize at first how
great the payoff is in what they’re
learning,” he said. “There’s more at
stake than just a grade.”
The integration of competitions
into science classes is evident
among participants in the Toshiba/
National Science Teachers Association
ExploraVision competition,
now in its 19th year, says Arthur
Eisenkraft, a founder of the contest
who now chairs the judging panel.
A recent survey of more than 700
teachers who took part showed that
of about 290 respondents, more
than three-fourths said they had
helped teams work on their projects
both inside and outside classroom
settings, or only inside them.
Mr. Eisenkraft believes many of
the teachers who had integrated
competitions into their classroom
work were elementary or middle
school teachers, rather than high
school teachers, who generally face
more specific curricular demands.
Blending science competitions
into the classroom has become
easier with the growth of classes
focused on intensive scientific research
and project-based learning,
said Mr. Eisenkraft, a professor of
science education at the University
of Massachusetts Boston. In many
cases, teachers may allow or urge
students to take part in competitions
as independent projects.
When he speaks to former participants
in the ExploraVision contest,
Mr. Eisenkraft is often surprised at
how many details about those projects
they can remember years later.
That recall, he said, is probably a
sign of competitions’ power to moti-
“ They’re discovering
competencies they had no idea they
had until the competition.”
geOrge BlaNKS
executive Director, BEST
vate and shape learning.
“There’s a pride, a motivation, a
commitment” among participants,
he said, “and a level of retention.”
At Lyman High School, Mr.
Yucuis’ students are motivated, and
busy. One recent day, as the teacher
answered a reporter’s questions,
students in one of his senior-year
classes worked in small groups on
individual competition entries. The
teacher excused himself periodically
to help them. One group asked permission
to head off to the carpentry
shop to sand down a piece of wood
they needed to design a miniature
rocket.
Mr. Yucuis allows his students to
choose from a number of competitions.
They are taking part this year
in the Internet Science and Technology
Fair, the Team America Rocketry
Challenge, and the Real World
Design Challenge, among others.
His freshmen also take part in the
No Boundaries National Competition,
directed by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration
In the right hands,
a little knowledge can
go a very long way.
and USA Today Education, a developer
of school programs owned by
the national newspaper. The competition
asks student teams to devise
strategies for marketing stEm
careers, such as those at the federal
space agency, to teenagers.
SUcceSS BY FailUre
As the students work through
various competitions, Mr. Yucuis
gives them individual and team
grades, and evaluates them on
written and oral reports documenting
their work. He does not
grade them on how well they fare
in the competitions. To do so, he
says, would miss the point.
“I tell them, you probably learn
more by failing than by succeeding,”
the teacher said.
Senior Robert Kagel is working
with a group of fellow students
on a project for the Team America
Rocketry Challenge. They’re
charged with building a
rocket capable of flying to
a height of 750 feet and staying
airborne for 40 to 45 seconds—
while carrying a single raw egg. It’s
supposed to return to the ground
with the help of a parachute and
the egg intact.
The team started the project at
the beginning of the school year;
it’s supposed to be completed by
the end of April. The students have
had to clear numerous hurdles. Designing
the rocket on a computer
was one thing, he said, but crafting
its various components, from
the nose cone to the motor, has required
continuous readjustments.
Mr. Kagel, who plans to study
computer engineering and software
at the University of Florida next
year, said students are motivated
by factors that are stronger than
the desire to get good grades. They
want a rocket that can hold up to
scrutiny in the competition. Members
of his group don’t want to let
each other down.
“I like winning,” he said. “It
does make everybody want to
do a lot more. It makes you realize
you’re not going to be able
to skate by on the work of others.
You have to do it.” l
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We know high-quality after-school and summer
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25_12_3_EdWeek_HoursOppor_9.86x6.5_Mar_2011_04.indd 1 3/14/11 4:18 PM
LEARn moRE About thIS AdvERtISER
april 6, 2011 l Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport
S11

With all the time
today’s youths
already spend on
computers and
mobile devices,
technology can
serve as a familiar
vehicle for
learning.
Players of WolfQuest take
the role of the animal and
are presented with options
when they encounter
certain situations, such
as the presence of other
wolves.
Whyville residents may
have to battle against the
infectious ‘WhyPox’ or they
can visit a bioplex to
conduct research.
