October 5, 2019
Smithsonian Science Education Center has developed community research guides which use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to focus on sustainable actions that are student-defined and implemented. These modules attempting to empower the next generation of decision makers capable of making the right choices about the complex socio-scientific issues facing human society, blends together previous practices in Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE), Social Studies Education (SSE), Global Citizenship Education (GCE), and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Over the initial 2 days Katherine and Amy engaged Agastya’s instructors in a discussion on exploring their project-based framework - how the modules are envisioned, their structure, the research that went into them, viewpoints of the researchers, how learning outcomes are derived, how scientific thinking was merged into the structure of the guide etc. This discussion used SSEC module ‘Mosquito’ as an exemplar for this. On the final day Amy and Katherine went through a ‘Life Science’ module from their Smithsonian Science for Classroom series highlighting how they have developed these intersecting modules in tune with the national curriculum. They emphasized on the ‘Three-dimensional’ learning principles - Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), Scientific and Engineering Practices (SEPs) and Cross Cutting Concepts (eg: patterns, proportion, and energy) which was used to develop these units.
Read more at http://sargasamvad.org/activity_details/106