SCIENCE in the Classroom (SitC)

American Association For The Advancement Of Science, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Two equally critical dimensions of the work of scientists remain absent from undergraduate classrooms: a) how scientists ground their research in the questions, approaches, and context of other discoveries; and b) how scientists communicate within and beyond their community what they themselves are learning from their own explorations. Both of these skill sets can be honed by reading scientific literature. Science, the publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is in a prime position to lead an effort to integrate this approach into the classroom. This award supports the research and development of educational resources capitalizing on recently published papers in Science. Our initiative, called "Science in the Classroom," introduces undergraduates to the scientific process by using contemporary scientific papers, taken from Science and translated into tools for learning by an expert team of scientists and educators, with the goal of exposing students to primary data sets. The project encourages students to assume the persona of the scientist by guiding them through the process of posing questions, designing experiments to answer these questions, analyzing the data resulting from the experiments, and working toward new conclusions in response to the analysis. It also engages students in understanding, first-hand, the process of scientific communication, through which scientists explain their progression from question to experiments to data to conclusions, while also generating the next set of questions for themselves and their peers. This award,will result in a refined and pilot-tested resource, as well as a guide with useful and effective pedagogy.