S12
games and Simulations Draw children
into New Vistas for accessing Science
BY
KaTie
ASh
Wa nt to
know what
it’s like to
stalk elk,
or a mate,
from the
vantage
point of a
wild animal?
Educators at the Minnesota Zoo,
located in a suburb south of the
Twin Cities, created just such an
online game a few years ago that
has proved immensely popular—
and educational. Called WolfQuest,
it allows players to learn about wolf
ecology by exploring Yellowstone
National Park as that creature.
“We’ve always been interested
in reaching out beyond our walls,
educating people no matter where
they are, and for us, we felt like the
Internet was a great tool to provide
access to educational resources and
connect with kids where they’re at,”
said Grant Spickelmier, the zoo’s assistant
director of education.
High-tech games and simulations
are second nature to today’s students.
For educators and researchers,
those virtual worlds offer the
freedom to create innovative digital
tools that tap into children’s motivation
outside the classroom and generate
excitement about science.
As prominent an authority as
the National Research Council has
extolled the potential of computer
games and simulations to better
engage young people in science
learning and promote a deeper understanding
of and facility with the
subject.
“They enable learners to see and
interact with representations of
natural phenomena that would otherwise
be impossible to observe—a
process that helps them to formulate
scientifically correct explanations
for these phenomena,” the nrc
said in a recent report. “Simulations
and games can motivate learners
with challenges and rapid feedback
and tailor instruction to individual
learners’ needs and interests.”
The Minnesota Zoo’s evaluation of
its own game found “that kids were
learning the science, were more interested
in wolves, and were more
interested in science as a result of
playing the game,” Mr. Spickelmier
said.
In WolfQuest, players learn about
wolves by embarking on missions
that a wolf would typically under-
Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classrooml www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport l april 6, 2011
take, such as feeding and taking
care of pups.
Players take the role of the animal
and are presented with response options
when they encounter certain
situations, such as the presence of
other wolves.
For example, when interacting
with a potential mate, players can
choose to leave the interaction, take
a defensive stance, play, or show
interest in the wolf. They are rewarded
for choosing authentic wolf
behavior.
WolfQuest is a multiplayer game
with a chat function that allows
participants to talk to one another.
Launched in 2007, it continues to
receive thousands of hits daily.
Although the game was created
primarily for children to access
on their home computers, the zoo
has increasingly been contacted by
teachers interested in incorporating
it into their classrooms, Mr. Spickelmier
said. The zoo has since crafted
curricular materials to help connect
the game with what students are
learning in class, he said.
‘PlaYFUl
eXPeriMeNTaTiON’
At the New York Hall of Science,
a hands-on science and technology
center in New York City, digital tools
are helping draw the connections between
a day at a museum and children’s
lives at home and at school.
“One of the things you struggle
with in an informal science-center
environment is that kids come, they
have a blast, but they don’t necessarily
leave with anything,” said
Margaret Honey, the president and
chief executive officer of the facility.
“The potential of digital tools to
capture and then allow for playful
experimentation post-fact is really
cool.”
For instance, children can enter
their height and weight into a computer
and wear radio-frequency
identification bracelets as they go
down giant slides in the science
playground. The bracelets record
data about the speed, velocity, and
friction of their journey.
They can then add other factors
into the mix—like going down the
slide on different materials, such as
vinyl or felt, and holding weights—to
manipulate the data and look at the
relationship between the changes
the children make and the read-outs
they receive.
“What underlies the whole initiative
[of the center] is really paying
attention to the dynamics of what
motivates students’ engagement,”
Ms. Honey said. “Keeping that playful
and entertaining and slightly
humorous is really important to
creating the right kind of positive
emotional residue toward science
learning. Particularly in this day of
high-stakes accountability, it’s the
joy and passion and deep motivation
for learning that we’ve lost.”
iNSiDe a VirTUal WOrlD
Whyville, a virtual-learning environment
for children started in 1999,
was created by James Bower, the
chief executive officer and founder
of Whyville.net.
“Our original intent was to build
games and network-based worlds
for use in schools and out of schools
and connecting the two,” he said.
“And we are just now crossing that
threshold, which is being accelerated
by the fact that states are deciding
to go with digital curriculum.”
Unlike games, Whyville is an
unstructured online environment
where players participate in activities
to earn “clams”—the form of
currency in Whyville.
