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University of Washington Institute for Science & Math Education­
The Six Strands of Science Learning: A Research Consensus
Adapted from the NRC Reports Learning Science in Informal Environments & Surrounded by Science
(See www.nap.edu for more details)
Strand 1: Sparking and Developing Interest and Excitement
This strand focuses on the motivation to learn science, emotional engagement, curiosity, and
willingness to persevere through complicated scientific ideas and procedures over time. Engagement can
trigger motivation, which leads a learner to seek out additional ways to learn more about a topic. They
could become so excited that they decide to join a local astronomy club, where not only will they learn
more about this topic, but they also will meet other people with similar interests.
Interests also can return in new forms, changed and modified by life experiences. Pat Monk, an
87-year-old resident of Alexandria, Virginia, had an interest in art as a teenager. In his youth, he spent
hours carving wood, and while in college, he took numerous drawing and painting classes. But he put
his art aside for many years, during which he worked as a junior scientist on the Manhattan Project,
headed up the biophysics branch at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and worked as a science consultant. Art,
however, was his first love, and he returned to it full time in his early 50s. Because he had spent so many
years in the sciences, his art now reflected those experiences. He is known for building huge metal
sculptures painstakingly welded together, revealing his knowledge of the laws of physics.
Strand 2: Understanding Scientific Knowledge (content)
The learning emphasized in this strand is on knowing, using, and interpreting scientific
explanations of the natural world. Learners also must understand interrelations among central scientific
concepts and use them to build and critique scientific arguments. While this strand includes what is
usually categorized as content, it focuses on concepts and the link between them rather than on discrete
facts. It also includes the ability to use this knowledge.
For example, after watching an IMAX movie about the Galapagos Islands, viewers could be
challenged to apply what they learned about natural selection to another environment. After noticing a
particular species in that environment, the learner could hypothesize about how a naturally occurring
variation led to the organism's suitability to the environment.
Strand 3: Engaging in Scientific Explanation and Argument
Part of the scientific process is evaluating theories and models based on new evidence. This
strand encompasses the knowledge and skills needed to build and refine models and explanations,
design and analyze investigations, and construct and defend arguments with evidence. The strand also
includes recognizing when there is insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion and determining what
kind of additional data are needed.
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On a small scale, visitors to science museums hav'e an opportunity to engage in scientific
reasoning. At these settings, visitors can interact with "stuff," see what happens, and then develop their
own explanations for what they just experienced. For example, after experimenting with different
objects to see which float and which sink, visitors can see that shape is just as important a variable as
weight in determining buoyancy. This knowledge helps explain why a large ship can float while a small
rock sinks.
Through trial and error and by asking questions, people can begin to develop a deeper
understanding of the world. The process of asking questions and then determining ways to answer those
questions is often the way that people of all ages learn new ideas. This process can take place in many
settings, including the home, a community center, a museum, a lecture, or an informal event such as a
Science Cafe.
Strand 4: Understanding the Scientific Enterprise
The practice of science is a dynamic process, based on the continual evaluation of new evidence
and the re-assessment of old ideas. In this way, scientists are constantly modifying their view of the
world. This strand also focuses on learners' understanding of science as a way of knowing-as a social
enterprise that advances scientific understanding over time. It includes an appreciation of how the
thinking of scientists and scientific communities changes over time as well as the learners' sense of how
his or her own thinking changes.
Informal learning environments and programming are particularly well suited to providing
opportunities for people to experience some of the excitement of participation in a process that is
constantly open to revision. Developing an understanding of how scientific knowledge evolves can be
conveyed in museums and by media through the creative reconstruction of the history of scientific ideas
and the depiction of contemporary advances. Also compelling are the human stories behind great
scientific discoveries. Scientists such as Galileo Galilei, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, Marie
Curie, James Watson and Francis Crick, and Barbara McClintock are just a few people whose stories
provide examples of how scientific ideas evolve.
Creating and delivering opportunities for participants to assume the role of a scientist can be a
powerful way for them to come understand science as a way of knowing. For example, Cell Lab, an
exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota, gives participants an opportunity to use authentic scientific
instruments to conduct simple experiments. Visitors find the process engaging and view it as an
opportunity to become more familiar with the ways in which science involves searching for core
explanations of an event or phenomena. With guidance, such experiences can help participants reflect on
their own state of knowledge and how it was acquired.
Strand 5: Engaging in Scientific Practices - Using the Tools and Language of Science
One of the myths about science is that it is a solitary endeavor, but this notion is misleading.
Science is a social process, in which people with knowledge of the language, tools, and core values of
the community come together to achieve a greater understanding of a scientific problem. The story of
how the human genome was mapped is a good example of how scientists with different areas of
expertise came together to accomplish a Herculean task that no single scientist could have completed on
his/her own.
Through participation in informal environments, non-scientists can develop a greater
appreciation of how such gains are made within the scientific community. They also can refine their
own mastery of the language and tools of science. For examples, kids participating in a camp about
forensic science come together as a community to solve a particular problem. Using the specialized tools
of science, such as chemical tests to identify a substance found at the crime scene, students become
more familiar with the means by which scientists work on their research problems.
By engaging in scientific activities, participants also develop greater facility with the language of
scientists; terms like "hypothesis," "experiment," "systematic observation," and "control" begin to
appear naturally in their discussion of what they are learning. In these ways, non-scientists begin to gain
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entree into the culture of the scientific community.
Strand 6: Identifying with the Scientific Enterprise
Through experiences in informal environments, some people may start to change the way they
think about themselves. They may see themselves as scientists, too. This transformation occurs within
many informal education programs when youth realized that they are smart because they can do science.
When a transformation such as this one takes place, young people may begin to think seriously about a
career in a science or health field, engineering, or in a research laboratory.
Older adults, who have more time on their hands after retirement, could take up hobbies that help
give them a new identity at a new time of their lives. For example, in addition to spending many hours
outside cultivating his beds, an amateur gardener also may pursue another passion, such as growing
orchids in a greenhouse. To become more knowledgeable, he or she could seek out information in
books, online, or at the local botanical garden club. After becoming somewhat of an expert on orchids,
the gardener may be asked to talk to senior citizens at an intergenerational center about his hobby. At
this point, the gardener has assumed a new identity-as an expert in his field and as a teacher. Changing
individual perspectives about science is a far-reaching goal of informal learning experiences.