No, I have not heard of parents or other family members getting involved as a result of their children's participation in school but that is a worthwhile question to ask the students and teachers. Thanks for inquiring about that. Some of the classes have given presentations about their research to the community in various ways, and, in fact, one teacher gave a presentation to City Commission and they voted to become a Monarch Butterfly supportive city pledging to create more monarch way stations and pollinator gardens in their community. The community has responded very favorably to all of the students' presentations and to other news about these projects.

We have a rather rigorous research agenda to assess changes in student engagement, motivation, and mastery of state science standards. Instruments were developed to assess these constructs and are administered regularly to the students in the iEvolve project and to a similar number of students in schools chosen for similarity in demographics and other critical factors, who are not participating in the iEvolve project. We include analysis of student performance on state assessments however, those have been changing annually so do not allow longitudinal comparison but the schools have been using MAP tests and we are in the process of analyzing that data, as well. We also survey teachers who have consistently reported improvements in student behavior, interest, and motivation. The assessments include probes of students' ability to articulate the nature of scientific inquiry. But we do not have any instruments to examine their identity as scientists. It would certainly be worthwhile to learn about that but it was not included in our research plans. Perhaps in our next project!

How scientists communicate with each other and with the public is a very important aspect of the practice of science and worthy of great attention. However, the focus of our project is learning how student participation in real science research that relates to community interests affects student motivation and engagement in learning science as well as how well they learn. The teachers and students do learn that an essential part of the practice of science is scientists reporting to other scientists their findings as well as their methods and reasoning for peer review. All of the students participate in a science research symposium at the end of each year in which they present their research to each other, to the professional scientists who are helping to guide their work, and the community is invited to attend these symposia. The students and teachers also disseminate their work in other ways. However, the emphasis has been on students mastering state science standards because of the intense pressures on the schools to demonstrate success by these criteria for their survival. Thus, not much time or effort is spent by students and teachers examining the specific aspects of communication within science or between science and society, as worthwhile as that would be. Language arts teachers are also involved in the project and there are times when certain aspects of communication are examined but given that these are grades 3-8 and given the intense pressure for students to meet certain very specific language arts standards, there is relatively little freedom to explore these types of communication more holistically despite the benefits that might help realize.

The pressure for teachers to focus on standards and tests does seem like a barrier to a lot of great projects I hear about. Even if the project is a fantastic idea, realistically teachers must find a way to incorporate it into the material they are required to cover and the time they have available (which is always limited). Did you have any challenges in finding projects and partnerships that would work for the teachers? Any good take aways for creating successful partnerships?

For sure we strove diligently to design research projects that were as closely aligned with some key science standards for each grade level and that also involved research methods that are well suited for students at that grade level and that could be conducted within the time and resource constraints of the schools. 

I would definitely recommend studying state learning standards carefully, and engaging in frequent and effective communication with the school partners and the scientists leading the research projects under conditions that welcome all perspectives and opinions to try to ensure that the challenges are recognized early so that efforts can be directed to best meet those.

I believe that these types of challenges can be met well with creative and novel approaches but one has to think somewhat differently and broadly at times about how to best work within the constraints while striving to achieve all of the targeted goals.

Thanks Robert! It sounds like your team has given this issue careful thought. One of the other video showcase projects - PlantingScience Digging Deeper - talked about having "day in the life" dinner discussions with their teachers and scientists during which each described what their typical day looked like and the challenges they face. I thought that was a creative idea for addressing some of these challenges.

Yes, I agree, it is very important to know the challenges that teachers are facing in all aspects of their roles. We have an external project evaluation agency that frequently surveys teachers and interviews a select sample. We also have teachers meet regularly in Professional Learning Teams and these teams report to us after each meeting. We ask teachers to complete brief reports as "exit tickets" following each of our professional development sessions. We also engage teachers in informal conversations when opportunities arise such as during meals at our PD sessions. We have select teachers whom we call Teacher Ambassadors who lead the PLTs and who report to us, as well. We have one or two teachers with special liaison roles in each district who are well respected and connect with all of the teachers in their district who are involved in our project. These teacher liaisons help keep us informed about issues, concerns, and challenges. And we discuss many issues with the school administrators. But having meals that are specifically devoted to hearing teachers' voices is an excellent idea.

I don't believe that teachers have ever faced as intense and challenging demands as they do now. It is the most important role in our society and now carries some of the greatest demands. Understanding how we can best support teachers is a very worthy effort.