Through partnerships with companies
and organizations, such as
Dell, Toyota, and nasa, players can
explore a host of activities.
For example, the infectious “Why-
Pox” was introduced into Whyville,
prompting a series of responses
from its residents, who covered the
outbreak in the Whyville Times, the
player-organized newspaper
“They didn’t know it was coming,”
said Mr. Bower, the chief executive
officer of Numedeon Inc., which runs
Whyville. “They just started breaking
out.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention later came in
and “vaccinated” players against
the disease.
The Texas Workforce Commission
has also partnered with the virtual
world to finance a bioplex “where
kids actually do research on how you
develop antibodies, different types
of viruses, and how they work,” Mr.
Bower said.
The power of Whyville comes from
the children’s interest in exploring
and asking questions, he said.
“We finally have the technology to
‘scale’ Socrates,” he said. “We haven’t
had the technology to do it right
until now.” l

independent Play
Fosters Discovery
in Young children
BY
MarY-elleN
PHelPS DeilY
Over and over,
experts say, it
comes back to
this: Young children
are natural
scientists.
They ask
questions, they
explore, they
touch things and
push things, and they try to figure
out what combinations have the
best chance of working for them—
even if the subject of their inquiries
is just a toy.
So, how does one nurture these
little scientists?
In some ways, it’s easy.
“When children are doing things
like playing and exploring, they’re
actually doing” science, said Alison
Gopnik, a researcher at the University
of California, Berkeley, who
has written books on young minds,
including The Philosophical Baby.
What preschoolers need, she
continued, is independent play, not
lectures on science.
“You pay attention to what
they’re interested in, you follow
their lead,” Ms. Gopnik said. “Start
out from the questions the children
are asking you.”
One key is to avoid squelching
youthful curiosity unconsciously.
Ms. Gopnik pointed to work by
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
researcher Laura Schulz
and colleagues. In one experiment,
they offered young children a box
with many buttons on it. With
some children, the adults acted
as if they didn’t know what the
buttons did; they pushed one that
made the box squeak, but didn’t let
on that they knew how the squeak
came about. However, the adults
showed other children not only
how one button on the box worked,
but also pointed out that pushing
the button in question resulted in
a noise.
When the adults handed the toy
to the first group, youngsters took
it and pushed all different buttons
in an attempt to figure out what
would make noise. By contrast,
when the children in the second
group got the toy, they pushed only
the button that the researchers
had shown them. Their curiosity,
it seemed, was not as freewheeling
as was the children’s who weren’t
told which button did what.
Such stimulating and openended
play is what young children
need, Ms. Gopnik said.
When it comes to science, much
of what very young children learn
comes through informal means.
They may get inspiration from
library programs and museum
visits, but also from parents’ and
babysitters’ encouragement to
observe and ask questions about
what they notice when they’re out
for a walk, in their homes, anywhere.
liBrarY ViSiTS
In Hartford, Conn., the city’s
librarians know that, and they
work hard to reach children
through a mix of semiformal, materials-based
programming and
informal guidance. The libraries
there are the recipients of a grant
from the Hartford Foundation for
Public Giving that, along with
state and city council funds, supports
special programming for
preschoolers in science and math.
Working with parents, children,
teachers, and child-care providers,
librarians in the city now provide
theme-oriented story times and
guided activities for children in
the grant program, as well
as training for parents
and providers on how
to encourage children’s
curiosity from a young
age.
The Picture Book Math
and Picture Book Science
grant program is running in 10
sites across the city, reaching at
least 200 parents, 30 home-daycare
providers, and 25 day-care or
preschool classrooms, said Debra
Carrier-Perry, the Hartford li-
brary system’s associate librarian
for youth services. Some services
are provided in other languages
to reach immigrant families, of
which Hartford has a high number.
“We think that we’re making a
difference for these kids,” Ms. Carrier-Perry
said. “They enjoy it as a
story time. They like the rhymes.
They do the activities.”
Recently, librarian Rubina
Hamid led a group of children
through a picture book they loved
as part of the grant program. The
book, Guess What Is Growing
Inside This Egg, by Mia Posada,
was light on text, but included
the kinds of questions that got
the children talking about concepts
such as the different sizes of
the eggs, the animals that laid the
eggs, the habitats where the eggs
were shown, and who ultimately
would care for the different eggs
in the book.
