- University of Washington Institute for Science & Math Education­

The Six Strands of Science Learning: A Research Consensus Adapted from the NRC Reports Learning Science in Informal Environments & Surrounded by Science

(See www.nap.edu for more details)

Strand 1: Sparking and Developing Interest and Excitement This strand focuses on the motivation to learn science, emotional engagement, curiosity, and

willingness to persevere through complicated scientific ideas and procedures over time. Engagement can trigger motivation, which leads a learner to seek out additional ways to learn more about a topic. They could become so excited that they decide to join a local astronomy club, where not only will they learn more about this topic, but they also will meet other people with similar interests.

Interests also can return in new forms, changed and modified by life experiences. Pat Monk, an 87-year-old resident of Alexandria, Virginia, had an interest in art as a teenager. In his youth, he spent hours carving wood, and while in college, he took numerous drawing and painting classes. But he put his art aside for many years, during which he worked as a junior scientist on the Manhattan Project, headed up the biophysics branch at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and worked as a science consultant. Art, however, was his first love, and he returned to it full time in his early 50s. Because he had spent so many years in the sciences, his art now reflected those experiences. He is known for building huge metal sculptures painstakingly welded together, revealing his knowledge of the laws of physics.

Strand 2: Understanding Scientific Knowledge (content) The learning emphasized in this strand is on knowing, using, and interpreting scientific

explanations of the natural world. Learners also must understand interrelations among central scientific concepts and use them to build and critique scientific arguments. While this strand includes what is usually categorized as content, it focuses on concepts and the link between them rather than on discrete facts. It also includes the ability to use this knowledge.

For example, after watching an IMAX movie about the Galapagos Islands, viewers could be challenged to apply what they learned about natural selection to another environment. After noticing a particular species in that environment, the learner could hypothesize about how a naturally occurring variation led to the organism's suitability to the environment.

Strand 3: Engaging in Scientific Explanation and Argument Part of the scientific process is evaluating theories and models based on new evidence. This

strand encompasses the knowledge and skills needed to build and refine models and explanations, design and analyze investigations, and construct and defend arguments with evidence. The strand also includes recognizing when there is insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion and determining what kind of additional data are needed. .

On a small scale, visitors to science museums hav'e an opportunity to engage in scientific reasoning. At these settings, visitors can interact with "stuff," see what happens, and then develop their own explanations for what they just experienced. For example, after experimenting with different objects to see which float and which sink, visitors can see that shape is just as important a variable as weight in determining buoyancy. This knowledge helps explain why a large ship can float while a small rock sinks.

Through trial and error and by asking questions, people can begin to develop a deeper understanding of the world. The process of asking questions and then determining ways to answer those questions is often the way that people of all ages learn new ideas. This process can take place in many settings, including the home, a community center, a museum, a lecture, or an informal event such as a Science Cafe.

Strand 4: Understanding the Scientific Enterprise The practice of science is a dynamic process, based on the continual evaluation of new evidence

and the re-assessment of old ideas. In this way, scientists are constantly modifying their view of the

world. This strand also focuses on learners' understanding of science as a way of knowing-as a social enterprise that advances scientific understanding over time. It includes an appreciation of how the thinking of scientists and scientific communities changes over time as well as the learners' sense of how his or her own thinking changes.

Informal learning environments and programming are particularly well suited to providing opportunities for people to experience some of the excitement of participation in a process that is constantly open to revision. Developing an understanding of how scientific knowledge evolves can be conveyed in museums and by media through the creative reconstruction of the history of scientific ideas and the depiction of contemporary advances. Also compelling are the human stories behind great scientific discoveries. Scientists such as Galileo Galilei, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, James Watson and Francis Crick, and Barbara McClintock are just a few people whose stories provide examples of how scientific ideas evolve.

Creating and delivering opportunities for participants to assume the role of a scientist can be a powerful way for them to come understand science as a way of knowing. For example, Cell Lab, an exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota, gives participants an opportunity to use authentic scientific instruments to conduct simple experiments. Visitors find the process engaging and view it as an opportunity to become more familiar with the ways in which science involves searching for core explanations of an event or phenomena. With guidance, such experiences can help participants reflect on their own state of knowledge and how it was acquired.

Strand 5: Engaging in Scientific Practices - Using the Tools and Language of Science One of the myths about science is that it is a solitary endeavor, but this notion is misleading.

Science is a social process, in which people with knowledge of the language, tools, and core values of the community come together to achieve a greater understanding of a scientific problem. The story of how the human genome was mapped is a good example of how scientists with different areas of expertise came together to accomplish a Herculean task that no single scientist could have completed on his/her own.

Through participation in informal environments, non-scientists can develop a greater appreciation of how such gains are made within the scientific community. They also can refine their own mastery of the language and tools of science. For examples, kids participating in a camp about forensic science come together as a community to solve a particular problem. Using the specialized tools of science, such as chemical tests to identify a substance found at the crime scene, students become more familiar with the means by which scientists work on their research problems.

By engaging in scientific activities, participants also develop greater facility with the language of scientists; terms like "hypothesis," "experiment," "systematic observation," and "control" begin to appear naturally in their discussion of what they are learning. In these ways, non-scientists begin to gain entree into the culture of the scientific community. .

Strand 6: Identifying with the Scientific Enterprise Through experiences in informal environments, some people may start to change the way they

think about themselves. They may see themselves as scientists, too. This transformation occurs within many informal education programs when youth realized that they are smart because they can do science. When a transformation such as this one takes place, young people may begin to think seriously about a career in a science or health field, engineering, or in a research laboratory.

Older adults, who have more time on their hands after retirement, could take up hobbies that help give them a new identity at a new time of their lives. For example, in addition to spending many hours outside cultivating his beds, an amateur gardener also may pursue another passion, such as growing orchids in a greenhouse. To become more knowledgeable, he or she could seek out information in books, online, or at the local botanical garden club. After becoming somewhat of an expert on orchids, the gardener may be asked to talk to senior citizens at an intergenerational center about his hobby. At this point, the gardener has assumed a new identity-as an expert in his field and as a teacher. Changing individual perspectives about science is a far-reaching goal of informal learning experiences.