Students Discover: Improving Middle School STEM Outcomes through Scaling Citizen Science Projects

这个名为“学生发现”的STEM学习数学和科学伙伴关系社区企业由北卡罗来纳州州立大学（NCSU）领导，通过收集和分析学生的数据供专业科学家使用，突出了公民科学。 该项目团队NCSU与核心合作伙伴北卡罗来纳州自然科学博物馆和三个学区：Alamance-Burlington学校系统，Pender县学校和Wake县公立学校系统，旨在通过在课堂上实施实践“真实科学”来改善中学STEM教育。 通常情况下，当学生“做”科学，他们最经常重复实验和项目，揭示已知的真理。 越来越多的STEM学习研究采取了一种策略，即通过让公众参与帮助发现科学，加深他们对科学概念的理解。在学生发现项目内开发的模块将提供一个框架，使许多科学家能够将他们所做的科学带到教室，以加强他们的工作，增加学生的学习，并为学生创造参与真实的发现的机会。 为了开发这些模块，该项目将北卡罗来纳州的模范教师带到北卡罗来纳州自然科学博物馆的自然研究中心，与科学家和设计团队合作。 一旦模块开发完成，来自北卡罗来纳州的教师就会来到自然研究中心，为在全州的课堂上使用这些模块做准备。三所核心合作学校系统为与科学课程相关的学生举办暑期课程，并包括一系列学生发现课程模块。这些学生和他们的家庭全年都在参加额外的课程。 使用这些模块的学生，教师和家长将成为合作者社区的一部分，他们共同帮助做出新的发现-无论是新的物种，现象还是观察-否则这是不可能的。该项目还包括一个研究部分，正在研究将创新从更理想的课堂环境转移到各种学校和社区环境的过程，在这些环境中，成功的条件可能不太有利。 对于更广泛的社区来说，一个关键方面是研究确定最能转化为其他环境的模块和科学的条件和要素，并调整方法，以最有效地改变学习成果并在班级和地区之间传播的因素。科学家们参与了项目的各个阶段。 最初，北卡罗来纳州州立大学和自然研究中心的科学家领导了实施和开发。 随着项目的发展，它利用教师对K-12教育的广泛兴趣，在科学家、教育工作者和学生之间建立了许多新的联系。 这些链接和项目的模块帮助学生和科学家一起做出新的发现。

This Community Enterprise for STEM Learning Math and Science Partnership, entitled Students Discover and led by North Carolina State University (NCSU), highlights citizen science through the collection and analysis of data by students for use by professional scientists. The project teams NCSU with core partners North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and three school districts: Alamance-Burlington School System, Pender County Schools and Wake County Public School System, to target improving Middle School STEM education through implementing hands-on "real-science" in the classroom. Typically, when students "do" science, they most often repeat experiments and projects that reveal known truths. A growing body of research in STEM learning has taken the tact that by involving the public in helping to discover the science deepens their understanding of the scientific concepts. The modules developed within the Students Discover project will provide a framework within which many scientists can bring the science they do to classrooms in order to enhance their work, increase student learning and create opportunities for students to participate in real discoveries. To develop these modules, the project is bringing exemplary North Carolina teachers to the Nature Research Center at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences to work with scientists and a design team. Once the modules are developed, teachers from across North Carolina come to the Nature Research Center to work on and prepare to use these modules in their classrooms, statewide.The three core partner school systems conduct summer programs for students tied to the science curriculum and include a series of Students Discover course modules. These students and their families are engaged in additional programing throughout the year. The students, teachers and parents using the modules will become part of a community of collaborators who collectively help to make new discoveries - whether they are of new species, phenomena or observations - that would otherwise be impossible. The project also includes a research component that is examining a process for moving innovations from more ideal classroom settings to a variety of schools and community-based settings where conditions for success may be less favorable. A key aspect for the broader community is the research identifying the conditions and elements of modules and science that best translate to other settings and adapt the approach so as to build on those factors that most effectively alter learning outcomes and spread class to class and region to region. The project involves scientists in every phase. Initially, the scientists at North Carolina State University and in the Nature Research Center lead the implementation and development. As the project develops, it capitalizes on broad interest among faculty in K-12 education to forge many new links between scientists, educators and students. Those links and the project's modules help students and scientists make new discoveries together.