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Abstract

SENCER offers a model for integrating aspects of formal and informal learning. This article explores their intersection in the SENCER context, emphasizing the common learner focus and role of relevance in stimulating interest. The SENCER-ISE project further strengthens connections through Higher Education-Informal Science Education partnerships that can bring complementary expertise as well as greater access to the community through public settings and audiences. Applying the lessons learned from the planned evaluation studies will be critical to identifying effective practices and achieving impact at increased scale.

Introduction

This article explores connections between SENCER and informal science education (ISE), expanding on a talk that Alan Friedman invited me to present at the Fourth Annual Science Symposium co-sponsored by SENCER, the National Center for Science & Civic Engagement, and Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Liberal Arts and Society (Ucko 2009). At that time, I served as deputy director of NSF’s Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings and had known Friedman for many years, since we both had spent most of our careers in the science center field. I had been impressed by similarities between the SENCER approach to aspects of informal learning (and was the “fellow at the National Science Foundation” [Burns 2011a, 2] who helped make a connection). Friedman was instrumental in organizing the subsequent SENCER-ISE invitational conference, which in March of 2011 brought together representatives from both communities to discuss potential synergies. Funding was provided by NSF, and Friedman helped to obtain a Noyce Foundation grant for the conference and then for an initial 10 Higher Education-ISE partnerships. I currently serve as an external advisor, along with Marsha Semmel, on the SENCER-ISE project built upon his legacy.

Informal learning can be defined in a variety of ways (Ucko and Ellenbogen 2008, 241). In general, it is “free-choice,” self-directed, and socially mediated. Table 1 lists various attributes of informal learning in contrast with those of formal learning, to identify key differences. Although context dependent and realized to varying degrees, the extremes are represented here in order to accentuate distinctions. This caveat applies both to the “informal” and to the “formal” descriptors, particularly as they relate (or not) to varying modes of higher education.

TABLE 1. Contrasting Attributes of Formal and Informal Learning

Formal Learning	Informal Learning
Compulsory; required	Voluntary; “free choice”
Content focus	Learner focus
School-based	Ubiquitous; museums, media, etc.
Children & youth	All ages, lifelong
Set times	Any time
Extended time periods	Episodic; often brief
Large peer group setting	Individual, family, or small group
Regular assessment	No tests or grades
Teacher-directed	Self-directed
Cognitive emphasis	Affective emphasis
Extrinsic motivation	Intrinsic motivation
Transmission model	Contructivist; personal meaning-making
Lecture-based	Experimental; hands-on; interactive
Favored learning style	Flexible learning styles
Serious	Enjoyable; engaging; fun
Goal-focused	Exploratory; open-ended
Curriculum-based; “push”	Interest-driven; “pull”
Constrained by curriculum	Unlimited; open-ended; flexible
Predetermined content or focus	Any content or focus
Disciplinary content	Interdisciplinary; transdisciplinary
May appear irrelevant	Personally relevant

 

Connections with Informal Learning

In reviewing outcomes of the SENCER-ISE conference, Friedman and Mappen note that the emphasis on civic engagement provided the “glue” that brought the two communities together (2011, 33). That focus takes advantage of certain strengths of informal learning, several of which they identified, based on an abridged table from the 2009 presentation and the “strands” of the Learning Science in Informal Environments report (NRC 2009). The discussion that follows extends that analysis through comparison with key features of SENCER. (It cannot capture all points of intersection with informal learning, however, since it is likely that the diversity of SENCER courses and settings create additional connections beyond those identified here.)

“‘Interest’ is a driving force in the SENCER ideals” (Burns 2011b, 9).

Because informal learning is generally voluntary and self-directed, it is motivated by personal interest. The SENCER approach offers a similar means to stimulate student interest and engagement by making connections to “matters that are real, relevant and of vital interest to citizens in a democracy” (Burns 2012, 7). A number of the SENCER-ISE partnerships, for example, involve students in citizen-science activities in which they gather and analyze data related to local, national, or international issues.

“They [SENCER courses] are essentially interdisciplinary, so they are more like the world itself than a typical undergraduate curriculum” (Burns 2011b, 8; see www.sencer.net/Resources/models.cfm).

In general, informal learning experiences are similarly interdisciplinary, since they tend to emphasize real applications and issues rather than particular disciplinary content. Even “Exploratorium-type” science exhibits may involve multiple disciplines, because they are phenomenon based. (For example, the Heat Camera, which reveals the infrared radiation emitted by a visitor’s body, demonstrates aspects of both physics and biology.) Like SENCER activities, they are typically “authentic experiences” (Burns 2011b, 8).

