Collaborative Research: Learning in Places: PK-5+ Field Based Science Education Across Schools, Families, and Communities

对于小学生来说，拥有有意义和高质量的科学学习体验是非常必要的。该项目旨在通过开发支持学生社会生态推理和可持续决策的PreK-5、面向公平、基于实地的跨学科课程材料来满足这一需求。科学学习经验将被整合到从扫盲到公民和社会研究课程的各个学科。这些课程材料将成为科学教育模式的一部分，该模式通过改变教育者、家庭和学生科学学习之间的关系来促进家庭参与。课程活动将与教师共同设计，同时利用当地的自然和文化作为资源。该项目的结构是为了吸引来自三个地点(华盛顿东部、密歇根和路易斯安那州)的领导教师队列(68名教师，涉及5600名学生)在四年内共同设计、完善和研究该模式。项目团队将参加一系列季节性的混合(在线和面对面)联合设计峰会，以开发模型。然后，领导力教师将全面实施该模式，并支持另外两个队列(150名教师，涉及3300名学生)采用和实施该模式。在这些实施过程中，项目组将利用人种学和交叉比较分析方法来研究教育者的适应情况以及地理多样性对教学的启示和限制。此外，研究设计还包括调查其对学生社会生态推理的影响。该项目有可能扩大对初级深度科学学习的参与，伴随着专业发展，将支持和培养K-12课程中学校及其周围的实地教学法。探索研究PRE-12计划(DRK-12)旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高K-12年级学生和教师在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)方面的学习和教学。 -12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和经验上的证明。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智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

There is an immense need for elementary school students to have meaningful and high-quality science learning experiences. This project aims to meet this need by developing PreK-5, equity-oriented, field-based, interdisciplinary curricular materials that support students' socioecological reasoning and sustainable decision making. The science learning experiences will be integrated across disciplines from literacy to civic and social studies lessons. The curricular materials will be part of a science education model that facilitates family engagement in ways that transform relations between educators, families, and students' science learning. The curricular activities will be co-designed with teachers while using local nature and culture as a resource.The project is structured to engage a leadership cohort of teachers (68 teachers, who reach 5600 students) pulling from three locations (Eastern Washington, Michigan, and Louisiana) to co-design, refine, and study the model over four years. The project team will engage in a seasonal series of hybrid (online and in-person) co-design summits to develop the model. Leadership teachers will then fully implement the model and support two additional cohorts (150 teachers, who reach 3300 students) to adopt and implement the model. During these implementations, the project team will utilize ethnographic and cross-comparative analysis methods to study educators' adaptations and the affordances and constraints of geographic diversity for instruction. In addition, the research design includes investigating the impact on students' socioecological reasoning. The project has the potential to broaden participation in deep science learning at the elementary level with an accompanying professional development that would support and cultivate field-based pedagogies in and around schools across K-12 curricula.The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. 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.