“ When
children are doing
things like playing
and exploring,
they’re actually
doing [science].”
aliSON gOPNiK
researcher, University of california, Berkeley
“The kids were gobbling it up,”
said Ms. Hamid, who is the assistant
youth-services librarian
in the Hartford Library’s Barbour
branch.
When she’s working with young
children, she said, she wants to
help them cultivate their questioning
minds. Comparing things
and noticing differences—What
color is this? Will it sink? Will it
float? Is it hard, or is it soft?—
encourages curiosity, she said.
Hands-on, tactile learning is
also critical.
“Observation is the key
for anything. ... Out and
about, in the house, even
in the kitchen,” Ms. Hamid
said.
The Connecticut Science Center,
also in Hartford, is working with
the library on the grant project.
The center includes a KidSpace
gallery built specifically for children
age 6 and younger. Thanks
to the grant, the center can work
with many parents and young
children who might not otherwise
visit; it even provides free transportation
and translation services
for a parent-child day at the
museum. That is crucial in a city
where, in 2009, 39 percent of the
children were living in poverty,
according to Census data.
For all ages, the center’s goal “is
to enable all of our visitors to have
conversations about our exhibits,”
said Holly Harrick, the center’s
education director. With parents
of young children, “we want them
to help the children observe ... and
help them formulate questions.”
She added: “Young children are
naturally curious, so we really
build on that.”
That means hands-on experimenting
and touching and raising
open-ended questions. Preschoolers
“need play, they need
to interact with materials,” Ms.
Harrick said. In the science center’s
KidSpace, that might mean
tossing a ball into a funnel and
then watching the path it takes as
the funnel—which functions like
a cyclone—sends the ball through
clear plastic tubes.
Water play, Ms. Harrick added,
“is wonderful” and a natural with
small children, and questions such
as “What did you notice? What do
you wonder?” are great queries to
pose to a budding scientist.
TraNSiTiON TO ScHOOl
The increased national interest
in science learning and achievement
means that some places are
putting more emphasis on formal
science learning for young children.
On that note, Ingrid Chalufour
and Karen Worth of the
Education Development Center,
a research group based in Newton,
Mass., developed the “Young
Scientist” series for preschool
classrooms with support from the
National Science Foundation. The
guides focus on teaching children
about the natural world and developing
their knowledge of life science
and physical science through
observing nature, building structures,
and water play.
Today, an E d c team is studying
ways to encourage teachers to take
a more inquiry-based approach,
said Nancy Clark-Chiarelli, a principal
investigator with the Edc.
Teachers with knowledge about
the subject matter can ask openended
questions and foster curiosity,
which helps children find
deeper meaning in their classroom
science experiences, she said.
In addition, the E d c team devised
Foundations of Science Literacy,
a professional-development
program that builds on the Young
Scientist series.
One goal is to help preschool
teachers respond to children’s inquiries
with comments designed to
fuel further discussion, not simply
to provide the right answer and
move on. Teachers should work to
engage their students with let’sthink-about-it
and what-if-wedo-it-this-way
queries, Ms. Clark-
Chiarelli suggested.
Preschool science cannot be just
about words and theory, another
researcher on the team cautioned.
“Science is more than just this
body of knowledge. Science is
about engaging in process. ... The
kids have to be engaged in that active
process,” said Cindy Hoisington
of the learning and teaching
division at the Edc.
Librarian Hamid knows that
well and tries to impart the message
with the parents and young
children she meets through the
Picture Book Science program.
“Nothing is ordinary when you
have a thinking, questioning, scientific
mind. Even the ordinary is
extraordinary,” she said. So “be observant
and catch a moment [with
a child]. Make it worth the interest
and attention of the kid.” l
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april 6, 2011 l Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport S13

National Science Foundation Seen
as leader in advancing informal learning
BY
eriK W.
rOBeleN
At the Golden
Gate Bridge, a
set of exhibits is
being built to educate
millions of
annual visitors
on the science
and engineering
behind the
San Francisco
landmark. In Washington state,
local Girl Scout troop leaders are
getting trained to teach children
about scientific inquiry. And a
giant-screen film titled “Tornado
Alley” that debuted in March—
and is being accompanied by a
comprehensive outreach program—aims
to help audiences
explore the science behind severe
weather events.