“SENCER courses and projects that have been designed with students helping all the way just tend to be better. They are more likely to capture something that truly matters to and interests students…. Students can make vital and valuable intellectual contributions to course content and design, development, and refinement” (Burns 2012, 9).

This aspect of SENCER emphasizes its focus on the learner and the value of involving the target audience in the planning and implementation of the educational activities. That same focus is central to developing informal learning experiences that successfully engage their target audiences and achieve the intended impacts.

“It helps to tie assessment to pedagogy (including reflection on course activities like service learning, research, etc); assess frequently and at intervals short enough to enable you to make ‘repairs’ and mid-course corrections…” (Burns 2012, 10).

Although informal learning is not assessed as in formal education, evaluation plays a related role. Front-end evaluation seeks to determine audience background and interests to guide the planning of the informal learning experiences. Formative evaluation, through such activities as testing prototypes or a pilot program, obtains feedback at early stages of development when changes are relatively easy to make. Summative evaluation seeks to determine the outcomes and learner impacts of the experiences, whether intended or not. The results can help to improve future development and to address institutional or funder needs. Remedial evaluation is sometimes carried out after completion to make improvements in ongoing programs or exhibits.

SENCER-ISE

SENCER offers a model for synergistically integrating aspects of formal and informal learning to take advantage of the strengths that each offers. The formal course component, for example, brings greater depth than may be possible in informal settings, along with more extended periods of time for the learning activities. In the SENCER-ISE project, formal-informal connections are further enhanced through the active participation of ISE-related organizations that partner with faculty members at a college or university (Table 2).

TABLE 2. SENCER-ISE Partner Organizations

Higher Education Partner	ISE Partner
Antioch College	Glen Helen Outdoor Education Center
Brooklyn College – CUNY	Gateway National Recreation Area
Cornell University	Sciencenter
Fordham University	Wildlife Conservation Society
Hamilton, Hope, and Oberlin Colleges	Green Science Policy Institute
New Mexico EPSCoR	New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science
Paul Smith’s College	The Wild Center
Raritan Valley Community College	New Jersey Audubon Society
St. Mary’s College of California	Lindsay Wildlife Museum
University of Connecticut	Connecticut Science Center

In addition to bringing expertise in communicating with the public, partners can also provide a setting and access to an audience and larger community.

Typical higher-education-based ISE relationships focus on communicating aspects of current research to the public through museum programs or exhibits, citizen science, science festivals, science cafés, and other informal learning experiences. Examples range from outreach efforts by individual scientists to national initiatives such as the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network. Because most of the SENCER-ISE partnerships add a course component, they also create the opportunity to transform undergraduate instruction by strengthening the learner focus through the means previously described. Movement between the different settings and cultures of the formal and informal partners may further enhance student learning through the process of boundary crossing (Akkerman and Bakker 2011). For example, carrying out research that traverses both Cornell’s Early Childhood Cognition Lab and the real-world Sciencenter can provide students with a perspective not possible within either domain alone.

In addition, these partnerships offer valuable professional development to the participating faculty and ISE participants, as well as introducing new college student and public audiences to ISE institutions (Friedman and Mappen 2012, 137–139). Perhaps most importantly, they can impact the community in meaningful ways through the activities carried out by students. For example, the Antioch College/Glen Helen project will help reforest a public nature preserve, while the Paul Smith’s College/Wild Center will address regional climate change issues by targeting gatekeepers.

Each partnership will carry out its own evaluation to assess the process and outcomes. In addition, a summative evaluation conducted for the project overall will focus on lessons learned from the collaboration between formal and informal partners. Longer-term success will be determined in part by the extent of institutionalization of programs and relationships that lead to sustainability. Findings from these and other studies will be critical to identifying effective practices and steps necessary to increase the scale of this initial undertaking and to amplify its benefits. Addressing SENCER, Wm. David Burns has suggested that “creating and sustaining a community of practice is entirely within our capacity and is necessary to achieving larger scale reforms” (2012, 8). Such a community would benefit greatly from including informal-learning practitioners and researchers among its members. Alan Friedman would have been the first to participate.

About the Author

In addition to consulting at Museums + more; David Ucko co-chairs a National Research Council study on communicating chemistry in informal settings and serves on the Visitor Studies Association board. Previously, he was deputy director for the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings and head of Informal Science Education at NSF, founding president of Kansas City’s Science City at Union Station, deputy director of the California Museum of Science & Industry, vice president of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, and a chemistry professor at Antioch College and City University of New York. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from M.I.T. and his B.A. from Columbia College.

