Featured Article

NSF ISE Online Project Monitoring System, by Gary Silverstein and Hannah Putman: While some of us are all "aTwitter" about our favorite social networking site, another website you might consider getting excited about is the freshly redesigned Informal Science Education (ISE) Online Project Monitoring System (OPMS). As many readers already know, the National Science Foundation (NSF) ISE program expects all ISE-funded projects to enter data into the OPMS on an annual basis. If you are currently a principal investigator or have worked on ISE projects in the past, you may have completed an OPMS survey before. If you had previous experience with the OPMS, the next survey you complete will look and function differently than the old system. Westat, a contractor to NSF, has been integrating feedback from NSF and ISE projects to update the OPMS to make the site both more responsive to NSF’s needs and more flexible for the wide array of projects the ISE program funds. The revised OPMS boasts improved navigation and flexibility, as well as a new structure that enables projects to provide detailed information about how they will engage and educate public and professional audiences. Read more...

 

News and Updates

• 2012 National Science Foundation Informal Science Education Principal Investigator Meeting Save the Date: CAISE will be convening the bi-annual National Science Foundation (NSF) Informal Science Education (ISE) Program Principal Investigator Meeting, March 14-16, 2012, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.  The gathering will be an opportunity for NSF ISE  projects to come together to network with each other and their program officers, receive technical assistance, have access to new knowledge and tools, and be inspired by leaders in the field. Stay tuned to insci.org for updates.

• Visit us in Baltimore: CAISE will be sharing our recent work in the exhibit hall at the ASTC Annual Conference in Baltimore.  Come to booth #447, October 15-16, to: test drive the Informal Commons website (a new tool that connects a suite of ISE websites to provide you with one place to search and access informal science education resources); make your mark on the interactive ISE Timeline by updating information about your projects and exploring contributions from your peers; get a sneak peek at a  new "PI's Guide to Managing Evaluation" and give us feedback on hot topics for a new collaborative web resource for sharing evidence about the impact of informal science learning experiences; peruse findings from a public review that will inform an update to the NSF Informal Science Education Evaluation Framework; browse resources useful for proposal-writing; and chat with CAISE staff, advisors, and NSF program officers. See you in Baltimore!

• Carbon Smarts Conference: Learning Science on the Go: October 20 - 21, 2011, University of Massachusetts Lowell Inn and Conference Center, Lowell, MA. Learning Science Any Time, Any Place! This conference will bring diverse communities together to examine the potential of Out of Home Media (mass transit, billboards, posters, smart phone apps., radio, etc.) to foster informal science learning about climate change among the commuting adult population. Experts representing marketing, communication, risk analysis, science education, mass transit, informal learning, and atmospheric research will share their experience and ideas on how to improve the public’s understanding of climate change science, with special attention given to new digital tools.  The conference focuses on developing discourse between academic and industry personnel with a goal of laying a foundation for more creative, collaborative, and effective initiatives. Visit the conference website for more information.

• NSF Cyberlearning Research Summit Call for Participation and Speaker Nominations: The Cyberlearning Research Summit will be a high-profile gathering held Wednesday, January 18, 2012, in Washington, DC, featuring top quality research-based speakers, who will share visions for the future of learning with emerging technologies, in style of the TED conferences. Building on those visions, participants will gather as birds-of-a-feather to crystallize a sense of the unique opportunities that should be the focus of the research community now.  We seek a community sense of how to couple the learning sciences with related fields of innovation to leverage new technology affordances for the deepest learning outcomes. Read more...

• 21st Century Learning in Natural History Settings Project to host ASTC Connect Online Forums and a Conference: The 21st Century Learning in Natural History Setting Project will host two online ASTC Connect forums and a conference in order to share information, resources, evaluation and research results, and best practices, to identify and consider what we know about learning in natural history settings. The forums will initiate ongoing dialogue to identify the best opportunities to harness the unique resources of natural history museums and environments for learning in the 21st Century. Read more...
  

• Learning as Phenomena for Scientific Inquiry: The field of the learning sciences takes learning as its subject of scientific inquiry.  How can museums directly engage the public with learning as phenomena?  How can we apply methods of inquiry, interaction, and phenomena-based exhibits to this subject?  Last spring the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) at the Exploratorium held a meeting with about 30 scholars and designers to address this question.  Findings from the meeting can be found in a short report here and on www.exploratorium.edu/cils.

• The American Museum of Natural History Launches Pilot Program: The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), with funding from the New York State Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, have launched a pilot program for a Masters of Arts in Teaching. The 15-month program leverages the museum's scientific resources and history of leadership in teacher education and professional development to address the critical shortage of qualified science teachers in New York State, particularly in high-needs schools with diverse populations. For more information, visit www.amnh.org/education/mat.

• The Out-of-School Time Resource Center (OSTRC)'s Document Library: The document library includes approximately 450 recent reports, articles, and research papers sorted into multiple OST-related topics. This free online resource provides literature pertaining to  art and science in afterschool, positive youth development, youth sports programming, health and safety standards, family engagement, city-wide systems, cultural inclusion, funding and fundraising, professional development, college readiness, and more. For more information, visit http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/ostrc/doclibrary/index.html.

In the Spotlight:

HowToSmile

Funded by the National Science Foundation, howtosmile.org is the informal education pathway of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). Hosted by the University of California, Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science in partnership with science museums and the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), the howtosmile.org website is an online collection of thousands of hands-on interactive science and math activities designed especially for those who teach school-aged kids in non-classroom settings. Read more...