Georgia Aquarium and World of Coca Cola - 30th March

Atlanta

Aquarium

Extensive resources offered to visiting school groups, pre and post activities are available to teachers online to utilise on visits to the center. The exhibits are large and categorized such that they are easy for students to understand. There is also a play area for younger children. The aquarium has an ideal lay out for visiting school groups, which a large, clean area for students to eat their lunch and to debrief with teachers.

The aquarium offers numerous professional development programs to assist teachers in educating and mentoring their students in a variety of sciences all with an aquarium/marine/freshwater basis. Descriptions of each of the workshops is available online.

Further resources are available to teachers who may be at a distance from the aquarium. These resources are all available to teachers online.  

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/education/teachers/lesson-plans.aspx

The aquarium has large and interesting species to engage and inspire students and visitors of all ages. Many of the animals are responsive and engaged with the public.

World of Coca Cola

Teaching resources are limited at this stage, mostly they relate to social science , art and African/American history. However, more science teaching resources will be made available now that a “factory” exhibit has been included in the museum. The factory exhibit takes visitors through the process of producing and packaging Coca Cola, there is an immense amount of scope for relating this exhibit to quality testing and investigation, engineering and chemistry.  I aim to contact the World of Coca Cola and discuss with them how they will go about producing these resources.

Phoenix Zoo and Arizona Science Center

Thursday 24^th March

Visit to the Phoenix Zoo to research education programs that are on offer to visiting students and teachers. The zoo is set out such that local wildlife are together and exotic species are in other themed based parts of the zoo. This would be beneficial to visiting schools as they would be able to focus students in on particular areas of the park. Education officers walk students and their teachers through the zoo and offer varying programs depending on the needs of the group.

The zoo offers a comprehensive program and lesson sequence on the conservation of water. Having this program within the context of the zoo and its wildlife would assist in making the information, knowledge and understanding more accessible to students as they would be more engaged and motivated to learn, this is superb example on contextualising scientific concepts.

Friday 25^th March 2011

Arizona Science Center

The Arizona Science Center runs a quite unique science education program for students in years 4 through to year 8. The program is an after school inquiry-based program run by staff from the Arizona Science Center at the participating school. All equipment required by the program is provided by the ASC and the school needs only to provide a teacher as a supervisor, these teachers are urged just to relax and have fun by the ASC staff. Input from the supervising teacher must be limited.

The major emphasis on the program is engagement of students in  2 hour sessions of inquiry-based learning, where students develop their own understandings of scientific concepts and processes. The after school program is written in conjunction with the curriculum outcomes and based on interesting themes. The activities are connected to standards once they have been developed.

Recently the ASC has run a pilot program which gave teachers in the after school program the opportunity to actually run the after school program themselves. The pilot program involved 40 hours of professional development that aimed to train teachers to allow students to complete inquiry-based learning. Teachers were trained through a series of interactive workshops which modelled inquiry-based learning. One activity involved teachers being told to build a rollercoaster out of piping protector cut in half and a marble. Teachers could be told to make the marble go faster or slower, to add turns etc. Another idea for this activity would be to have students or teachers build a rollercoaster and aim to have the marble travel from a height of 2m to the floor the slowest.  A variety of materials should be provided to open up the inquiry further.

Carolyn Starr explained that some teachers have trouble with inquiry-based learning as the teacher needs to limit the structure of the lesson. Good inquiry-based learning looks chaotic from the outside in and some educators have problems with this. An inquiry-based classroom is very active. Carolyn described how she assits teachers in making the transition from totally structured to inquiry-based. She advices teachers to count to 25 in their heads when they feel like they need to give a student the solution to a problem and she encourages teachers to use peer-mentoring for students who are really struggling. If a student is approached by a fellow student with advice about a solution they are more likely to question the reason for the advice than if it came from a teacher. If a teacher advises a student to add something to a project/solution they will rarely question the information. Using peer-mentoring encourages students to learn through questioning and explaining.

“Add foil to your oven”

“Why should I?”

The materials for running workshops on inquiry-based learning have been offered by Carolyn Starr and I intend on facilitating these workshops upon my return to Australia.

The ASC also runs an extensive professional development program once a year. The program involved between 500-600 teachers from across the USA. The center did attempt to cater for everyone by running a survey to determine the best dates for the program, but the results were not consistent and it was decided that not everyones needs in terms of timing could be met. The program is run during the autumn, as many teachers are returning back to school after a long summer break refreshed.

There will be 20 school holiday camps run at the ASC during the 2011 summer and this is going to be increased to close to 45 holiday camps in 2012.

