Pathways: Collaborative Research: iSWOOP--Interpreters and Scientists Working On-Site at Our Parks

国家公园充满了有趣和不同寻常的STEM特征，这些特征经常引起游客的兴趣，他们的问题由公园工作人员回答。除了自然风貌，公园里经常有研究人员收集数据和进行实验。公园工作人员没有被告知这些研究，但经常被问及这些研究。这个合作项目的目标是建立一种机制来教育公园工作人员，使他们能够回应游客的询问。合作伙伴包括国家公园管理局(NPS)、TERC、温斯顿-塞勒姆州立大学和卡尔斯巴德洞穴国家公园的公园工作人员。计划通过NPS的雇员、通常是解释公园自然特征的声音的公园解说员进行合作。在这个项目中，口译员和研究人员将合作解释科学，TERC将与口译员合作，就研究与公众访问者进行互动或教育。这是一项试验性研究，旨在确定如何最好地将科学家及其研究与公园游客联系起来。这项研究的所有要素将由Char Associates和新墨西哥州立大学数学与科学教育研究所进行评估。这项研究的结果是确定向公园解说员和公园游客解释研究的问题。如果成功，预计将与国家公园管理局合作开发一个模型，用于其他国家公园。

National Parks are full of interesting and unusual STEM features which often intrigue visitors whose questions are answered by park personnel. In addition to the natural features, there are often researchers in the parks gathering data and conducting experiments. Park personnel are not apprised of these studies yet are often questioned about them. This collaborative project's goals are to derive a mechanism to educate the park personnel so they can respond to the visitor's inquiries. Collaborators include the National Park Service (NPS), TERC, Winston-Salem State University, and the park personnel at Carlsbad Caverns National Park.The plan is to work through the park interpreters who are employees of NPS and often are the voice for explaining the park's natural features. For this project, the interpreters and researchers will collaborate on the explanations of the science and TERC will work with the interpreters on interacting or educating the public visitors on the research. This is a pilot study to determine how best to bridge the scientists and their research to the park visitors. Evaluation on all elements in this study will be done by Char Associates and the Institute for Mathematics and Science Education at New Mexico State University.The results of this study are to determine the issues in explaining the research to the park interpreters and thence to the park visitors. If successful, it is anticipated that a model will be developed in collaboration with the NPS for use in other National Parks.