Those disparate enterprises to
advance public understanding
of science—along with hundreds
of others over the years—have
been fueled by the federal Informal
Science Education program
at the National Science Foundation.
Federal agencies have long
supplied money and overseen
initiatives that support learning
outside the classroom. They
include the U.S. departments of
Energy and Agriculture, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration,
the National Institutes
of Health, and the Institute for
Museum and Library Services.
The U.S. Department of Education
also supplies some dollars
that reach science-focused afterschool
activities through the 21st
Century Community Learning
Centers program.
But many experts assert that
the National Science Foundation
stands apart in the role it
has played in advancing the field
often referred to as “informal science”
learning.
“The heart of the federal government
that has really shown
leadership over the years is the
National Science Foundation,”
said Kevin J. Crowley, a professor
of education and psychology
at the University of Pittsburgh
who directs the university’s Center
for Learning in Out-of-School
Environments. “They’ve really
transformed the field.”
“It has been absolutely essential,”
Alan J. Friedman, the former
longtime director and chief
executive officer of the New York
Hall of Science, said of the science
agency’s role. “The growth
of the field of informal science
learning has been hugely influenced,
accelerated, and qualitycontrolled
by n s f. It has been the
single major factor.”
‘aNYWHere,
aNYTiMe’
The n s f first launched a program
for informal science learning
in the 1950s. At the time, it
was called Public Understanding
of Science. In 1983, that initiative
was replaced by the the Informal
Science Education program, which
is the main but not only source of
“ The
growth of the field
... has been hugely
influenced,
accelerated ...
by NSF.”
alaN J. FrieDMaN
Former ceO, New York Hall of Science
n s f funding in this domain.
The agency provides about $65
million a year through the program,
which supports a wide variety
of activities, including the
production of films and community
projects, traveling museum
exhibits, after-school initiatives,
and cyber-enabled learning. Of
that amount, about $25 million
is available for new awards,
while most of the rest goes
toward the continuation of
prior grant commitments.
Every project grant requires
an evaluation to assess
impact. The science foundation
also provides grants specifically
for research and has helped support
the establishment of organizations
such as the Center for
Advancement of Informal Science
Education, a partnership of several
institutions that aims to improve
informal-science-education
practice, document evidence of its
impact, and communicate the contributions
of the field.
The emphasis of the n s f’s Informal
Science Education program
is learning outside formal school
settings.
“The way we describe informal
science education is ... anywhere,
anytime, lifelong learning,” said
Alphonse T. DeSena, a program
director at the n s f. “Sometimes it
happens in school, but it’s not part
of the curriculum.”
The agency, he said, tries to have
a broad reach in terms of content,
audience, and the nature of the
learning experience.
“In all of this, we’re trying to
promote successful interactions
with the public and improvements
in how to do that,” Mr. DeSena
said, adding that “educational innovation
is a key element for any
award that we make.”
Martin Storksdieck, the director
of the Board on Science Education
at the National Academies,
said he appreciates the way the
n s f has pushed grant applicants.
It doesn’t simply underwrite good
ideas, he said; rather, it insists
that any new grant support an
idea that somehow advances the
field and moves beyond current
practices.
“I like the idea of the n s f saying:
Make the case for me why this is
important. Build on what’s been
done before. Create partnerships
that work, and ask yourself if
what you’ve created is effective,”
Mr. Storksdieck said. “The culture
of that type of thinking has been
created by n s f.”
Observers note that the agency’s
work in informal science has
evolved over time, and that over
the past decade or so, it has ratcheted
up requirements for evaluating
the impact of projects.
Sue Allen, the director of the
n s f’s division of learning in formal
and informal settings, said
S14 Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classrooml www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport l april 6, 2011
she sees a number of important
changes over time in
the agency’s work.
“What it takes to get
funded gets harder and
harder,” she said. “Nsf has been
moving the bar higher in terms
of evaluation, disseminating and
learning from prior work, and connecting
with other research areas
and traditions.”
She added: “We’re pushing
for a more compelling
and nuanced rationale
for what
[applicants]
do.”
FiScal aiD
the National science
Foundation supports a wide
range of initiatives through its
Informal science Education
program, distributing about
$65 million in grants each year.
