According to Marc Schulman, executive director of the USA Science and Engineering Festival (USASEF), “the modern era of science festivals…was kicked into gear” when the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a grant to four institutions in 2009 to support the creation of three science festivals modeled on the Cambridge Science Festival: one each in the San Francisco Bay area and San Diego, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“Science festivals are really about having a spot for science on the cultural calendar, the cultural stage,” asserts Ben Wiehe, manager of the Science Festival Alliance (SFA) at MIT. “They’re about bringing people together around science and technology and a shared identity of how science makes us who we are.” Because the best science festivals are “extremely responsive to cultural geography,” Wiehe describes his role at SFA as helping members consider what’s important to their communities and form goals around that, rather than focusing on an institution’s own outreach goals. He advises organizers to reflect on “what will give [attendees] new memorable, fresh experiences.…This is ultimately about trying to create a community-wide event. You have to see how people come together in your community, what gives them a sense of pride, how they come together for work or play.” He asks them, “What’s a good inside joke for your area?”
SFA, which grew out of the original NSF grant, now includes 63 member festivals. Many of SFA’s members started with grants from the alliance’s Science Festival Accelerator, which provides professional development and up to $10,000 in matching funds to “new or significantly expanded festival initiatives that focus on areas or communities with relatively small resource space,” Wiehe explains, noting that 2019 Accelerator applications are being accepted through December 2.
Students participate in hands-on activities at the 2018 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Science Expo, part of the North Carolina Science Festival. Photo courtesy of Morehead Planetarium and Science Center.
Director Jonathan Frederick says he considers the North Carolina Science Festival as erecting “a science circus tent over the state,” with events at more than 250 K–12 schools, and 150 public event partners producing more than 400 events statewide. “We’re trying to connect science to everyday life,” he says. “Our audience is the 10+ million people of North Carolina.” Public events range from urban geology hikes to skywatching at rooftop restaurants to art conservation programs focused on chemistry and biochemistry at museums.
“We have a science night program, with the ambition to be in every elementary school in the state. Each year we send out boxes of supplies [from a library of 40 activities],” Frederick says. Each school receives supplies for 10 different stations and 200 participants. “Some schools in more rural areas may only have 60 people show up; they use the rest of the supplies at the schools. Others have 600 people show up; they use our kits as a ‘starter pack’ and go from there.”
In addition, the festival includes events at university campuses and science centers, such as a science street fair at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the Gravity Games sponsored by Google and Appalachian State University.
The ninth Wisconsin Science Festival (WSF) was held in October. “We have seen tremendous growth in organic interest, the number of communities interested in participating,” says Laura Heisler, cofounder and director. “The very first year, we kept it within Madison;…the expansion became organic with different organizations. Communities across Wisconsin have embraced it…We share resources, advice, and contacts.”
Rather than planning events for various communities, Heisler says her group invites organizers at the community level to share what they’re doing and the science connection, and WSF shares the events on their website and social media and provides T-shirts, a banner, and other promotional items. When they “hit a critical mass” in an area, WSF will buy local advertising to support the events.
WSF also participates in EvalFest, a five-year study of 25 science festivals to develop evaluation tools. “We’ve learned there is great value when people interact with scientists. People don’t realize how much science is in their state,” says Heisler, who is excited to see the results of the study, expected to be completed this year.
A National Stage
“There are different styles of festivals,” says USASEF’s Schulman. Many are connected to specific institutions or last for two weeks or longer with events spread across a large area, attracting local or regional audiences. “Our model is a little different…Ours attracts people from across the country…We’re trying to be like a lightning bolt. Everything you see at [the USASEF] is what you could see at others if you were go to all their events,” he contends. The sixth USASEF will be held April 23–26, 2020, in Washington, D.C.
Held every other year, the four-day USASEF features “650 organizations including nonprofits, [130] government agencies, colleges and universities, professional societies, and corporations,” many of which bring chemists, engineers, and other STEM professionals from facilities around the country. Exhibitors are arranged in “topical pavilions” such as national security, health and medical, and exploration. “We try to showcase the diversity in [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] STEM jobs and STEM careers. We’re trying to cover the gamut of what STEM jobs look like—including skilled trades/advanced manufacturing,” says Schulman. “We’re constantly trying to push boundaries of what we would consider a STEM career.”
