One of the things chapter 5 focuses on is the role of interest in informal environments. The first strand describes interest as the excitement, wonder, and surprise that learners may experience and the knowledge and values that make the experience relevant and meaningful. This is an important factor, because there is a direct correlation between interest and the level at which people can engage within an informal environment. Basically, people pay attention to the things that interest them, therefore interest can drive what is learned. I can relate to this quite well, because I know I have trouble learning in class or even paying attention, if the class is not engaging or interesting at all. One of the models that has been implemented to address this issue consists of 6 components: curiosity, confidence, challenge, control, play, and communication. Personally, I think that focusing on challenge and play will achieve the greatest positive results, especially if the targeted audience is dominantly children. Another interesting model involves sustained interest, which consists of four phases: situational interest, maintained situational interest, emerging individual interest, and a well-developed individual interest. Essentially this model, encourages increasing investment and meaningfulness. This is another beneficial model, since it focuses on a person’s interests in a particular subject, allowing them to not only receive base knowledge about a particular subject, but also to further pursue this subject, developing a more in-depth foundation with which they can use to discover their true passions in science. This is seen in the last phase of the second model which refers to the “well-developed” individual interest, in which an individual choses to engage in an extended pursuit in a particular area. This leads to a change in identity within the learner, such as teens who are more susceptible to influence, helping them figure out what they want to do with their lives.

Of course, we all heard “You learn all life” but it was still somewhat surprising to read about our life-long learning of science. It makes perfect sense that it is the case, if we think about it, just as the methods of learning differ throughout the lifespan. However, it was still a revelation to me that babies learn about gravity by constantly dropping objects. I always thought, they do it for entertainment, not for learning. I remembered my childhood fascination with science museums – in every city I had visited, science museum would be the one I would want to go to, sometimes returning the next day and the day after. Of course, hand-on exhibits, designed for children’s learning, were a main draw for me. Founders of Please Touch! Museum in Philadelphia knew a lot about children’s learning of science – this is my favorite science museum of all time. This is a place where a child can learn about science on many levels, making the end result stay with the child much longer than if a particular science concept were read about in the textbook or heard from a teacher in a classroom. This is especially true for visual learners, like me.  I am pretty sure that those endless museum visits put a foundation to my love of science. Reading about a program where students learn about science in Yellowstone National Park, I felt envious: I wish, I had a chance to participate in such hands-on programs as my science learning in school was quite traditional – reading textbooks (at least, there were labs!). My suggestions to the school to involve more visual aspects in our learning process were largely ignored. On the other end of science learning spectrum, as I read about science learning programs for older people, I felt gratitude that such programs exist and their number is growing. I remembered reading about research showing that learning something new every day after the age of sixty-five was very beneficial for a brain and was thought to be effective in prevention or delaying the onset of such devastating brain conditions as Alzheimer’s or dementia. It made me think that we must have been designed for a life-long learning and it is great that there are people who tirelessly think about how to make it possible for all age groups.