Among the new or continued
grants announced over the
past two years are:
SOMe
graNTS
QUeSTiONeD
To be sure, the n s f’s work has
faced criticism at times.
Last year, some bloggers who
have been critical of the Obama
administration blasted the science
agency for committing
$700,000 for an experimental
theater troupe in New York City
to produce a musical on climate
change and conservation. Critics
called it a questionable use of
public money, especially in light
of the severe federal budget deficit.
Mr. DeSena of the n s f defends
the project, saying that it was
highly rated by external reviewers
and that “the use of dramatic
techniques in informal science
learning has a very long and solid
history.”
Some observers
lament that
funding for the NSF
informal Science
education program
has grown little in
recent years.
engaging latino audiences
in informal Science
education
$286,000
Addresses the low participation
rate of Latino youths and adults
in activities conducted by parks,
refuges, nature centers, and other
informal science education venues.
go-Botany: integrated
Tools to advance Botanical
learning
$1.63 million
Integrates Web tools and mobilecommunication
devices to facilitate
learning about botany and plant
conservation, with a focus on native
and naturalized plants in New
England
gulf Oil Spill Disaster
coverage
$199,000
supports National Geographic
television’s creation of a multiplatform
media effort to communicate the
scientific and engineering stories
unfolding in the Gulf region as a
result of the major oil spill in 2010.
Making Space Social:
exploring the educational
Potential of the Facebook
Social Network
$594,000
Underwrites a pilot investigation by
the space science Institute on the
use and effectiveness of stEMrelated
games within contemporary
Web-based, multiuser socialnetworking
platforms.

Mathcore for Museums
$1.71 million
develops and evaluates a set
of open-ended math exhibits
that use body motion to engage
children and their families in
learning experiences with ratio
and proportion over multiple
museum visits.
The Matter of Origins
$300,000
supports the Liz Lerman dance
Exchange, in partnership with
universities and a science advisory
panel, in producing the Matter of
origins, a two-part experimental
program that engages the public
in explorations of the nature of
beginnings and the physics of
the origin of matter.
Pushing the limits: Building
capacity to enhance Public
Understanding of Math
and Science Through rural
libraries
$697,000
Finds new ways of communicating
stEM concepts, with a focus on
rural libraries and adult residents
in places that are geographically
remote from typical venues such
as museums, zoos, and science
centers.
Scigirls
$2.60 million
subsidizes a PBs show and
multimedia project designed to
encourage and empower more
girls ages 8-13 to pursue careers
in the stEM fields.
Tornado alley
$990,000
supports a large-format 2d/3d
film and comprehensive outreach
program exploring the science
behind severe weather events.
NotE: Figures reflect either total
funding or amount awarded to date.
soURCE: National science
Foundation
Meanwhile,according
to Mr.
Storks-
dieck, some
institutions
that pursue informal
science learning
have been disappointed that the
n s f has been so focused on research
and the development of
new ideas, rather than continued
support for established programs
or practices.
“Once you develop the new idea,
you have to let go” of the federal
funding, he said. The n s f is “not
there to sustain funding.”
Moreover, he said: “There are
people who complain that spending
10 to 20 percent [of a project
grant] on research or evaluation
is a waste of money.”
Also, some observers have expressed
disappointment that
funding for the n s f’s Informal
Science Education program has
not kept pace with the fairly
robust growth over time in the
agency’s overall budget, which
climbed from about $4.4 billion to
nearly $7 billion from fiscal 2001
to fiscal 2010.
“Basically, the n s f budget for
Informal Science Education
has experienced no appreciable
growth for at least five years,”
said Anthony “Bud” Rock, the
chief executive officer of the Association
for Science-Technology
Centers, in Washington. His
group received startup funding
from the n s f that helped expand
the presence of science centers
around the country.
The Informal Science Education
budget has seen a couple
of significant bumps since the
mid-1990s, but has changed little
more recently, rising only about 5
percent over the past five budget
years. It was $66 million for fiscal
2010.
Even that growth, however,
could be reversed, given the
current push in Washington
to scale back federal
spending. For example,
the Republican-led
House approved a fiscal
2011 budget plan
in February that would
cut the n s f ’s Education
and Human Resources Directorate
budget, which includes the
Informal Science Education program,
by $166 million or about 20
percent.l
helena yordan
evelyn cariño, left, Brian Ventura, and Valerie estrella take part in a river cleaning activity at the Bronx river in
New York. The students are enrolled in Heroes in conservation, an after-school program coordinated by the
committee for Hispanic children and Families.
