Learning Through Making to Support Environmental Sciences Understandings: Model-Building in a Watershed Summer Program

• In Event: 66.034 - The Design of Making Environments

Abstract

To understand how making practices influence learning about the environmental sciences, we examined how 26 children (aged 6-11) represented their scientific thinking via the creation of physical artifacts using a prototyping tool. This study is situated within a three-day summer program in an arboretum about the community’s hydrogeological landscape. Our research question centers on how making supported youths’ learning about land-water interactions present in their community. Primary data are 7.5 hours of video and photographs of the youths’ models. Analytical techniques include data matrices in the form of a timeline of making activities and discourse analyses of six small groups. Findings show the interplay of youths’ imaginative and scientific sensemaking tools.

Authors

• Heather Toomey Zimmerman, The Pennsylvania State University

• Susan M. Land, The Pennsylvania State University

• XinYun Peng, The Pennsylvania State University

• Soo Hyeon Kim, The Pennsylvania State University