Inspiring students to engage in science through interactive stories of ongoing exploration
Thank you for visiting the Aquarius Project: Open Science Engagement repository.
This document (the README file) is a hub to give you some information about the project. Please review our Code of Conduct to help this community play a part in making open science engagement welcoming for all. You can jump straight to one of the sections below, scroll down to find out more OR skip right to contributing
- When a flaming rock from outer space crashed into Lake Michigan on February 6th, it created waves…literally! This inspired us at the Adler Planetarium to ask how we could harness this event and use it to create accessible and engaging educational content. (Click here to see what it’s inspired so far!)
- We are using ongoing science stories to produce interactive hands-on lesson plans in STEM. We are using real science happening today to engage students not only with its relevance but with their ability to contribute, and packaging that into premade lesson plans for teachers to use.
- Paired video content with in-class projects
- Suggested assignments, guided learning strategies
- Interactive/hands-on samples
- Citizen Science Engagement portals for participating in the real science
- Opportunities to engage with science professionals
Integrated with the national standards set by Next Generation Science Standards NGSS.
Often students can view scientific exploration as something left to the professionals; premade science experiments in the classroom can often feel disconnected to the story of ongoing explorations. Using a strong, engaging narrative, coupled with hands-on applicable science, and real-time connection to professional scientists, young explorers can more easily find themselves the main characters in a story of discovery they are helping to write.
Our mission is to address 3 major hurdles often faced in STEM education: 1) Science is inaccessible, 2) Science seems unrelatable, and 3) It can be difficult and time consuming to develop new and relevant lesson plans that are both engaging and meet NGSS guidelines.
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Science is inaccessible. “Science is for geniuses”, “I’m not smart enough”, and “It’s too hard” are phrases I have often heard in my own journey toward becoming a scientist both uttered from myself and others. When explained well and built upon existing knowledge and understanding (scaffolding and cross-concepting), the fundamentals of the STEMs and scientific thinking are easy to grasp and practice.
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Science seems unrelatable. Unless you’re already planning on being a scientist, who cares about DNA, thermodynamics, or the water cycle? Or more accurately, “When am I ever going to need to know this?” These are tough questions to answer. So, we take a different approach to making the science relatable, we want to make it active, current, and all about the student. Paired videos and supplemental external links (scientist interaction, Instagram, websites, YouTube videos, etc) are aimed at showing a diversity of stereotype-breaking scientists across all ages, backgrounds, specialties, and personalities.
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Developing NGSS -based lesson plans. The Next Generation Science Standards were established in 2013. Since then 19 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have adopted the standards with 21 states interested in following.
Learn about the meteor fall that sparked this project.
- Ask a question & post to Twitter w/ #AquariusAMA** that you'd like a scientist/educator to answer for you inspired by the project. (Example:"How hot was the meteorite (space rock) when it hit the water?" #AquariusAMA )
- Science Professionals will be monitoring #AquariusAMA from 1-2pm CST (6-7pm UTC) on May 10th & 11th during the Global Sprint
- Post your question and the response you receive! We'll use these to help design and direct new lesson content. Post your questions and answers here!
Help us translate the text from one of our digital lessons into another language. Contribute here!
We invite scientists (and citizen scientists) of diverse backgrounds to contribute resources (online links, twitter/email for direct communication) that could help answer questions from #2 and, if you are willing provide your contact info to be a resource for future students/educators. Post them here!
If you are a science communicator, educator, scientist, or citizen scientist with a camera, record yourself answering a question from Issue 2. Record from your phone or laptop (clear sound but doesn't need to be fancy) and post your video link here.
Hey I’m Chris! I’m a member of the 2018 Mozilla Open Leaders Fellowship, a full-time program manager at The Adler Planetarium, a visual artist, with my MFA in acting. My love of science and the arts drives me to highlight the importance of their intersection. Fostering creative engagement with current science exploration helps to increase access with content that can feel unapproachable, and careers for many that seem unimaginable.
Hi, I’m Kennen! I'm a full-time PhD fellow at Northwestern University and part-time social media science communicator. Growing up I was often bored in class and found the lessons unrelatable and uninspiring. As I continued on my academic journey I was inundated with mind numbing lecture/worksheet based curriculum that just wasn't cutting it. Fed up with these non-engaging pedagogies, I decided it was time to do something and make a change.
If you want to report a problem or suggest an enhancement we'd love for you to open an issue at this github repository. But you can also contact Chris by email (cbresky AT adlerplanetarium.org) or on twitter
Thank you so much for visiting our project and we do hope that you'll join us on this journey to support open engaging STEM education for all.
NGSS: Next Generation Science Standards are K–12 science content standards set for schools to establish expectations for what students should know and be able to do.
STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
