Applying a complex systems perspective to investigate the relationship between choreography and agent-based modeling as tools for scientific sense-making

科学是一个探究的过程，包括提问、实验和探索。然而，对于年轻人来说，它往往被认为是固定的、固定的事实、原则和理论的集合，这些事实、原则和理论似乎是乏味和缺乏想象力的。这个项目就是为了对抗这种想法。这个“服务于实践的研究”项目将科学家、中学生和编舞家聚集在一起，利用编舞和基于主体的建模（ABM），从复杂系统的角度探索尚未解决的科学现象，让所有参与者参与最前沿的科学探究。考虑到复杂系统的普遍性，能够采用复杂系统的观点对于理解世界以及我们与世界的关系至关重要。然而，研究表明，这可能是一个挑战，特别是对年轻人来说。虽然大多数复杂系统的研究并没有把重点放在身体的作用上，但最近的研究表明，具体化作为复杂系统的一种推理形式，其前景和潜力是巨大的。因此，本项目将在科学发现的过程中创造探索性科学空间的前景体现。该项目分为两个阶段：(1)一个20小时的培训工作坊，让科学家和编舞家参与跨学科的合作设计工作；(2)一个60小时的暑期项目，让科学家、编舞家和青年参与研究-实践伙伴关系，以主体为基础和具体化的编舞科学建模。这个暑期项目在佛罗里达州盖恩斯维尔和马萨诸塞州波士顿的社区中心进行，拓宽了人们对科学研究的看法。每个地点将接待20名青年、两名当地科学家和一名当地编舞家。参与者将参与具体的协作探究、头脑风暴和建模，以创造编排的表现，并在社区的公共活动中达到高潮。该项目旨在了解青年和科学家在参与这些活动时的经历和变化，并了解如何设计这种非正式学习模式。该项目还将帮助科学家将复杂系统的视角应用于他们自己的工作和既定的观点。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。采用基于设计的研究（DBR）方法，该项目将发展和扩展具体的和基于主体的学习理论，同时还将试点、分析和完善非正式空间科学学习的协作模型。研究问题是：1。参与创建复杂系统的具身模型和基于主体的模型的过程如何有助于理解科学的新方法，消除关于科学如何“制造”过程的想法，并影响对身体在制造科学中的作用的理解？和2。如何安排身体和建模工具一起工作，以支持对复杂系统的理解？研究和设计依据三个主要理论原则：(a)科学是“能动性之舞”，这是一个探究的过程，通过与工具、技术和人类的反复对话互动，产生越来越接近解释自然现象的理解；(b)体现互动主义学习理论允许我们通过仔细观察表征的形成过程来理解表征意义的形成，而不仅仅是表征的最终产物；(c)创造性体现和基于主体的建模是围绕复杂科学思想和紧急现象进行意义构建的宝贵工具。将在两个不同的非正式学习场所进行设计、实施和分析的两个循环。数据将在这两个地点收集，因此有四个执行和数据收集期。每一轮的实现都是交错进行的，这样从实现中得到的反思和经验教训就可以告知下一个设计迭代。该项目将提供关于编舞和ABM之间关系的见解，作为科学意义构建的工具，并将ABM扩展到更广泛地考虑运动和身体在物理空间中的作用。它还将有助于了解如何通过具体的科学活动塑造代表性不足的青年对科学的看法和概念，以及这些青年在自己的身体与身份、科学和创造性艺术之间所看到的关系。最后，通过让来自代表性不足的社区的个人担任研究人员、设计师、科学家、评估人员和顾问，该项目扩大了教育和STEM研究领域的跨文化和培训机会。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Science is a process of inquiry that involves question asking, experimentation, and exploration. However, for youth, it is often presented as settled, a fixed collection of facts, principles, and theories that can seem sterile and unimaginative. This project is designed to combat that idea. This Research in Service to Practice project brings scientists, middle school youth and choreographers together to explore unsettled scientific phenomena from a complex systems perspective using choreography and agent-based modeling (ABM), to engage all participants in cutting edge scientific inquiry. Given the ubiquity of complex systems, being able to adopt a complex systems perspective is critical to understanding the world and our relationship to it. However, research has shown that this can be a challenge, specifically for youth. While most complex systems research has not focused on the role of the body, recent studies have shown the promise and potential of embodiment as its own form of reasoning about complex systems. Thus, this project will create exploratory science spaces foregrounding embodiment in the process of scientific discovery. The program has two phases: (1) a 20-hour training workshop where scientists and choreographers engage in interdisciplinary collaborative design work, and (2) a 60-hour summer program where the researcher-practitioner partnership involving scientists, choreographers and youth engages in agent- based & embodied choreographic scientific modeling. The summer program takes place in community-based centers in Gainesville, FL and Boston, MA broadening perceptions of what science research looks like and can be. Each site will host 20 youth, two local scientists, and a local choreographer. Participants will engage in embodied collaborative inquiry, brainstorming and modeling to create choreographic representations and culminate in a public event for the community. The project aims to understand the experiences of and shifts in youth and scientists as they engage in these activities and to understand how to design such a model for informal learning. The project will also help scientists apply a complex systems lens to their own work and settled perspectives. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. Using a design-based research (DBR) approach, the project will develop and expand embodied and agent-based learning theories, while also piloting, analyzing, and refining collaborative models for science learning in informal spaces. The research questions are: 1. How does engaging in the process of creating embodied and agent-based models of complex systems contribute to new ways of understanding science, de-settle ideas about the process of how science gets “made”, and impact understanding of the role of the body in making science? and 2. How can arrangements of bodies and modeling tools work together to support understanding of complex systems? The research and design are informed by three main theoretical principles: (a) science is “dance of agency”, a process of inquiry that through iterative dialogic interaction with tools, technology, and humans, produces understandings that more and more closely explain natural phenomena; (b) embodied-interactionist theories of learning allow us to understand representational sense-making by looking closely at the processes by which representations are made, not just at representational end- products; and (c) creative embodiment and agent based modeling are valuable tools for sense-making around complex science ideas and emergent phenomena. Two cycles of design, implementation, and analysis across two different informal learning sites will be conducted. Data will be collected at both sites, resulting in four implementation and data collection periods. Each round of implementation will be staggered so that reflections and lessons from an implementation can inform the next design iteration. This project will provide insights on the relationship between choreography and ABM as tools for scientific sense-making and expand ABM to consider the role of movement and bodies more broadly in physical space. It will also contribute to an understanding of how underrepresented youth’s perceptions and conceptions of science can be shaped through embodied science activities, and of the relationships these youth see between their own bodies and identities, science, and the creative arts. Finally, by involving individuals from underrepresented communities as researchers, designers, scientists, evaluators, and advisors, this project expands cross-cultural and training opportunities within the field of education and STEM research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.