Environmental Issues Inspire
children to Dig into Science
BY
caralee
aDaMS
Students in the science
club at Pickens
Middle School
in Pickens, S.C.,
had been planning
a trip to swim with
manatees in Florida
when news of
the oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico hit
last year.
“I was kind of worried about the
manatees,” said 12-year-old Alex
Womack, who had been studying
the marine mammals in the club
after school and in the summer. “I
thought the oil might hurt them
and make them extinct.”
In February, 54 students from
the school took that trip, traveling
12 hours by bus to see the
creatures in their winter-migration
home of Crystal River, north
of Tampa, Fla.
“You actually got to see how
pretty they are, and you feel more
for them and how much they are
endangered,” said Alex, an aspiring
marine biologist who said the
manatees looked like a cross be-
tween a dolphin and a cow and
felt like seaweed when she petted
one. “It made me like science
a whole lot more.”
That’s just why science teacher
Susan Hilyer, the faculty adviser
to the science club, along with two
other teachers—Laura Anderson
and Louise Hope—persuaded the
16,000-student Pickens school
district to overcome its concern
about exposing children to water
and wild animals. They knew the
experience would be more powerful
than a classroom lesson.
“There is no comparison to just
being outside and in the midst of
it,” said Ms. Hilyer, adding that
the experience doesn’t have to
be as extreme as swimming with
manatees. “You can get that same
‘wow’ just digging in dead logs
with little shovels. It’s real. If it’s
not real, they don’t care.”
Informal science programs that
focus on the environment often
hook young people because they
are about issues that really matter
in their lives—the quality of
the air and water and the wellbeing
of animals. If it’s relevant,
they want to learn. And often,
children are motivated, in response,
to make a difference by
cleaning up a stream, starting a
recycling program, or advocating
eco-friendly policies.
“It’s that application to reallife
experiences that brings environmental
education alive,”
said Brian Day, the executive
after-school and
summer activities
offer the flexibility
for young people
to pursue their own
interests—without
the stress of
grades.
director of the North American
Association for Environmental
Education, a nonprofit group in
Washington. “It turns kids on if
they take an action component
and can make an improvement in
their school community or backyard.
Then all that education has
a focus and a purpose.”
And an after-school or summer
science experience offers time
and flexibility for children to explore
and follow their own interests,
with no stress of grades, said
PAgE 16>
april 6, 2011 l Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classroom l www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport S15

ContInuEd FRom PAgE 15
Lucy Friedman, the president of
The After-School Corp., or ta s c,
in New York City. “Science and
after-school programs have such
great synergy. Kids feel it’s OK
to take a risk,” she said. “Sometimes
there isn’t always a right
answer.”
When ta s c does science training
for after-school staff members,
it emphasizes that the
leader is merely guiding the
process. “There is a tendency of
adults to explain to kids what
happens,” said Ms. Friedman.
“It’s much more powerful when
kids discover on their own and
make some of the mistakes.”
Some ta s c programs take students
to New York’s Coney Island
to measure the temperature of
the water and sand. “All of a sudden,
the beach they connect with
fun becomes a learning environment,”
Ms. Friedman said.
MaKiNg iT real
In California, water is the “new
gold,” because it’s a limited resource
in great demand, so it’s
important for children to understand
it, said Marianne Bird,
the youth-development adviser
for the Sacramento County 4-H
Water Wizards, a 12-week afterschool
program for grades 4-6.
“Young people need to be aware
that there is no new water,” she
said. “Water is always involved
in a system, and they are in the
system.”
The nearly 500 children who
take part in the program learn
about the water cycle, the watershed,
and wetlands, and they
conduct experiments. A servicelearning
piece and a field trip to
a water education center where
Sacramento’s water is held are
also part of the program.
Being outside and part of a
larger environmental project is
a big motivator for young people,
said Rick Bonney, the director
of the Cornell University Laboratory
of Ornithology program
and a co-founder of the lab’s
Citizen Science Program. Many
students participate in the lab’s
Great Backyard Bird Count and
BirdSleuth as campers or in an
after-school setting. They learn
the protocol of identifying birds
and collecting data.
