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LINDA CARGILL
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
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| In February 2012, Synergies students display projects. Mid-county Memo photo/Tim Curran |
One day they're curious about shooting stars, how the heart pumps blood, what triggers earthquakes and tornadoes; many want to grow up to be scientists. The next, they're not. What happens? What causes a child's love affair with science to plummet suddenly like a satellite falling back to earth? Moreover, can it be revived, and, if so, how?
That's what Synergies, a research project focused on Parkrose elementary and middle school students is attempting to find out. Begun in 2010, the project follows about 20 Parkrose School District elementary school students and their families over a period of four years.
Using questionnaires and in-home visits, researchers are tracking the students' interest and its decline in four areas: Earth and space science; human biology; technology and engineering and mathematics. The project hopes to improve the way these students engage in science-related activities, especially those occurring outside school.
“The story our data is telling us is that our youth are at this critical point in their development where their interests are fairly high,” said Nancy Staus, a researcher for the project. She mentioned that by sixth grade these same excited students cut back on activities like visiting the library, building things and playing team sports.
“Their engagement in activities that would support those science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM interests and support creativity and invention are on the decline. The good news is, there is still time. We want to have you guys get together to talk collectively, to keep STEM and creativity interests up over time.” Staus said to a group of more than 25 representatives of nonprofits, school and youth groups, libraries, science and environmental organizations who were collaborating-synergistically-to come up with solutions to halt the decline in interest in science. The group met at Mt. Hood Community College's Maywood campus Oct. 30.
So far, direct funders are the Noyce Foundation, whose project is titled: “Synergies: Understanding and Connecting STEM Learning in the Community” and the Lemelson Foundation who titled its project “Advancing SCILS (STEM, Creativity & Invention Learning through Synergies). About $2 million funds the research. The Parkrose School District, Multnomah County Libraries and Mt. Hood Community College have all made in-kind contributions.
Two Oregon State University professors administer the project: John Falk, Director of the Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning and Sea Grant Professor of Free-Choice Learning; and Lynn Dierking, Interim Associate Dean for Research, College of Education, and Sea Grant Professor of Free-Choice Learning.
Falk told the group their project focuses on concrete data “not just good intentions,” and hinges on the idea that “kids learn both in school and out of school and they learn over time cumulatively from experiences that are happening to them across the day, across the year, across their lives.”
Friends are important in shaping students' science interests, Dierking said, adding that research shows “how important it is for young women and for students of color to be able to find and identify other kids who have similar interests. That peer interaction and support is really important as they begin to develop an identity and a relationship with STEM, creativity and invention.”
Staus agreed friends make or break a budding interest in science. For example, one young boy joined a group of sword-fighting enthusiasts. After a year, he quit. “He lost interest because his friends weren't there,” Staus said. “Friends can get kids interested in things they didn't know they were interested in.”
Deborah Bailey, another researcher, spoke to the group about the need for mentors. Three of the students she studied were interested in building with their hands, “but they haven't found anyone in the community to help them express that interest,” she explained.
Another girl enjoyed stacking up large paper houses. Her mother filled the role of mentor, buying her daughter a book on architecture and encouraging her interest. “Now she wants to be an architect,” Bailey said, outlining how mentorship can lead to career success.
The project chose Parkrose School District because of its diversity, the number of schools and students available to choose from and challenges those students face.
Some challenges revolve around “people who are learning a new language, trying to keep food on the table, helping families be economically stable,” Dierking said. “So we see this huge challenge.”
Even though the data is gleaned from Parkrose students, “it is totally consistent with national and international data, which is why we were focusing on this group to begin with,” Falk said.
Tricia Harding, Parkrose community coordinator for the project, will work half-time, spending part of the week at Parkrose Middle School, creating more opportunities for youth.
Dierking explained that the project has created a map of resources that will match youth with interest areas in their neighborhood, including safe transportation options. So children interested in animal care are directed to the Oregon Humane Society, while those interested in building might frequent stores such as Home Depot.
Another tool is a computerized simulation model that calculates how certain factors might trigger outcomes. For instance, adding a good influence, such as a mentor or a friend with similar interests, might boost interest over time.
Explaining how the computerized calculations work, Dierking asked, “If a youth had a friend 13 percent of the time engaged in an activity, what would that do for their interest in human biology or science? Then we said, 'What if it was 37 percent of the time?'”
After discussing the data, the larger group split into three smaller work session groups to focus on mentoring, peers and synergy and to brainstorm solutions based on their unique responses to what they had just learned.
Those groups then reconvened and shared the ideas with the larger gathering.
Solutions envisioned include creating more parks and places for youth to play; letting children create their own peer-driven organizations, rather than top-down groups overseen by adults. Get community members from bakers to engineers to view themselves as mentors and set up point persons to match mentors with youth who have the similar interests. Create more clubs like MESA (Math Engineering Science Achievement), which attract youth and foster friendships based on the interest in science and create cultural community spaces for youth to gather, either using schools as hubs, or creating a community center.
For more information about the project, contact John Falk at falkj@science.oregonstate.edu or Lynn Dierking at dierkinl@science.oregonstate.edu.
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