On the first day, USASEF hosts X-STEM, which Schulman describes as “a TED talk” for about 4,000 middle and high school students. “Sneak Peek Friday” is reserved for K–12 school groups, with the final two days open to the public. The 2018 festival drew 375,000 attendees on the final three days, leading Schulman to conclude “we’re at capacity…Booths have 30,000–40,000 people come through.”
After witnessing attendees struggling to reach various exhibitors due to the large crowd, USASEF will add a registration system for the 2020 festival. “It’s not good for attendees when it’s too crowded. They can’t get to what they want to see. It’s not good for organizations; they can’t talk to everyone when they’re jammed up,” Schulman says. A nominal fee will be charged for attendees older than 18; registration for attendees younger than 18 will be free.
While the impact is hard to measure, Schulman is confident science festivals are an important “response to the lack of STEM education in American public schools.” He explains, “I have a science event that gets 300,000 people…Some debate if a festival is a good investment. I tell people, if [festivals] are not working, why are 300,000 people here; 50,000 people [at other science festivals]? It does work; I just can’t give metrics as to how it works.”
According to Marc Schulman, executive director of the USA Science and Engineering Festival (USASEF), “the modern era of science festivals…was kicked into gear” when the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a grant to four institutions in 2009 to support the creation of three science festivals modeled on the Cambridge Science Festival: one each in the San Francisco Bay area and San Diego, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Street closures and high noise levels from construction on or near school grounds or other early childhood programs may disrupt the daily routine. Using the engineering habit of mind of optimism, defined as “a world view in which possibilities and opportunities can be found in every challenge and an understanding that technology can be improved” (Katehi et al., 2009, p. 152) educators at the Clarendon Child Care Center, Kathy Connell, Sarah Abu-El-Hawa, and Carly Gertler used the occasion of children’s interest in the cranes at the on-going construction to bring materials out to the playground for children to create their own cranes in 2-D and 3-D representations.
Welcome Kathy, Sarah, and Carly!
Our inspiration for this project presented itself in the construction site diagonally across the street from our playground. Each day as we walked to the playground our group of 16 four and five year-olds noticed the cranes and commented on their presence along with their characteristics. The children talked about how high the cranes stood, how the jibs extend out further from the site—even above the playground, the flapping flags at the ends of the jibs, and the hoists attached to the jibs that lifted building material from the flatbed trailers parked on the streets onto the worksite.
Kathy set out a short row of chairs on the playground and clipboards with paper and markers. The children accepted this invitation and drew their impressions of the cranes. We also set out Mobilo manipulatives on the picnic table and children built their own versions of cranes. By printing with paint using the Mobilo shapes children created 2-dimensional cranes. Photos of cranes by Kathy’s father contributed information on other types of cranes.
Photos by the teachers at Clarendon Child Care Center.
The next day we provided a straws and star connection building set and children continued to “build up.” Building with magnetic tiles in the morning sun on days that followed extended the children’s understanding of how large structures are made of smaller units. The light shining through the tiles cast jewel-toned shadow shapes surprising the children and added to their design. In discussion with the construction site manager teachers helped children think about the height of the crane by figuring out how many children would need to stand head-to-feet to be the same height as the (more than 200 foot tall) crane.
The teachers made the children’s work visible to their families, other classes, and the children themselves by creating a documentation panel on the wall. (The classes show their creativity in another way–the names they choose for themselves!) The children’s documentation shows that some are aware of the diagonal cross pieces in the jib and tower. I wonder if sometime they will explore the use of diagonals and triangles in structures, perhaps using K’nex or other building materials.
What advice would you give to first-year teachers who want to give life to their lessons, yet they have a budget that is small or non-existent? — J., Iowa
I always had living things in my classrooms— just going to a park or garden you can find sowbugs (pill bugs), lady beetles, earthworms, and more.
Seeds are easy to come by, and a single package of, say, tomato seeds can go a long way. You can ask for donations of equipment, such as tubs, aquarium supplies, soil, and sand in your school newsletter, website or in communications to students’ families. Consider asking for old cell phones that can be repurposed as cameras for observations. I often would get dissection specimens of fish, oysters, clams, even crabs and lobsters by going to the local grocery store and explaining how I could use any of the creatures that died in their fresh seafood section! They would freeze them and I would pick them up.
