Publication: Research on Informal Learning
Posted on June 7th, 2010 by Jaimie Schock
The National Academies Press has published a several hundred-page paper called “Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits” (2009). It explores the various facets of science learning outside the classroom and uses research to determine which approaches are most effective. The Committee on Learning Science in Informal Environments was established to examine the potential of non-school settings for science learning.
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Do your students have what it takes to survive and be rescued? In this activity from Boston’s Museum of Science, student teams practice the design skills of engineers as they create survival tools from a crate of supplied materials. They learn about teamwork, brainstorming, innovation, and creative material reuse in attempting to create a protective shelter, a method for gathering food, and a signal for help. The teams test their designs for feasibility before having a design review with the rest of the class.
In this lesson from the California Academy of Sciences, students study the effects of pollution upon human health and consider how we can protect ourselves from the effects of carginogens. They build a lung model to learn how their lungs and diaphragm work to make them breathe. The lesson features a demonstration on how incomplete combustion of fossil fuels releases particles into the air that can harm humans.
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Check out the Louisville Science Center, an impressive collection of 150 interactive exhibits and activities and a 4-story IMAX theater, which started back to 1871 as a “cabinet of curiosities.”
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Educators say that the best way to get kids interested in engineering is to start teaching the basics at a very young age. That’s an axiom that engineering academics at Behrend College, part of the Pennsylvania State University System, have clearly taken to heart, according to the Erie Times News. They recently introduced a Play with Engineering program for 4- and 5-year-olds at the college’s Early Learning Center.
Three rivers run through Pittsburgh, so it is blessed with an abundance of potable water. But 3 billion people across the globe, nearly half the world’s population, don’t have ready access to fresh water. That was the lesson driven home to 550 high school students at a recent daylong tutorial sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh.
If you’re young, gifted, and male, will your talents be overlooked? In New York City, boys comprise 51 percent of the student population; but in the city’s gifted kindergarten classes, fifty-six percent of the students are female, the New York Times reports. While boys have long lagged behind girls in high school graduation rates and college enrollment, educators fear that this new finding may suggest that gender disparity starts at a very early age, according to the Times.
