While reading the chapter on integration of formal and informal science education, I kept thinking about a news segment I watched over the weekend – US children were ranked twenty first in the world in science knowledge. The reporters were alarmed by the fact that countries like Slovakia and Lithuania were ahead. They invited experts to discuss the reasons for the situation, as well as what needs to be done to improve that ranking. The main theme was that, in US, parents and schools are happy with mediocrity and children are not pushed hard enough to learn more, as opposed to Asian countries, where children every day go to another school for more studies after their regular school classes are over. This raised doubts in my head about the usefulness of such rankings. I have read that, in the modern world, it is not so much important to retain the vast amount of knowledge (because we can quickly lookup what we had forgotten on a device as handy as a cell phone) but the ability to use that knowledge to solve problems. The informal science education can play a very important role in developing this ability, as well as in developing an inquisitive mindset, which is also crucial in our time when new discoveries challenge the scientific beliefs of yesterday almost daily and you cannot go far on what you have learned years ago. The reporters said that, if Massachusetts were ranked as a country, if would have been sixth, so they suggested to take a look at what is done differently about science education there. Reading this chapter, I kept thinking that the difference could be an efficient integration of informal science education and the traditional one.

I was glad to realize that, all over the country, there are people who constantly think of new ways to enhance the informal science education using the latest technology, making it as widely available as possible. I think, one of the reasons US children fall behind in science is that there is too much ranking based exclusively on testing in our schools, and if students do not perform well (could be because they just did not study or were not interested enough in the subject), they are viewed as not smart enough for serious science education and are not even given much chances to take serious science courses. It is like the children have to prove their right for a good science education instead of just having that right. All that is left for them would be the informal science education, but not all states are lucky enough to have such programs as were described in this chapter. On the other hand, I was surprised to read about ways to improve the effectiveness of field trips. All those areas look pretty common sense to me and it is strange that they are not really addressed by the majority of teachers who plan the field trips. It was interesting to read that teachers can also use the informal science education for their professional development. Of course, it makes sense, I just never thought about it. I believe, the effective integrated use of informal science education for both students and teachers, and not the increased rigor of formal studies, is the way to improve US children’s science ranking.

It was interesting the read the four articles from Science magazine. Although, written by different authors, their messages are aligned – they all talk about importance of how science is communicated to the masses. It is not surprising that it is an important topic for scientists – there are so many urgent issues in our society that need scientific solution; however, since scientific research requires funding, it is very important to have public support for one or another scientific endeavor at a time when funding is cut in so many other important areas all across our country. It was interesting to read that low travel budgets (must be a result of a desire to spend the majority of given funds on the research itself) are a factor scientists need to account for when they plan conferences to discuss results of their research. Another reason communication about the scientific research to the public is very important is the growing abundance of information sources – the Internet is huge, how can scientists make sure that the population is reading information from the trusted sources and how can they make those sources trusted and understandable for a wide public. Scientific communication needs to adapt to a new technological age.

Any communication consists of three components: the idea the initiator of the communication is communicating, the way he or she communicates it and the way the intended recipient of the communication perceives it. Since the scientists are interested in the public’s proper perception of their research, it is obvious that the ways their ideas are communicated are crucial to the public’s perception. It was not surprising to read that political and religious beliefs of individuals have direct effect on the way they perceive communication about scientific research, especially in such highly contended areas like stem cell research or cloning. I was amused to read that sociological sciences help with their research to scientists in other fields to determine how to shape communication about their research. It is great that these sciences are now developing fast, so scientists in other areas can rely on vast pool of useful information in the area of scientific communication, leading to improvement of scientific communication in the near future.

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.

Chapter Seven reflects on the challenges of engaging nondominant groups in the sciences such as inadequate science instruction in most elementary schools, especially those serving children from low-income rural areas. To address this issue, we must rethink equity, striving to provide better access to opportunities already available to dominant groups. The problem however is that providing the nondominant groups with the same kind of learning experiences as the dominant groups, will still not result in equity, due to the fact that the environments themselves are designed using the lens of the dominant culture. I completely agree with this, since almost all schools follow their own course curriculum, which is usually based on how well their students score in certain areas. This is definitely a problem, since nondominant groups exposed to such curriculums will struggle to keep up, due to the fact that these programs expect children to have prior knowledge. One solution that I can think of is to implement a self-tailored program, which begins with the basics and allows students to pick and choose what they would like to focus on, slowly but surely allowing them to work at their own pace and complete the course. Another solution is the promotion of collaboration, partnership, and diversity in ownership may provide non-dominant groups with a chance to analyze their own frame of thinking based of what they have learned in informal settings.