References

Akkerman, S.F., and A. Bakker. 2011. “Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects.” Review of Educational Research 81 (2): 132–69.

Burns, W.D. 2011a. “The SENCER Context.” In Proceedings of Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities-Informal Science Education Conference. Jersey City, NJ: Liberty Science Center, March 6–8, 1–3. http://www.ncsce.net/initiatives/documents/sisefinal.pdf (accessed April 13, 2015).

———. 2011b. “‘But You Needed Me’: Reflections on the Premises, Purposes, Lessons Learned, and Ethos of SENCER, Part 1.” Science Education & Civic Engagement 3 (2): 5–12.

———. 2012. “‘But You Needed Me’: Reflections on the Premises, Purposes, Lessons Learned, and Ethos of SENCER, Part 2.” Science Education & Civic Engagement 4 (1): 6–13.

Friedman, A.J., and E. Mappen. 2011. “SENCER-ISE: Establishing Connections Between Formal and Informal Science Educators to Advance STEM Learning through Civic Engagement.” Science Education & Civic Engagement 3 (2): 31–37.

———. 2012. “Formal/Informal Science Learning through Civic Engagement: Both Sides of the Education Equation.” In Science Education and Civic Engagement: The Next Level, 1121:133–43. ACS Symposium Series 1121. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society.

National Research Council (U.S.). 2009. Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Committee on Learning Science in Informal Environments. P. Bell, B. Lewenstein, A.W. Shouse, and M. Feder, eds. Board on Science Education, Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

Ucko, D.A. 2009. “Informal Learning & Synergies with Formal Education: NSF Perspective.” Presented at the Fourth Annual Science Symposium, Preparing Undergraduates of Tomorrow: How Informal Science Education Experiences Can Improve College Readiness, Franklin & Marshall College, Center for Liberal Arts and Society, Lancaster, PA, October 17. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/an-nsf-perspective-video/id480218717?i=105513834&mt=2 (accessed April 13, 2015).

Ucko, D.A., and K.M. Ellenbogen. 2008. “Impact of Technology on Informal Science Learning.” In The Impact of the Laboratory and Technology on Learning and Teaching Science K-16, D.W. Sunal, E.L. Wright, and C. Sundberg, eds. Research in Science Education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 239–266.

 

Youth Scientific Literacy and Nonformal Education Programs

Science is a driving force of twenty-first-century society. As a consequence, related public policy issues (e.g., stem cell research, global warming, food safety and security, water quality and distribution) require informed choices made by a population that is scientifically literate (Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy 2007; Hobson 2008). However, scientific literacy among the adult population in the United States is considered low (Miller 2006), and data from standardized assessments of K–12 youth in recent years have shown poor achievement in science at all three grade levels tested—fourth, eighth, and twelfth (e.g., Fleischman et al. 2010; Gonzales et al. 2008; National Center for Education Statistics 2011).

While improvements in school-based science education represent one way to address the low levels of academic achievement in science among K–12 youth (Smith and Trexler 2006), a growing body of literature suggests that nonformal science programs can help attend to the issue, in part because they emphasize three cross-cutting characteristics of learning: people-, place-, and culture-centeredness (Bell et al. 2009; Fenichel and Schweingruber 2010; Kisiel 2006; Kress et al. 2008; National Research Council [NRC] 2009). Specifically, research findings have shown that out-of-school time (OST) science programming can increase youths’ science content knowledge and process skills; additionally, such programs can have positive effects on youths’ confidence and interest in science (National Research Council 2009; Stake and Mares 2005).

The 4-H Youth Development Program and Youth Scientific Literacy

The 4-H Youth Development Program is a national nonformal education organization for individuals aged 5–19. Programmatically, 4-H focuses on advancing positive youth development through hands-on educational opportunities that include civic engagement. Complementing its century-long history of offering science projects and programs ranging from geology and minerals to soil conservation, forestry to wildlife and fisheries, and computer science to animal and veterinary science (United States Department of Agriculture 2003), National 4-H established the 4-H Science Mission Mandate in an effort to expand and strengthen 4-H science education efforts through state-based 4-H programs (Schmiesing 2008). The California 4-H Program responded to the National 4-H Science Mission Mandate by commencing a statewide 4-H Science, Engineering, and Technology (SET) Initiative (University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources 2008). This effort focuses on science programming, educator professional development, and evaluation in California 4-H SET, with an emphasis on scientific literacy as it relates to key statewide needs in the areas of natural resources, agriculture, and nutrition (Regents of the University of California 2009).