There are many, many, many shoestring budget lessons out there that don’t need fancy equipment. My classes would make planispheres—“sky maps” of constellations that you dial to the correct date. You can download one for free and then all you need is paper, glue and card stock (I repurposed file folders in place of card stock). A bit of searching on the topics you teach will net you many cheap-to-make items like this that become little projects in themselves.
Bring in classroom speakers! There are many organizations that have free travelling shows and experts that will come to your classroom. Check out the websites of nature centers, hospitals, zoos, parks, societies, and universities. A bird rehabilitation center in my city would bring owls into the classroom! Free!
What advice would you give to first-year teachers who want to give life to their lessons, yet they have a budget that is small or non-existent? — J., Iowa
I always had living things in my classrooms— just going to a park or garden you can find sowbugs (pill bugs), lady beetles, earthworms, and more.
Students at Chillicothe Women’s Correctional Center in Chillicothe, Missouri, examine lunar rocks from NASA in Mary Haskins’ environmental science course. Photo credit: SHONA SIMPSON, CCC STAFF
When Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, started an education program last spring at the Chillicothe Women’s Correctional Center, biology professor Mary Haskins says she “jumped” at the chance to teach a semester of environmental science there. “The work is incredibly rewarding and truly life changing for all involved, especially the offenders,” she maintains.
“We provide courses…to both the offenders and to the [Chillicothe] staff ” in a separate class because “most staff don’t have college degrees, and no colleges are nearby….It’s an opportunity for both groups to earn college credit,” Haskins explains.
Only 20 prisoners were permitted to take Haskins’ course. Chillicothe is a mixed security prison, so Haskins taught both violent and nonviolent offenders ranging in age from 20 to 50. She says it is standard procedure for all volunteers to wear “a body alarm for protection…and there was a camera in the room so our activities could be monitored.”
One challenge Haskins faced was equipment approval. For her spring 2019 course, she had to have a November “‘show and describe’ session with the warden to identify ‘types’ of equipment that might be used.” In December she submitted “a complete equipment list for all of the January 2019 labs (types of equipment and numbers of all items).” She had to submit equipment lists each month for the next month’s labs thereafter.
“I was also allowed to show environmental DVDs, but the lights had to stay on, so image contrast was a challenge,” Haskins reports. And after clearing security to enter the prison, “I didn’t want to forget anything because I couldn’t run back to the university to pick it up.
“In May, I wanted to bring in lunar rocks and meteorites from NASA, a hammer, 40 pounds of flour, a laptop, a projector, and [many] other items. I made that request in March, thus allowing my long list of equipment ample time for analysis and approval, since laptops were not traditionally allowed. All of the items, including the hammer, were approved (it may have helped that I also had five assistants that day, so they could be assured the activities and equipment would be monitored). All items were counted each week by the guard at the front desk and checked against the memorandum of agreement for entry/exit,” Haskins relates.
“The limitations are restrictive and require creativity [and] a willingness to substitute some alternative labs for traditional ones,” she observes. One successful project was a benthic research project. “I placed leaf packs in a river in November, retrieved them in January, and hauled the leaf packs to the prison for analysis. Students then sorted and analyzed the data, and wrote research papers on their results.”
Sometimes Haskins’ students surprised her. “Several offenders wanted additional information and used their telephone time to ask family and friends to look up [information online]. So although the offenders couldn’t directly access the internet, they did manage to find far more information than I had expected.”
Afterward, “we prepared two posters from that work, which I presented at different scientific meetings on their behalf,” Haskins relates. “I was very proud of them, and they felt very accomplished.”
The same could be said of some male prisoners at Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach, Florida— even ones serving life sentences—who “cried [tears of joy] when they earned their GEDs,” recalls Pam Walker, who taught “biology, physics, and chemistry to prepare them for their GEDs.” She says she would do “demonstrations for them,” such as “showing surface tension using water droplets on a penny….[ In physics, they had to] use one piece of paper to create a tall or strong structure. [I gave them] toothpicks and water-based glue to build things with and test them with weights. I limited how much glue everyone had.”
