Growing up in Florida, hurricane tracking was an important part of my middle school science curriculum. The devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 placed hurricane tracking and weather science at the top of all our lesson plans.
This weather-related urgency led to a tremendous amount of outreach from local television stations, which brought weather people into classrooms to talk about the science of hurricanes. Aside from being awestruck at meeting television personalities, I remember that our weatherman explained that he spent a fair amount of his day actually doing science. He was a meteorologist, after all—recording data and making predictions was a part of his job.
Years later, I realized that this experience with our local weatherman was the first time that I connected the dots between public communication and science. While I had participated in various science fairs as a kid, the thought that science could be an active and necessary endeavor had never crossed my mind.
Having specialists in the classroom perfectly exemplifies how a visiting scientist or science program can open up the doors to new ways of thinking about science. It stokes the formation of a student’s scientific identity. Giving students the opportunity to meet, interact, and work with visiting scientists or science educators is important in establishing their world view on what it means to be a scientist and in acknowledging that science is present in everyday life.
A student’s “scientific identity” can lead to a future career in science or build a foundation of understanding that science is an important part of life. But this lasting interest—whether professional or personal—requires a spark and continued engagement. While many programs seek to develop the initial definition, not everyone will be set up for having a lifelong career in the sciences. That said, having enthusiasm for science, can aid in a well-informed citizenry—one that appreciates the value of scientific process and research.
In Woodstock, Vermont, middle school science teacher Ryan Becker has worked with various partners throughout the school year to help engage students in developing their interest in science. To start off this school year, he asked students to draw a picture of a scientist. It was no surprise to Becker that many of them drew white men in lab coats with test tubes—a classic stereotype. This set a baseline of understanding from which he could educate students on what scientists actually do.
One of Becker’s major goals this school year is to promote the notion that “science is done, not memorized.” To aid in this endeavor, he encouraged his students to look up #scientistswhoselfie on Twitter to see various representations of what a scientist looks like and does. Scientists Who Selfie is a project that encourages scientists from around the world to change public perceptions by sharing photos of themselves on Instagram and Twitter actively doing science. In any given search of the hashtag, you might find scientists out in the field conducting research or analyzing data in an office. Generally, the project seeks to demystify the work of scientists and to show that they are pretty much normal people (and, yes, some do wear lab coats and use test tubes).
Becker says the ultimate goal of this assignment is to lead students toward “that one little moment where they go, ‘huh, a scientist is more diverse than I thought.’ It’s designed to challenge their conception of a scientist, hopefully broadening their concept and internalizing that science is done by a variety of people in a variety of ways. If one of those outcomes is that this variety of people includes them, that would be great too.”
Woodstock Union High School and Middle School has also hosted real-life scientists thanks to a program called GK-12. Funded by the National Science Foundation, this program pairs scientists with classrooms. Becker’s class worked with a local astrophysicist. The direct benefit to students was that they were able to see that a scientist was a real person who was just like everybody else.
“Anytime you can broaden science experience for students, the greater the likelihood that they might find a place in science where they might be a good fit,” Becker explains. “I'm trying to move the needle for those who are unsure about science, to see if they even like it. It's amazing seeing how someone from the outside changes their perceptions.”
Educational researchers Jennifer D. Adams and Preeti Gupta think a lot of about how students develop identity around science[1]. Their work involves students who settle in the middle of academic achievement, the ones who could easily lose interest without an additional spark to keep them motivated. They discovered that students can find their voices by working and volunteering in out-of-school settings, such as science museums, that offer specific experience and training. However, this type of experience can be highly self-selective compared to the accessibility of science outreach in schools.
“Learning in school is a certain kind of feeling, and you need these add-on experiences from community partners that give you that spike for engagement,” says Gupta, who is the Director of Youth Learning and Research at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “When it's done best, it weaves into what you're doing in school and it's not a stand-alone. It kick-starts engagement. We need ways to keep school interesting through experiences like science kits, outreach, visiting scientists, and web conferences.”
Shawn Gonyaw, Principal of Barnet School, a small rural K-8 school in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, has also seen the advantages of having a partner in the school to help increase science identity. This approach has benefited not only the students, but also Gonyaw himself. Before becoming principal, Gonyaw participated in the Montshire Museum of Science’s School Partnership Initiative which paired him with a museum educator for professional development in science education.
“When I first started working with the Montshire, the museum educator came and helped me embed inquiry into my curriculums, which was something that had not been brought up before in my teacher training.” As he took this knowledge of inquiry-based education into his principal role, he has continued working with the School Partnership Initiative.
A unique feature of this Montshire initiative is that it provides a one-on-one resource for teachers in small rural schools who do not have access to additional colleagues or science specialists sometimes found in larger schools. In this instance, the science educator becomes not only a spark for the students, but for the teachers as well.
“I've taken inquiry-based education into my principal role to help teachers think about different ways of approaching science,” he says. “Most teacher training programs are not dynamic, so we have a lot of teachers coming into the field that only have two courses in science. They're typically not courses that help to teach science, but the content of science. They don't teach the process. If a student starts to think scientifically, the kids will then get into the content. The partnership has changed my own practices, so that I can help others explore new ways of thinking about science.”
Gonyaw also feels that having outside sources really does help both the students and teachers of Barnet. “We have a number of people who come to visit from different science organizations: the Fairbanks Museum, nature centers, and the Montshire,” he says. “All of those opportunities help the kids see that science is a real-world application.”
At the Montshire, I’ve been able to see how these types of engagements manifest in the broadening of student’s scientific identity. For example, our relationship with one of our school partners culminated with a showcase of their work at the Museum — a lesson called Machine Madness. Through this program, students made complicated, themed contraptions that moved a ball from one place to another. This required them to collaborate in order to develop their own work, but also called for numerous groups to work together to shift the ball from one end of the room to the other.
When students engage with Montshire educators who are not their teachers, it shows that they have yet another adult model/mentor in their lives who illustrates why their creative spark is important. We’re using that spark to engage with science, to help students realize what they can do. It’s one way of forming a positive science self-identity—and is definitely worth a #scienceselfie.
[1] Adams, Jennifer D. & Gupta, Preeti. 2013. “I Learn More Here Than I Do in School. Honestly, I Wouldn’t Lie about That”: Creat- ing a Space for Agency and Identity around Science, International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, vol. 4. no.2, pp. 87-104.