NSDL Backpack

Southern Regional Education Board, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

Research shows that learning that occurs outside the classroom can be a critical STEM career catalyst. In fact, 75 percent of science category Nobel Prize winners indicate that their passion for science was first sparked in non-school, independent learning environments. The NSDL Backpack provides tools and services that increase the numbers of learners using high-quality, relevant NSDL content in science competitions. The potential impact is significant since nationally, science competitions engage more than 9 million K-12 students every year. The NSDL Backpack prototype demonstrates how a learner-centered service, using web-based tools and resources, and partnering with a national science competition, can increase utilization of the NSDL. Using a website and tools designed by a learner focus group, the Backpack is making NSDL assets, selected and aligned to the challenges by the Destination ImagiNation (DI) curriculum mangers and Backpack staff, available directly to participants in the DI science challenge. The Backpack pathway is contributing to the intellectual understanding of how students use technology to learn outside of formal, teacher-directed settings. By increasing the number of learners using NSDL content (only 23% of NSDL searchers in a recent survey were students) and by studying their needs directly, the NSDL Backpack is informing and fostering developments at other NSDL pathways and other NSF research projects, as well as broader research into how self-directed learners learn.