The ASC has an impressive human body floor exhibit, which explains everything from the circulatory system to elements involved in the functioning of the human body. Medical students from Arizona State University volunteer on the floor around this exhibit, answering questions and explaining human body processes.

NASA Spaceward Bound Mojave Desert 20th - 22nd March

Sunday 20^th March

Travelled to Spaceward Bound at Zzyzx Desert Research Center in the Mojave Desert. Presented programming and lesson scaffolding ideas to the 30 attending university students, NASA scientists and NASA science education officers. The presentation included programs and activities I had developed myself following Spaceward Bound Australia, ways of building student knowledge about a topic using Bloom’s Taxonomy and collaborative team building through a fun science-based task. 

Monday 21^st March

Involved in discussions on how to implement astrobiology content into lessons. I offered my programs and materials to students and these have been added to the NASA website and students set up a drop-box so that they could access the materials whilst they were still involved in Spaceward Bound. Please contact me if you would like to have a copy of these materials.

Tuesday 22^nd March

Experiments being conducted by NASA scientists with the assistance of university students were observed. One experiment involved the use of equipment and chemicals which may not be easily accessed by schools and teachers. This experiment involved identifying living components of soils using a spectrometer rather than having to grow microbes on count plates, which involves significant risk of contamination. This is important in astrobiology because contamination can destroy the viability of data from microbial investigations and when investigating life on Mars it is important to remove any risk of contamination from Earth. The dye, LB and spectrometer are not all going to be available in schools, I would recommend teachers use equipment and materials at local university campuses with the assistance of academics or that an simulated laboratory be set up on the internet so that students may interact with this investigation.

Mud batteries were also being developed and tested on Tuesday the 22^nd of March. This activity has immense potential in the classroom and would tie in with a number of areas of science in the New South Wales and Australian science curriculum. The mud batteries use big sheets of carbon fibre, this is thought to increase the surface area in contact with the surrounding environment. The cathode is buried under ground, at an anaerobic level and the anode is above ground in oxygenated air.  Wire is weaved through the carbon fibre. The voltage created by the battery can be measured using a voltmeter. These and other battery related experiments can be located at www.r2labs.org

Part Two - The Science Centers San Francisco

The Tech Museum - Tuesday 15th March

The Tech Museum has many amazing exhibits, which have been provided to the centre through partnerships with science and technology providers. One example of this is the partnership with Microsoft, which has enabled the Tech to provide an exhibit where students teach visiting students through short film clips. On these clips students of varying ages introduce and describe a specific concept through modelling and example. Close to 25 different scientific concepts are introduced and described through this process. Each concept has its own toy to encourage students to interact and LCD screen with between 2 and 4 students presenting their explanations. The explanations are approximately a minute in length.

Explore your World has been provided through a Google partnership. Students and visitors are able to view any part of the Earth (including their home), the Moon and Mars at this exhibit on a series of 8 screens. The exhibit creates a very 3D sensation!

NASA has provided a jet-pack chair and an exhibit which allows students to view the Earth from space. Students are able to access views of hurricanes, ocean currents, the Earth by night and various others. Each view includes commentary to assist students in understanding the concept involved.

The Tech has a vast number of student-oriented activities. There are 5 science laboratories at the centre, 2 wet and 3 dry, where school groups are able to be involved in authentic rich science inquiry. These labs are targeted at grades 5 through to 12. The dry lab on rollercoasters is one of the most popular interactive lab lessons.

The Tech also runs an engineering competition for students from grades 5 to 12. This year the competition is modelled on the plastic pollution that has been found in San Francisco Bay. Students are to design and build an object to remove plastic bottles from the model version of a bay, complete with fictional endangered fish. There are two areas set up in the Tech for students to test their designs and make improvements prior to the competition day. Approximately 1200 students are involved in the competition.

On the floor of the Tech amongst the interactive exhibits there are university students and post-graduates with tables of scientific equipment who complete science experiments with students as they pass through the centre.  School students and visitors benefit by being able to be involved in authentic scientific inquiry and university students are provided with the opportunity to teach and present science to the wider community.

The genetics wet lab, positioned on the general floor of the Tech was one of the best exhibits I have ever seen. Students are able to complete their own genetic work placing jellyfish DNA into bacterium. Each workstation is equipped with a touch screen computer monitor and fully labelled equipment ready to use. The computer monitor walks students through the experiment method, providing written instruction as well as filmed examples of each individual step. Students/visitors can choose to watch each step as many times as they like and a Tech education officer is always present to assist. The instructions are concise and precise. Students are able to access photographs of their incubated agar plates online.