“This is authentic, real science.
We are answering questions
whose answers aren’t known,”
Mr. Bonney said.
Another citizen-science initiative,
the Monarch Larva Monitoring
Project at the University
of Minnesota-Twin Cities, engages
middle schoolers. In the
S16
summer, groups track monarch
butterflies once a week to see
how they change over time, said
Karen Oberhauser, a professor of
fisheries, wildlife, and conservation
biology.
The children all do independent
research questions and set up experiments,
Ms. Oberhauser said.
One student recorded the fate of
60 larvae that she tied to various
locations to study monarch predators.
Another studied the timing
“ There is
no comparison to
just being outside
and in the midst
of it.”
SUSaN HilYer
Science club Faculty adviser
of the arrival of monarchs, who
only lay eggs on milkweek, vs.
the availability of that milkweed
for their larvae to eat.
“In the end, when we gather
around the picnic table, I love
hearing them come up with questions.
They’re so focused,” Ms.
Oberhauser said.
Once, students observed butterflies
mating, which triggered
a discussion. “In school, it would
be a reason to be giggling and not
pay attention to the science of it,”
she said. “But they took it very
seriously.”
eXPOSUre TO NaTUre
The St. Louis Science Center
takes small groups of teenagers
from its Youth Exploring Science
program to a pond at dusk armed
with flashlights to sit still, listen,
and record frog calls. Their information
goes into a larger database
as part of a project examining
the impact of climate change
on frog populations.
By participating, the youths
begin to understand the process
of science better, said Kerri
Stevison, the senior educator in
charge of the Communicating
Climate Change program. “Science
isn’t something people just
write about,” she said. “They
learn to follow strict rules and
understand the protocol.”
Over time, those inner-city
helena yordan
students—many of whom don’t
have much exposure to nature—
become more comfortable with
animals and stomping around in
the mud.
Likewise, at New York’s Captain
Manuel Rivera Public
School, in the Bronx, many K-8
children don’t have much of an
opportunity to connect with the
outdoors. The after-school program
Frontiers in Urban Science
Exploration, sponsored by ta s c
and coordinated by the Committee
for Hispanic Children and
Families, is designed to provide
that link with trips to zoos, parks,
and rivers to explore natural resources,
said Helena Yordan, the
site coordinator for the committee.
Through the inquiry-based,
hands-on activities, children get
excited about learning and the
scientific process. “Science is for
everyone. That’s our slogan,” said
Ms. Yordan.
In the program’s informal setting,
leaders can talk about careers
in science. Ms. Yordan also
keeps teachers informed about
the projects to connect the afterschool
work with what’s happening
in the classroom.
Contests such as the Siemens
Education WEEK: sciEncE lEarning outsidE thE classrooml www.edweek.org/go/sciencereport l april 6, 2011
Mikiany Pena, left, and alondra
Sanchez, foreground, examine
plants and animal tracks during
an overnight trip to the High
Bridge empowerment center, in
goshen, N.Y. The children in the
committee for Hispanic children
and Families after-school
program are expected to take on
the role of scientists.
We Can Change the World Challenge
give children a chance to
create an environmental
solution and compete for
prizes.
Last year, 6th graders
Rani Iyer and Isha
Laad, both living in
Lexington, Mass., at the
time, spent 200 hours each
working on an entry for the contest.
Concerned about the harmful
impact of chemicals used in
dry cleaning, they tested a wetcleaning
process and worked to
persuade businesses to switch to
a more eco-friendly process.
The girls did testing in nearby
college labs, where they used
chemicals they wouldn’t have had
access to at school. “No one was
telling us what to do,” said Rani,
13, who has since moved to West
Lafayette, Ind. “It seemed like it
meant more than what we do in
school, where the teacher knows
the outcome of the experiment.
We don’t know what it is.”
The team was a finalist, and
each girl won a $5,000 savings
bond and a pocket camera. Rani
is considering entering the contest
again and perhaps pursuing
a career in science or math. l

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Published January 27, 2010, in Education Week
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Take Take Take Take Up Up Up Up the the the the Tuba Tuba Tuba Tuba
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Published June 21, 2010,
in Education Week’s
Curriculum Matters Blog
Open-Ended
Test Items Pose
Challenges
By Stephen Sawchuk
By By Erik Erik Robelen Robelen
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