In another lab, Walker says she taught prisoners “about scientific [methods] of approaching a problem” by having them weigh a piece of gum, “chew it for 10 minutes, and weigh it again to see where the weight went.” In addition to science, “I tried to teach them life skills, how to read a phone bill and balance a checkbook, to give them a basic education,” she notes.
When Andrea d’Aquino, a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, taught incarcerated males at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois, as part of Northwestern’s Prison Education Program (NPEP), she made sure her general chemistry course “would teach students about how the world works, through the lens of a chemist. I focus on topics students can relate to and care about. I want to ensure they can use what they learn.”
NPEP courses are credit-bearing and taught with content and expectations equivalent to those at Northwestern. To comply with Stateville’s equipment limitations, d’Aquino and her co-teacher “make videos of all of the labs to show in class. [In the videos,] we do everything an undergraduate would do, [including] pre-labs and post-labs,” she explains.
“Trying to tailor your teaching to different learning styles and backgrounds [is challenging]. Some students have no or little chemistry experience, while others are quite proficient at it,” d’Aquino acknowledges.
Differentiation was also arduous for Kristen Lee, now a physics teacher at Avondale High School in Auburn Hills, Michigan. When she taught science for Spectrum Juvenile Justice Services at the Calumet and Lincoln Centers in Highland Park, Michigan, her students were male youth ages 12 to 21 who were separated into eight “pods” by criminal offense, “so there was a substance abuse pod, a sex offender pod, [for example],” she explains.
Each pod could have both middle level and high school students. “Each grade level did [its] own thing. I had only one group doing a lab each day; the other students [in the pod] did a worksheet,” Lee recalls. She taught physical science to the middle level students and biology, chemistry, and Earth science to the older students, so she taught different subjects in the same classroom. And “everything had to be portable; the teachers moved from classroom to classroom,” she notes.
“The IT [information technology] people made websites for virtual dissections available. I had to sit next to [students] to make sure they stayed on the pages they were supposed to stay on,” Lee relates. “I did a lot of modeling with paper or other safe materials.” And for a thermodynamics lesson, “we made ice cream, which the kids really liked. There’s nothing like eating ice cream at 9 a.m. in science class,” Lee asserts.
Students at Chillicothe Women’s Correctional Center in Chillicothe, Missouri, examine lunar rocks from NASA in Mary Haskins’ environmental science course. Photo credit: SHONA SIMPSON, CCC STAFF
Are you an elementary school teacher working to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)? Register to participate in the Shifting to the NGSS: Professional Book Study, taking place in April/May, 2020!
Are you an elementary school teacher working to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)? Register to participate in the Shifting to the NGSS: Professional Book Study, taking place in April/May, 2020!
Are you an elementary school teacher working to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)? Register to participate in the Shifting to the NGSS: Professional Book Study, taking place in April/May, 2020!
Are you an elementary school teacher working to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)? Register to participate in the Shifting to the NGSS: Professional Book Study, taking place in April/May, 2020!
How do our bodies manage to heal wounds, build the stamina to run marathons, and give us the energy—even while we’re sleeping—to keep us alive and functioning? Matter and Energy for Growth and Activity prompts high school students to explore fascinating questions like these. It takes a new approach to teaching essential ideas about food, human body systems, matter and energy changes, and chemical reactions.
How do our bodies manage to heal wounds, build the stamina to run marathons, and give us the energy—even while we’re sleeping—to keep us alive and functioning? Matter and Energy for Growth and Activity prompts high school students to explore fascinating questions like these. It takes a new approach to teaching essential ideas about food, human body systems, matter and energy changes, and chemical reactions.
What if you could challenge your first graders to create instruments they can play in their own “Show Me the Waves” musical show? With this volume in the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series, you can!
What if you could challenge your first graders to create instruments they can play in their own “Show Me the Waves” musical show? With this volume in the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series, you can!
When playing and building with blocks, children experience the way the properties of matter, shape, weight, and proportionality affect balance, stability, and position within their structures. Beginning with open exploration, children measure as they build with blocks (Chalufour and all). How many blocks are “enough” for children of preschool age?
“Blocks” can mean interlocking blocks which are counted as a fine motor activity in the Environmental Rating Scales. The ERS guidance, for family child care programs, on enough Unit blocks and large hollow blocks of any material, and homemade blocks of cardboard or plastic, says “many” blocks should be accessible daily. ““Many” means enough blocks and accessories for each age group to use the materials without undue competition.”