The tickets handed to visitors/students as they enter the Tech have details of a website and every ticket has its own webpage. Students can only access their own webpages, but are able to add to their webpages by simply passing the barcode of their ticket under a scanner at the exhibits where a scanner is present. In this way they build their own science-based webpage.

The exhibits are relevant and contemporary and the inclusion of an exhibit on astrobiology was particularly impressive. The exhibit gave students evidence for the possibility of life on Mars and asked them to provide their own opinion.

One exhibit in the space science area that relates well to materials collected at NSTA was a magnetometer exhibit where students had to use a magnetometer to locate areas of magnetic activity on the Moon, just as astronauts will. This could be easily recreated for the classroom using the simple magnetometer model and a lumpy, coloured dome with magnets under it.

Wednesday 16^th March

The Lawrence Hall of Science

The Lawrence Hall of Science consists of an immense number of fully resourced science laboratories, 9 in total! These laboratories are used to run laboratory workshops with visiting school students. Visiting class groups range from kindergarten right through to year 12.  The Lawrence Hall of Science services an area with a radius of approximately 100 miles. Staff travel to schools in outlying areas to share science and do workshops with students. There was not as much on the main floor area of the Lawrence Hall of Science, but the vast number of laboratories on the lower level more than made up for this. There is also a program run whereby teachers are trained and these teachers then train other teachers within their region. 

After school science programs also run, the focus being on providing science to elementary school students who may not be doing a lot of content and process rich science at school. University students from the University of California Berkeley volunteer and run activities during these afternoon sessions. Summer camp programs are also run at the Lawrence Hall of Science with students able to apply for scholarships to cover the cost of the camps.

The Lawrence Hall of Science had an amazing Deep Sea display and a very interactive geology display outside. 

Publications linking literacy to science are currently being developed through the Lawrence Hall of Science. I shared information on Primary Connections, produced by the ASTA and Erica recorded information about this publication. Erica shared an older publication developed by the centre for elementary (primary) teachers which focuses on ensuring elementary school children are engaging in inquiry and critical thinking.

Entry to the museum is free to school aged students.

Thursday 17^th March

California Academy of Sciences

The California Academy of Sciences has a number of science kits available for teachers to hire. The kits are large and very comprehensive. Teachers are required to complete professional development programs at the Academy to ensure they use the kits correctly and are able to get the most out of the equipment they hire. This is an immensely good idea, once teachers have received training on the use of the various science kits they are able to hire them year after year, or until they are able to gain resources similar to those contained in the kits.

The CAS also offers teachers professional development on how to make the most of an excursion to the CAS. Rather than have teachers equipping students with workshops which may not be suitable or relevant, they are walked through the exhibits and their content and provided with rich tasks for students to complete during their time at the CAS. Students take activity cards home with them to complete with family members, the back of the activity card contains a voucher for family entry to the CAS.  It has a 15% success rate and 60% of families who attend the CAS on one of the family vouchers have not visited the centre on a previous occasion.

There are online lesson plans offered by the CAS which are extremely comprehensive, providing precise materials lists, preparation and lesson time, links to the curriculum and background information to assist teachers. http://www.calacademy.org/teachers/

The California Academy of Sciences also completes laboratory workshops with students, focused on the specialty areas based at the California Academy of Sciences and linked to California state curriculum and local teaching programs. The displays at the centre are interactive, stimulating and rich in content.

Exploratorium

The Exploratorium is not like any of the other science centres visited so far. The focus of the Exploratorium is problem solving and scientific questioning. The floor of the centre is littered with engineering type games and challenges. These pieces of machinery are non-threatening and are each accompanied by simple instruction, which include a problem and/or question, which can only be answered by interacting with the equipment. The result is a HUGELY interactive science centre. Everywhere I looked students, children, adults and families were totally engaged in scientific concepts as they focused on solving the problem posed to them. The equipment is all sturdy, effective and safe. The objects are set up related to theme, but not in the same context as the exhibits in the other Californian science centres.

There is a book available through the Exploratorium bookshop and website which allows teachers to build simple versions of the engineering/science challenges present at the Exploratorium. http://store.exploratorium.edu/browse.cfm/exploratorium-books/2,129.html 

Programs are offered at this science centre for both teachers and students. Excursion workshops are available to visiting class groups, a new program is now available for students who are home schooled in the California Bay area and Exploratorium also completes school visits.

Programs for teachers are in the nature of programs for beginning teachers, particularly elementary teachers who may not have had a lot of exposure to the sciences during their training. Programs are also offered to experienced teachers and often teachers who complete these professional development opportunities become mentors at the beginning teacher education programs.