Chapter Seven also happens to reflect on the challenges of designing informal science experiences for people with disabilities. This is another group that is often excluded in informal science settings, which is quite troubling considering that people with cognitive, physical, and sensory disabilities make up around 18 percent of the population. The two dominant barriers that people with disabilities face are cultural and physical. One solution that exhibits and programs have come up with is “universal design”, which is the practice of accommodating all visitors regardless of their ability levels. Even though the reports about the results of this design had some negative points, there was still a large amount of people with disabilities who were able to engage with the exhibits and to learn some of the science. I think that this is a brilliant idea with a step in the right direction, the only problem is that there wasn’t enough time and investment put into this design, which is why some of the disabled visitors had trouble with some of the displays. However, with due time and hopefully more careful collaboration, these “universal designs” could inspire the next Steven Hawking.

I was astonished to find out how many New York neighborhoods, located in several boroughs and comprised of highly diverse inhabitants, surround the Jamaica Bay. I was even more astounded to read that some of the population in those neighborhoods uses the Bay and surrounding areas for religious ceremonies. Given the fact that immigration always happens in waves, it is not surprising that Irish and Italian families that settled around Jamaica Bay in the early last century, are now outnumbered by West and Asian Indians and Afro-Americans immigrated from Caribbean that moved to the area in large numbers at the end of last century. As a result of the population fabric change, the religious make-up of the area changed, as well. Roman Catholic churches of Irish and Italian immigrants are not that abundant anymore but Indian temples have appeared in the area. I knew about importance of water in Indian religion but it had never occurred to me that water-related rituals are happening on the shore of Jamaica Bay and, furthermore, create pollution issues due to religious offerings being washed to the shore. It was interesting to read how the government tries to keep the shored clean while not offending the religious feelings of the population – a very delicate subject. I was even more surprised to read about Voodoo practice on the Floyd Bennett field – so close to where I worked at the Aviator Sports Center. I expected this practice to exist only in books. As far as the pollution, it is not that much of an issue as the Indian religious offerings, but if it is live animals that are sacrificed, then it is a case where humans affect the wildlife population of the area.

Our area has had a large Jewish population for over a century which remains quite stable in numbers, so the Jewish religion is a big part of religious fabric in almost any neighborhood. I was surprised to read about Sukkot affecting the nature of Jamaica Bay because of the willow branches cut for Sukkas. Yes, it is a holiday that is meant to bring people closer to nature, but in my neighborhood, the Sukkas are made of steel and nylon, with bamboo mats used for a roof, bought at the store – very industrialized enterprise. As for the celebration in the temple, etrog and lulav are also bought at the store and no one brings willow branches. I was also surprised that the author had not mention Tashlich – a ceremony on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, when Jews go to the nearest body of water and drop pieces of bread into the water as symbols of the sins the abandon. I have seen it done in Central Park on the Coney Island Beach, so, I am pretty sure, it is done on the shore of the Jamaica Bay, as well. Maybe, it was not mentioned because it is only done once a year and, unlike the religious offerings of Hindu worshippers, the bread can be consumed by the animals and is biodegradable. In general, these chapters have raised an important question of human activities affecting the nature, even with something as ancient as religious practices.

They often separate people, depending on their natural inclination, into science-oriented and artistically gifted. They talk about one half of our brain to rule all logic and the other – artistic abilities. Yet, just like there is an area in the brain where these two seemingly opposites meet and intertwine, science and art meld in life, as well. These is what I was thinking reading the two articles that explored had art and science are different and how they are alike. “Art of science” and “science of art” – these expressions are often used by journalists and rightfully so because just like art contains elements of science do does science contains elements of art. As spontaneous as art may seem, it uses methods, often scientific, as well as employs science directly. Take the recent Rain exhibit at MoMa as an example where the art installation was designed to use censors to allow visitors to dance in the rain without getting wet.  Similarly, as methodical as the science is, it often requires element of creativity and spontaneity in order to achieve a scientific breakthrough. And with modern equipment, it is not unusual to have exhibitions of scientific images, presented to be viewed as art. Both art and science have moral implications – just like almost every artistic work makes us think about right and wrong, so do scientific achievements (take stem cell research and cloning for example). These parallels between art and science are logical since they both help us explore and understand our world and our place in it.