For preschool programs with children ages 2.5-5 years old, the guidance is to have “Enough space, blocks, and accessories accessible for three or more children to build at the same time,” and the three children must have enough blocks to build sizable structures independently. If your program has fifty blocks, that “is enough for a good start” (Van Meeteren & Escalada).
In interviews eight educators give recommendations on providing enough time for block play for children to truly focus and engage with materials, and guidance on when educators should interject themselves into children’s play, to encourage the next level or stage of play but not disrupt it (Community Playthings).
Block play involves children in collaborating, negotiation, and compromising with peers as they create structures, supporting their development of engineering habits of mind (Counsell). They often work to find new solutions as they problem solve (Alexander). School Director Jane Clarke says teachers need to “create an atmosphere and a culture in the classroom, where the children know that their ideas are important and that the adult in the classroom is going to support and guide them into further exploring the ideas that they have” (Community Playthings).
Consider this gallery of block play settings and reflect on the block play available to children in your program to see how you can identify children’s learning or enhance it.
Resources
Alexander, Nancy P. All About Block Play. EarlyChildhoodNews. http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=397
Counsell, S., and L. Escalada, R. Geiken, M. Sander, J. Uhlenberg, B. Van Meeteren, S.Yoshizawa, B. Zan. 2015. Engineering Habits of Mind. From STEM Learning with Young Children: Inquiry Teaching with Ramps and Pathways. New York: Teachers College Press.
Van Meeteren, B. , & Escalada, L. (2010). Methods & Strategies. Science and literacy centers: This win-win combination enhances skills in both areas. Science and Children, 47(7), 74. https://www.nsta.org/publications/browse_journals.aspx?action=issue&thetype=all&id=8201
Van Meeteren, B. & Zan, B. (2010, November). Revealing the work of young engineers in early childhood education. Early Childhood Research and Practice. Retrieved from http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/beyond/seed/index.html
Wolfgang, Charles, Laura Stannard, and Ithel Jones. 2001. Block Play Performance among Preschoolers as a Predictor of Later School Achievement in Mathematics. Journal of Research in Early Childhood Education. 15(2): 173-180.
Zan, B. & Geiken, R. (2010). Ramps and pathways: Developmentally appropriate, intellectually rigorous, and fun physical science. Young Children, 65 (1), 12-17.
When playing and building with blocks, children experience the way the properties of matter, shape, weight, and proportionality affect balance, stability, and position within their structures. Beginning with open exploration, children measure as they build with blocks (Chalufour and all).
In this issue of the Journal of College Science Teaching, learn about how a large southeastern university developed specialized science training for elementary preservice teachers. Discover how a course for first-year science majors encourages STEM persistence through an innovative field trip. And read about the successes and challenges of a campus-wide professional development program.
In this issue of the Journal of College Science Teaching, learn about how a large southeastern university developed specialized science training for elementary preservice teachers. Discover how a course for first-year science majors encourages STEM persistence through an innovative field trip. And read about the successes and challenges of a campus-wide professional development program.
In this issue of the Journal of College Science Teaching, learn about how a large southeastern university developed specialized science training for elementary preservice teachers. Discover how a course for first-year science majors encourages STEM persistence through an innovative field trip. And read about the successes and challenges of a campus-wide professional development program.
Tablets, cell phones, and other handheld devices have become increasingly popular tools to help students learn. In this issue we examine innovative ways teachers have incorporated handheld devices into lessons about climate change, wetlands, molecular motion, and bird populations. We also learn that handheld devices have actually been around since the 18th century!
Tablets, cell phones, and other handheld devices have become increasingly popular tools to help students learn. In this issue we examine innovative ways teachers have incorporated handheld devices into lessons about climate change, wetlands, molecular motion, and bird populations. We also learn that handheld devices have actually been around since the 18th century!
Tablets, cell phones, and other handheld devices have become increasingly popular tools to help students learn. In this issue we examine innovative ways teachers have incorporated handheld devices into lessons about climate change, wetlands, molecular motion, and bird populations. We also learn that handheld devices have actually been around since the 18th century!
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What advice would you give to first-year teachers who want to give life to their lessons, yet they have a budget that is small or non-existent?
