An electronic newsletter for the science education community
July/August
2005
Connecting Learning and Fun
New brochures link family science activities to state
learning goals
Observing plants and animals at a nearby park. Visiting
a local zoo or aquarium. Experiencing hands-on exhibits
at a science and technology center. All of these activities
can help families support children in exploring the world
around them and developing positive attitudes about science.
But community science activities can also help parents
support what their children are learning in the classroom.
A new set of brochures from AAAS’s
Partnership for Science Literacy shows how activities
at local science centers, parks, zoos, and museums relate
to the learning goals that states expect children to achieve.
The English/Spanish brochures build on the Partnership’s
previous outreach to parents in five key partner sites—Austin,
TX; Chicago, IL; Lehigh Valley, PA; Los Angeles, CA; and
Tampa, FL. With a “Science. It’s Everywhere” theme,
the Partnership has been reaching out to families about
the importance of science, mathematics, and technology
literacy for all students. Public service announcements
in English and Spanish, annual community science events
at the partner sites, Family Guide to Science booklets
for 26
communities around the country, and a Web site at www.ScienceEverywhere.org have
all aimed to engage parents in the science learning opportunities
in their communities and everyday lives.
Reinforcing Learning Goals
The new brochures extend parents’ familiarity with
community science resources to their awareness of science learning
goals set by their state’s department of education. As learning
goals become more central to how schools teach and assess students
in science, families need to become better informed about what their
children are expected to learn and how activities outside of school
can support what takes place in the classroom.
Each brochure explains how local exhibits and activities
can help children learn particular state standards and
gives parents the Web site address for learning more about
their state’s science standards. Highlighted activities
range from encounters with nature to explorations of force
and motion:
-
“Exploration Station” at the Austin Children’s
Museum: Visitors to the “Exploration Station” gallery
participate in facilitated, hands-on activities with themes that
emphasize science inquiry processes, problem solving, or creative
thinking. The exhibit aligns with many science Texas Essential
Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Standards for grades pre-K through
4, including 2.2.2A-F and 2.2.4.A-B, which state in part: “The
student uses age-appropriate tools and models to verify that organisms
and objects and parts of organisms and objects can be observed,
described, and measured.”
-
“Look Up, Look Down!”in the Chicago Park District: Chicago
families are encouraged to “Take a walk through your park
and look for animals that spend most of their time in the tops of
trees or flying.” The brochure suggests a series of questions
parents can ask their child to guide their observations and links
the activity to Illinois State Goal 12B: “Know and apply concepts
that describe how living things interact with each other and their
environment.”
-
“Work Bench” and “Science Playground” at
the Da Vinci Discovery Center: In Pennsylvania’s
Lehigh Valley, the Da Vinci Discovery Center offers exhibit areas
that engage students with the use of levers, pulleys, gears, and
interactive scales. These exhibits help reinforce two Pennsylvania
science standards for students in grades K–8: “Observe
and describe different types of force and motion”(Standard
3.4.4C) and “Identify and explain the principles of force
and motion” (Standard 3.4.7C).
-
“African Mammal Hall” at the Natural History
Museum of Los Angeles County: At the “African Mammal
Hall,” children can identify familiar animals like giraffes,
hippos, and lions, and discover creatures they may have never seen
before, from a bongo to an oryx. The Los Angeles brochure suggests
questions appropriate for kindergarteners and for second graders
and explains that the exhibit demonstrates two California Life
Sciences standards: “Kindergarteners know how to identify
major structures of common animals” (Standard 2c) and “Second
graders know that organisms reproduce offspring of their own kind
and that the offspring resemble their parents and one another” (Standard
2a).
-
“No Bones Zone” at the Florida Aquarium: In
Tampa, this hands-on exhibit allows families to touch animals that
have no bones for a skeletal structure—sea stars, crabs, urchins,
mollusks, and other invertebrates. Questions like “What do
the animals have in common?” and “What differences do
you see between the animals in the tank?” help support Florida’s
Sunshine State Standard F: “Students should describe patterns
of structure and function in living things; students should know
that living things are different but share similar structures.”
The partner sites distributed the brochures at their
spring 2005
family science events and continue to use them in
educational programming for families. For more details
about the Partnership and its resources for parents across
the country, visit www.ScienceEverywhere.org.
# # #
Funded by the National Science Foundation, AAAS’s
Project 2061 and Education and Human Resources Directorate
established the Partnership for Science Literacy to build
support for science literacy among parents, especially
in Hispanic and African American communities. The Partnership
brings AAAS together with informal science education institutions
across the country and with groups like TryScience.org.
For more information about the Partnership and its collaborations
with informal science education institutions, please contact:
Communications Director, AAAS Project 2061: Mary
Koppal, (202) 326-6643
Senior Project Director, AAAS Education and Human Resources
Programs: Judy Kass, (202) 326-6667
Principal Investigator: Dr.
Jo Ellen Roseman, (202) 326-6666
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