When I think of synthesis of science and art in my life, figure skating comes to mind immediately. While competing as a figure skater, I had a chance to combine science and art during all of my training sessions. This is a highly technical sport that requires very precise coordination on every element of competitive program while conveying a story at the same time. It employs a lot of physics – aero-dynamics, in particular. For example, in order to execute a multi-rotation jump, the skater pushes off the ice, crosses the arms on the chest to make the body as aero-dynamically suitable as possible to carry the energy into the jump revolutions, and then stretches the arms in order to stop the rotation when the desired number of revolutions is completed. The same is true about the spins. A lot of scientific research goes into the design of equipment – boots and blades. To the uninitiated spectator, figure skating may look like artistic dance on ice, but every move uses strict physics principles, thoroughly designed by a choreographer, and the skaters’ falls are result of mistakes in applying those principles.

Place is one of the most important dimensions of human life – we exist within a place, not outside of it. Therefore, it is no surprise that place-based education is a very effective tool in teaching almost anything. I disagree with David A. Gruenewald that place-based education is focused on ecology. Within our Macaulay Honors seminar, we had several experiences that were place-based education with social focus, which is what, according to Mr. Gruenewald, critical pedagogy is focusing on. When we were concentrating our study on people of NewYork last semester, we had visited the New York Tenement Museum. That visit had a significant impact on me – being able to see first-hand what the living conditions of immigrants were at the beginning of the last century made me realize the effort my immigrant parents undertook in order to accomplish what they have today. It also made me realize that there are many immigrants in today’s New York that live in similar conditions. It just makes me to appreciate our immigrant-attracting city and its population in a completely new light. Our walking tour of Chinatown had further enforced that understanding. It is one thing to read a book about the inhabitants of Chinatown and the hardships they go through in order to come to their country and then make a living. However, walking the streets of Chinatown and seeing the unassuming signs of employment agencies that send Chinese immigrants all over this country, made me look at that neighborhood with open eyes and allowed me to think that now I now my city a little better.

I can argue that our Macaulay Honors seminar has been employing place-based pedagogy throughout all semesters and achieving what critical pedagogy is aiming for – it made us look at our city and its population in a socially critical way. Be it the assignment about the public art in New York city, where we traveled around the city looking for community art projects. It made us make the connection of the art exhibit to the people who lived in that neighborhood. Those projects almost always carried a social message – be it environmental awareness by means of recycled fabric used as an art medium or  hope or better future in a mural in one of “troubled” neighborhoods in East New York. Our “People of New York City” semester had big use of place-based pedagogy with a goal of making us citizens who are aware of cultural diversity of our city and who would respect it and will preserve it in the future. Our current semester already had a trip to the Museum of Natural History, a visit to Central Park to study the plants there and a very interesting assignment to interview New York residents about their relationship with science and technology in every day life. These assignments add another surface aspect to our understanding of New York as a social environment where we live.

In this chapter, we learn about how conversation can be utilized as a tool to understand learning.  The types of talks that we can have can be broken down into perceptual, conceptual, strategic, connecting, and affecting. A perceptual talk describes the process of identifying and sharing what is significant in a complex environment, which include things like identification, naming, pointing out certain features, and quoting from a label. Conceptual talks focus more on the inferences or interpretations one would make based off observation. Strategic talks focus on two things, how to use and manipulate an exhibit and expressions of evaluation of ones own or partner’s performance. A connecting talk works to establish a connection between an exhibit and a personal association. And finally, an affective talk refers to emotional responses.  Based off conversations like this, researchers can find out what learners know and understand, what emotions have been evoked by an experience, and what gaps in learning may remain. This is extremely effective since it provides a threshold in improvement on how researchers may better convey their information to the general audience, as well as what areas they might want to manipulate to better reinforce their information.

