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

由北卡罗来纳州立大学(NCSU)领导的STEM学习数学和科学伙伴关系社区企业名为学生发现，通过收集和分析学生为专业科学家使用的数据来突出公民科学。该项目与北卡罗来纳州自然科学博物馆和三个学区：阿拉曼斯-伯灵顿学校系统、彭德县学校和维克县公立学校系统合作，旨在通过在课堂上实施亲身实践的“真实科学”来改善中学STEM教育。通常，当学生“做”科学时，他们最常重复的是揭示已知真理的实验和项目。越来越多的STEM学习研究已经采取了一种策略，即通过让公众参与帮助发现科学来加深他们对科学概念的理解。在学生发现项目中开发的模块将提供一个框架，在这个框架内，许多科学家可以将他们所做的科学带到课堂上，以加强他们的工作，增加学生的学习，并为学生创造参与真正发现的机会。为了开发这些模块，该项目将把模范的北卡罗来纳州教师带到北卡罗来纳州自然科学博物馆的自然研究中心，与科学家和一个设计团队合作。一旦模块开发完成，来自北卡罗来纳州各地的教师就会来到自然研究中心，准备在全州的课堂上使用这些模块。三个核心合作学校系统为与科学课程相关的学生开展暑期项目，其中包括一系列学生发现课程模块。这些学生和他们的家人全年都在参加额外的课程。使用这些模块的学生、教师和家长将成为一个合作者社区的一部分，他们共同帮助做出新的发现--无论是新物种、新现象还是新观察--否则这些发现是不可能的。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，在这些学校和社区环境中，成功的条件可能不那么有利。对于更广泛的社区来说，一个关键方面是进行研究，确定最适合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结果的因素为基础，将班级传播到班级和区域。该项目的各个阶段都有科学家参与。最初，北卡罗来纳州立大学和自然研究中心的科学家领导实施和开发。随着项目的发展，它利用教职员工对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。这些链接和该项目的模块帮助学生和科学家共同做出新的发现。

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.