Promoting Student Interest in Science and Science Careers through a Scalable Place-Based Environmental Educational Program at a Public Aquarium

该项目将推动学生和教师创新技术体验(ITEST)计划的努力，通过在大型城市学区为五年级学生开发和测试基于地点的STEM丰富计划，更好地了解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学(STEM)领域追求职业生涯的动机和能力的实践。底特律公立学校将与百丽岛水族馆合作开发一个实地考察项目，该项目将丰富生物学习，对化学、物理、商业、识字和艺术产生跨课程影响。该项目将包括教师专业发展机会，并将促进学生对与渔业、野生动物、栖息地恢复和水生科学相关的具有区域意义的职业的兴趣。水族馆的科学家和教育工作者将与教师合作，为实地考察做准备，并开发基于地点的课程材料，提供正在研究的现象和概念的真实世界范例。项目目标是发展由科学家、教师、学生和社区成员组成的自给自足的学习社区，以建立一个自给自足的计划。该项目将在三年内吸引大约2300名学生和120名学校教师，研究计划将采用前测-后测、切换重复的准实验设计，教师被随机分配到三个处理组队列中。在该项目为期三年的过程中，每一组教师都将参加接受检查的治疗。教师的态度和行为将在项目的每一年进行评估，学生的态度、知识和行为也将每年进行评估。科学、职业兴趣和知识也将每年进行评估。将使用一系列课堂观察、焦点小组和调查来验证收集的数据，并为项目开发过程提供反馈。该项目的研究目标是调查实地考察计划及其组成部分对学生态度、知识和行为的影响，以及教师专业发展活动对教师课堂实践、对教学科学的信心和对教师科学的态度的影响。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by developing and testing a place-based STEM enrichment program for fifth graders in a large urban school district. The Detroit Public Schools will collaborate with the Belle Island Aquarium to develop a field-trip program that will enrich learning in biology, with cross-curricular impacts on chemistry, physics, business, literacy and the arts. The project will include teacher professional development opportunities and will promote student interests in careers of regional significance associated with fisheries, wildlife, habitat restoration, and the aquatic sciences. Scientists and educators at the aquarium will work together with teachers in preparing for field trips and developing place-based curriculum materials with real world examples of phenomena and concepts being studied. A project goal is to develop self-sustaining Communities of Learning comprising scientists, teachers, students, and community members to establish a self-sustaining program. The project will engage approximately 2,300 students and 120 schoolteachers over a three-year period, and the research plan will employ a pretest-posttest, switching replications quasi-experimental design with teachers being randomly assigned to three cohorts of treatment groups. Over the 3-year course of the project, each cohort of teachers will participate in the treatment being examined. Teacher attitudes and behaviors will be assessed each year of the project, and student attitudes, knowledge, and behavior will be assessed each year. Science career interest and knowledge will also be assessed annually. A series of classroom observations, focus groups, and surveys will be used to validate collected data and provide feedback for the program development process. The research goal of the project is to investigate the effects of the field trip program and its components on student attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors, and the effects of the teacher professional development activities on teacher classroom practices, confidence in teaching science, and attitudes toward teacher science.