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Journey through the Universe programs for students,
teachers, families, and the public are a window on the nature
of science and the lives of modern-day explorers, with special
emphasis on not just what is known about our world
and the universe but how it has come to be known.
This approach reveals the very personal means by which researchers
ask questions of the world and empower themselves to create
a pathway to an answer.
 It
is a vision recognizing that our understanding of the Universe
is far more than just a book of knowledge. Understanding comes
from curious people working hard and smart, and ultimately
reveling in their ability to pull back the veil of nature
and bear witness to something wholly new. If knowledge is
the end, then it is the remarkably human journey to that end
that embraces imagination and ingenuity and has the power
to captivate. And placing the learner within this context
of journey provides them a deep appreciation for the book
of knowledge, a richer grasp of the content and its conceptual
underpinnings, an appreciation of the very human pathway researchers
take from question to answer and, in some, will inspire the
next generation of engineers and scientists.
This pedagogical approach to science education is embedded
in the stories told by the Visiting Researchers—to thousands
of students in a community’s classrooms, and at family
and public programs; is the core instructional design philosophy
for the Journey lessons; and defines how we model
best teaching practices during Journey professional
development workshops. |
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The
Power of Heroes
We
are all born curious. We are all born to learn, and
to revel in the act of learning something new. It is
so innately human that societies build schools and school
systems dedicated to the education of their children.
But learning is a very personal experience that can
only be empowered by the learner. Teachers and parents
may lead the way, creating an immersive environment
for learning, but it is a journey that is begun and
seen to its conclusion by the learner. It is a journey
that each of us is meant to take regularly and throughout
life.
A journey of personal learning most often begins with
inspiration. It may come from others who have been there
before us—those who can impart a sense of the
human experience. To us, these are our heroes. Their
inspiration empowers us to take that first step, to
ask that first question— it propels us to discover
a world we never knew existed.
Our heroes truly have the power to launch us on a remarkable
journey. And heroes can come in many different flavors—why
not scientists and engineers? What better hero to inspire
the next generation of the curious than an engineer
figuring out how to build machines to detect other Earths
around distant stars, the meteorologist creating sophisticated
computer models for hurricane prediction, or the planetary
scientist searching for life on Mars? |
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We believe that Journey through the Universe programming
should encompass the continuum of human exploration, including:
- explorations of the past and how we have come to our
current understanding of our world and the Universe, in
order to celebrate human achievement;
- present day explorations, providing relevance to our time
through participation by the research community and the
use of current news as teachable moments; and
- a look to the future, to reveal the nature of debate
on the current scientific frontier, and glimpse what awaits
the next generation.
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| We believe that our science education programs must first
inspire—provide an ‘Oh Wow’ experience that
is both emotional and personal, most often through authentic
experiences with researchers who live on the frontiers of human
understanding. We also believe that inspiration alone is not
enough. We recognize the power of inspiration as a gateway to
richer educational experiences. The embraced educational paradigm
is— |
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Good science education must therefore provide opportunities
for students to slip on the shoes of the researcher and experience
scientific exploration through personal involvement. We believe
that ‘Learner as Explorer’ is truly the only way
to develop an understanding of science, and an appreciation
for how naturally it grows from innate human curiosity.
More generally, we want to help equip the student with the
skills necessary to be a self-motivated, effective, life-long
learner, and one who can revel in the endeavor of exploration.
It is teachers of science that can enable these kinds experiences
for students on a daily basis. Through professional development
programs for the community’s educators—programs
that embrace the teacher as a facilitator of inquiry-based
exploration in the classroom—Journey through the
Universe provides training on compendia of grade K-12
lessons instructionally designed to embrace scientific exploration
in the classroom. |
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