Hickory Corners, Mich. — Teachers and informal educators of K-12 students are invited to engage in science teaching professional development this summer at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station. The 25th annual K-12 Partnership Summer Institute is set for 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 25, through Thursday, June 27. This year’s theme is “The Power of Long-term Partnerships.” About the Summer Institute Each day will start with a lecture from someone whose career has been impacted by their participation in the Partnership,
Data Nuggets researchers lead collaborative study examining representation in STEM curriculum
When you were a child, what was your image of a scientist? Could you imagine yourself in those shoes? A new, National Science Foundation-funded study led by Michigan State University researchers and others aims to better understand how science instruction that contains diverse scientist role models affects student attitudes about science, technology, engineering and mathematics—STEM—courses and careers. Data Nuggets, a project that has created free STEM classroom activities since 2011, is integral to the new study. Data Nuggets was founded by postdoctoral
LTER Data Nuggets: Breathing new life into long-term data
Each year the KBS LTER program awards graduate students summer fellowships. Here Elizabeth Schultheis and Melissa Kjevik, now both postdoctoral researchers with Michigan State University, describe the project their summer fellowship supported. Today it is apparent that students and the public continue to struggle when faced with data and its interpretation. When asked to make sense of data taught in their science classrooms, gathered during classroom inquiry projects, or found in the news, students are unable to connect quantitative information to explanations of