Understanding Physics through Collaborative Design and Play

The Iowa Children'S Museum, Coralville IA

Investigators

Abstract

This three-year project, a collaboration between The Iowa Children's Museum, the University of Iowa and the University of Washington, will develop and conduct research on a 3,000 square foot exhibit for a children's museum audience that will provide hands-on experiences both about the science of motion (forces, acceleration, friction, balance, etc.) and about how the science relates to designing skateboard parks. Several integrated, physical and digital components will comprise the exhibit, including a digital table-top module where users can experiment virtually with different skateboard park design features. The project's innovation centers on the team's exploring how to effectively integrate the physical and digital experiences in ways that foster children's engagement with science and with design. The interactive digital display will also be available as a mobile version that can be used outside of the museum setting. The project's primary goal is to increase children's interest in, engagement in, and understanding of STEM through collaborative, playful tinkering and modeling. The project partnership will build regional and national communities of practice to advance and support early informal STEM education. It will include: 1) a partnership with the Iowa STEM Regional Network Hubs to reach over 275 informal learning practitioners that deliver STEM education to Iowa's underserved rural and Latino communities; 2) sharing resources and expertise that result from this project with the informal STEM learning community and a network of small to mid-sized museums, zoos, libraries, and science centers; 3) a downloadable app-based "sandbox play space" that enables youth to collaborate with their peers, teachers, mentors, or family to prepare for or extend their exhibit experience outside the walls of museum, and 4) outreach programs to serve traditionally underserved youth from rural areas. The initiative will integrate development, research, and evaluation processes using a design-based research approach. The research will study collaborative learning linkages between child-child and adult-child interactions as well as the dynamics of mixed physical-digital collaborative play in informal STEM learning environments. The exhibit design process will draw on research in the learning sciences and game design, science inquiry and exhibit design, and child development scholarship on engagement and interaction in adult-child dyads. This work is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.