Impact of a Youth Development Camp on Participants’ Skills, Attitudes, and Views Towards Science and Scientific Inquiry

This mixed-methods research study sought to determine the impact of an informal science camp—the Youth Science Inquiry Development Camp (YSIDC)—on participants’ science inquiry skills, through self-assessment, as well as their views and attitudes towards science and scientific inquiry. Pre and post data were collected using quantitative surveys (SPSI, CARS), a qualitative survey (VOSI-E), interviews, and researcher’s observations. Paired sample t-tests from the quantitative surveys revealed that the YSIDC positively impacted participants’ science inquiry skills and attitudes towards science. Interviews supported these findings and provided contextual reasons for these impacts. Implications from this research would suggest that informal and formal educational institutions can increase science inquiry skills and promote positive views and attitudes towards science and scientific inquiry by using non-competitive cooperative learning strategies with a mixture of guided and open inquiry. Suggested directions for further research include measuring science inquiry skills directly and conducting longitudinal studies to determine the lasting effects of informal and formal science programs.

A viagem da U. S. Astronomical Expedition (1849-1852): observar estrelas e relatar a América do Sul

O trabalho analisa a expedição astronômica realizada pela Marinha norteamericana ao Chile, durante os anos de 1849 a 1852, comandada pelo oficial e também astrônomo James Melville Gilliss. O objetivo foi compreender os interesses científicos, políticos, geopolíticos e comerciais que motivaram a viagem, bem como as imagens e representações sobre a América do Sul, especialmente do Panamá, Peru, Chile e Argentina, construídas e divulgadas através do relatório oficial da expedição, com o título \"The U.S. Naval Astronomical Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere during the years (1849- 1852). Esta pesquisa também procura examinar os diferentes dispositivos discursivos utilizados pelos oficiais que escreveram o relatório, James Gilliss e Archibald MacRae, discutindo dissensões e diferentes visões sobre o modo de veicular dados científicos, e também modos distintos de relatar a América do Sul.

Middle schooling and scientific literacy : bringing the students to science

This study is about young adolescents' engagement in learning science. The middle years of schooling are critical in the development of students' interest and engagement with learning. Successful school experiences enhance dispositions towards a career related to those experiences. Poor experiences lead to negative attitudes and rejection of certain career pathways. At a time when students are becoming more aware, more independent and focused on peer relationships and social status, the high school environment in some circumstances offers more a content-centred curriculum that is less personally relevant to their lives than the social melee surrounding them. Science education can further exacerbate the situation by presenting abstract concepts that have limited contextual relevance and a seemingly difficult vocabulary that further alienates adolescents from the curriculum. In an attempt to reverse a perceived growing disinterest by students to science (Goodrum, Druhan & Abbs, 2011), a study was initiated based on a student-centred unit designed to enhance and sustain adolescent engagement in science. The premise of the study was that adolescent students are more responsive toward learning if they are given an appropriate learning environment that helps connect their learning with life beyond the school. The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of young adolescents with the aim of transforming school learning in science into meaningful experiences that connected with their lives. Two areas were specifically canvassed and subsumed within the study to strengthen the design base. One area that of the middle schooling ideology, offered specific pedagogical approaches and a philosophical framework that could provide opportunities for reform. The other area, the construct of scientific literacy (OECD, 2007) as defined by Holbrook and Rannikmae, (2009) appeared to provide a sense of purpose for students to aim toward and value for becoming active citizens. The study reported here is a self-reflection of a teacher/researcher exploring practice and challenging existing approaches to the teaching of science in the middle years of schooling. The case study approach (Yin, 2003) was adopted to guide the design of the study. Over a 6-month period, the researcher, an experienced secondary-science teacher, designed, implemented and documented a range of student-centred pedagogical practices with a Year-7 secondary science class. Data for this case study included video recordings, journals, interviews and surveys of students. Both quantitative and qualitative data sources were employed in a partially mixed methods research approach (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2009) dominated by qualitative data with the concurrent collection of quantitative data to corroborate interpretations as a means of analysing and developing a model of the dynamic learning environment. The findings from the case study identified five propositions that became the basis for a model of a student-centred learning environment that was able to sustain student participation and thus engagement in science. The study suggested that adolescent student engagement can be promoted and sustained by providing a classroom climate that encourages and strengthens social interaction. Engagement in science can be enhanced by presenting developmentally appropriate challenges that require rigorous exploration of contextually relevant learning environments; supporting students to develop connections with a curriculum that aligns with their own experiences. By setting an environment empathetic to adolescent needs and understandings, students were able to actively explore phenomena collaboratively through developmentally appropriate experiences. A significant outcome of this study was the transformative experiences of an insider, the teacher as researcher, whose reflections provide an authentic model for reforming pedagogy. The model and theory presented became an adjunct to my repertoire for science teaching in the middle years of schooling. The study was rewarding in that it helped address a void in my understanding of middle years of schooling by prompting me to re-think the notion of adolescence in the context of the science classroom. This study is timely given the report "The Status and Quality of Year 11 and 12 Science in Australian Schools" (Goodrum, Druhan & Abbs, 2011) and national curricular changes that are being proposed for science (ACARA, 2009).

The Annual of scientific discovery: or, Year-book of facts in science and art.

1866-1867

The Annual of scientific discovery: or, Year-book of facts in science and art.

1870

The Annual of scientific discovery: or, Year-book of facts in science and art.

1859

The Annual of scientific discovery: or, Year-book of facts in science and art.

1863

The Annual of scientific discovery: or, Year-book of facts in science and art.

1869

Very low temperatures, their attainment and uses : a survey of the physical principles underlying the attainment of extremely low temperatures and of their technical and scientific applications, as illustrated in a special exhibition held in the Science museum--March-May, 1936 /

"Chart of fixed points and temperature scales": p. [3] of cover.

The congress guide and scientific programme [of the] 5th Pacific Science Congress, Victoria, B. C., June 1-4; Vancouver, B. C., June 5-14; Canada, 1933.

Mode of access: Internet.

Byssinosis [microform] : evaluation of scientific and technical issues : hearing before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, September 22, 1982.

"No. 166."