In this chapter, we also learn that roles that support learning can range from simple acts of assistance to long- term, sustained relationships, collaborations, and apprenticeships.  Children are easily impressionable and always in a state of constant inquiry and learning, so even the simplest of interactions can have a huge impact on how they learn about science. It does not even have to necessarily be about science, but just activities that help inspire a science related pursuit, such as a Girl Scout leader can encourage members of the troop to pursue a science badge. For science learning relationships to be productive they must involve sustained individual inquiry and also social interaction with interest groups. The social interaction is actually quite important, because it can lead to learners developing relationships with experts, who can help hone their scientific understanding and skill over sustained time periods. It also allows for less knowledgeable individuals to interact with more knowledgeable peers and mentors. This is important, because with the knowledge that social interactions help form, certain people can utilize this information to help improve people’s informal science experiences.

The beginning of the chapter brought back great memories of me being in the New York Hall of Science. I used to love coming there for the multitude of their extremely interactive exhibits and their Science playground. As a matter of fact, any museum with a lot of science-oriented interactive exhibits was a place to go for me. Now that I am reading the chapter, I realize how my natural curiosity was developed into a strong interest in science by all those informal science teaching experiences throughout my childhood and I see now how much research goes into creating such an exhibit in a museum.

It is true that, whenever we see an expert, we immediately think that this person knows everything about the subject of their expertise, but we usually view this “everything” only as remembrance of the facts. It was surprising for me to read that expertise requires a systematic organization of these facts in order to reflect on our own thinking and make predictions or conclusions. Of course, I should have known that – for years I have felt that a traditional way of teaching, which consists of passing down the facts and asking questions leading to reflection on the learned, was not very effective for me. I am a visual learner and additional modes of learning, provided by interactive reaching experiences, are very important in my case. If I just read the book or listen to a lecture, my interest in a topic can waiver very fast but when I an engaged in the learning visually, it prompts me to reflect on what I just learned and the material sticks with me. Therefore, it was interesting for me to find out that different ways of how people learn about science are researched and then implemented in the learning experiences such as interactive museum exhibits which support learning across six different strands. What I had known instinctively, was explained to me by this chapter in a very detailed way.

Jeffrey P. Cohn wrote this article in hopes of convincing the reader that citizen scientists are indeed a crucial part in scientific research. He believed that collaboration between scientists and volunteers has the potential to broaden the scope of research and enhance obtainable data. Not only will these volunteers be learning about different aspects of science in their local communities, but they will also be providing researchers with valuable and critical information.  David Helms, a retired accountant and chief financial officer, is a perfect example of this as he hikes through a portion of the 2175 mile Appalachian Trail, collecting and replacing video cartridges that keep track of the wildlife surrounding the trail. Being retired, Helms does not have a lot of work to focus on, which is why he has time to be the president of the Natural Bridge Appalachian Trail Club, so a simple task like switching out a couple of cameras, while hiking a trail that he loves to spend time on is overall rewarding for both him and the researchers that he volunteered for.  The researchers not only get their data, but also save money that they can be spending on more important research related material, since Helms happily volunteered. On top of that, Helms learns more about the kind of animals he can encounter on his beloved trail.  The beautiful thing about people like Helms is that there is many more like him out there, most likely in the millions. People who would happily like to offer up their free time to learn more about the world around them, a giant pool of resources with great potential that scientists can utilize to achieve new and more exciting levels of science.

The great thing about projects that use citizen scientists is that the number of them is growing. A good example of this would be the North American Amphibious Monitoring Program, which has scientists coordinating state projects that utilize volunteers to monitor frog populations. On top of that there was also a point where the NPS recruited volunteers to help park staff and scientists to monitor coastal waterbirds. Now that I have had time to think about it, I came to realize that the bioblitz was exactly the same thing, we were volunteers who came together with a large group of scientists, trying to determine the biodiversity of central park. Not only did we as students learn a lot about central park’s wildlife, but we also aided scientists in gathering crucial data. I was actually quite baffled at how I did not notice it before. In the end, I believe Cohn and I have the same idea, that the work put in by citizen scientists has indeed helped advance scientific knowledge. With our help scientists have been able to do the impossible, such as track the progress of disease in wild life. Not only have we collected important data, but we’ve also helped establish guidelines for land managers to preserve the habitats. I have a feeling that there will be a greater demand for citizen scientists and informal learning in the near future.