Collaborative Research, Pathways Project: Project SOS - Making Connections Using The Science Of Sustainability

这一路径项目将华盛顿东部和爱达荷州北部的农村、未得到充分服务的青年和家庭与可持续建筑设计中重要的STEM概念联系起来。该项目由帕劳斯发现科学中心(华盛顿州普尔曼)、华盛顿州立大学和爱达荷州大学合作，与农村社区组织和企业合作。可交付成果包括：1)互动展览原型活动，2)团队合作学习解决问题的挑战，以及(3)带回家的材料，以鼓励参与者利用他们所学到的东西来研究如何使他们的家庭更节能和可持续。该项目向青年和家庭介绍传统上难以理解的热能物理概念，特别是与可持续建筑设计有关的概念。参与者探索如何使用建筑材料及其特性来控制所有三种类型的热传递：传导、对流和辐射。互动的展览原型与节能工程挑战赛相结合，参与者在合作学习团队中工作，利用从展览原型活动中学到的信息来改造模型房屋，提高其能源效率。该项目的组成部分在帕劳斯探索科学中心进行试点，然后前往爱达荷州北部和华盛顿州东部三个服务不足的农村/部落社区。前置性和形成性评估研究将证明这种模式是否能促进参与者对STEM主题和职业的理解和兴趣。该项目将提供有关其他ISE从业者如何在非正式环境中有效地纳入合作学习策略的信息，以提高从展品中获得的知识转化为现实世界解决问题的挑战的能力，特别是对于农村和服务不足的受众。该项目还将为ISE领域提供：1)提高小型农村科学中心的能力的模式，以形成合作的地区网络，利用其社区以前未使用的资源，并向其服务的未被充分代表的人口提供更有效的外联；2)将合作学习与外联展览相结合的模式，提供更丰富的积极参与经验。

This Pathways Project connects rural, underserved youth and families in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho to STEM concepts important in sustainable building design. The project is a collaboration of the Palouse Discovery Science Center (Pullman, WA), Washington State University and University of Idaho, working in partnership with rural community organizations and businesses. The deliverables include: 1) interactive exhibit prototype activities, 2) a team cooperative learning problem-solving challenge, and (3) take-home materials to encourage participants to use what they have learned to investigate ways to make their homes more energy-efficient and sustainable.The project introduces youth and families to the traditionally difficult physics concept of thermal energy, particularly as it relates to sustainable building design. Participants explore how building materials and their properties can be used to control all three types of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. The interactive exhibit prototypes are coupled with an Energy Efficient Engineering Challenge in which participants, working in cooperative learning teams, use information learned from the exhibit prototype activities to retrofit a model house, improving its energy efficiency. The project components are piloted at the Palouse Discovery Science Center, and then travel to three underserved rural/tribal communities in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Front-end and formative evaluation studies will demonstrate whether this model advances participant understanding of and interest in STEM topics and careers. The project will yield information about ways that other ISE practitioners can effectively incorporate cooperative learning strategies in informal settings to improve the transferability of knowledge gained from exhibits to real-world problem-solving challenges, especially for rural and underserved audiences. This project will also provide the ISE field with: 1) a model for increasing the capacity of small, rural science centers to form collaborative regional networks that draw on previously unused resources in their communities and provide more effective outreach to the underrepresented populations they serve, and 2) a model for coupling cooperative learning with outreach exhibits, providing richer experiences of active engagement.