Defining Scientific Literacy to Advance 4-H Science Programming

To develop a framework, researchers and program staff began by asking the question: What does it mean to be scientifically literate within the context of California 4-H? However, despite a plethora of existing definitions of scientific literacy (Roberts 2007), there was no consensus about the meaning that allowed us to answer this question. This is a critical first step: a definition for the construct of scientific literacy is necessary to develop and advance science programming (Roberts 2007). Thus, our efforts to advance science programming in California 4-H began by framing a definition of scientific literacy (Smith et al. 2015).

A review of the literature revealed that most existing definitions of scientific literacy are not contextualized; rather, they focus on a broad array of science concepts and processes considered important to scientists (Falk et al. 2007; Laugksch 2000; Roberts 2007) but ignore “the social aspects of science and the needs of citizenship” (Lang et al. 2006, 179). In contrast, when viewing science learning as being contextualized, referred to as a “focus-on-situations” approach, programming places an emphasis on authentic science-related issues that individuals may encounter (Roberts 2007). Because of the contextualized nature of 4-H, we concentrated on developing a definition of scientific literacy that would accommodate relevant science programming across multiple contexts and include civic engagement, a hallmark of the 4-H experience (Brennan et al. 2007; Hairston 2004). By considering the construct of scientific literacy from this perspective, the definition developed for the California 4-H Program includes four anchor points: science content, scientific reasoning skills, interest and attitude, and contribution through applied participation. The four anchor points are described further as follows:

• Anchor Point I: Science Content. Content knowledge is an important component of any definition of scientific literacy (NRC 2007; NRC 2009; Roberts 2007). A “focus-on-situations” approach places the emphasis on science-related content relevant to the citizens of California (e.g., water resource management, sustainable food systems, sustainable natural ecosystems, food safety and security, management of endemic and invasive pests and diseases, energy security and green technologies, and nutrition education and childhood obesity) that have been identified as germane to the state’s citizens (Regents of the University of California 2009).
• Anchor Point II: Scientific Reasoning Skills. The advancement of scientific reasoning skills encourages learners to become more proficient in the practices of science by asking questions, developing and using models, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations, engaging in argumentation from evidence, and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information (NRC, 2012). Referred to by Colvill and Pattie as the “‘building blocks’ of scientific literacy” (2002, 20), scientific reasoning skills provide learners with the necessary abilities to participate in scientific investigations, challenge conclusions, and question understanding.
• Anchor Point III: Interest and Attitudes. Enhancing interest in and attitudes toward science can influence individuals in a variety of ways: it can stimulate their interest in science careers, help guide their responses to science-related situations in their everyday lives, and enhance their motivation to become involved in science-related issues in meaningful ways as citizens (Bybee and McCrae 2011). This is especially germane to audiences that have had limited educational opportunities in science, including women and ethnic minorities (Else-Quest et al. 2013; Scott and Martin 2012).
• Anchor Point IV: Contribution through Applied Participation. The application of knowledge and skills in authentic contexts helps individuals gain a deeper understanding of scientific concepts and develop their abilities to think critically (Jones 2012). Furthermore, Anchor Point IV is particularly relevant to 4-H youth and the development of citizenship and life skills through civic engagement opportunities. Specifically, youth apply new knowledge and skills in ways that help address authentic community needs they have identified as important (e.g., Smith 2010).

Conclusion

Twenty-first-century society requires a scientifically literate citizenry (Hobson 2008; Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy 2007). Scientific literacy among youth populations is low (e.g., National Center for Education Statistics 2011), and nonformal science programs can help attend to this issue (e.g., Fenichel and Schweingruber 2010). However, to accomplish this, a definition of scientific literacy is needed (Roberts 2007). In California 4-H, we developed a definition of scientific literacy that includes the engagement of youth in science-related issues at the community level. Involving youth in service opportunities results in contributions to the community and advances the youths’ development (Brennan et al. 2007). Furthermore, by engaging youth fully in community-based change efforts they learn to function effectively in society (Nitzberg 2005).

Organizationally, California 4-H science programming is grounded in constructivist-based pedagogical strategies. Specifically, learning opportunities utilize guided inquiry-based instruction embedded in a five-step experiential learning cycle that places an emphasis on the authentic application of new knowledge and skills—the point where civic engagement intersects with 4-H science programming. To date, however, California 4-H has lacked a coherent framework to guide the key elements of science programming—the development of new curricula, the adaptation of existing curricula, educator professional development, and assessment efforts—in a manner that, by design, includes civic engagement.

The definition of scientific literacy that was developed will provide a programmatic structure for all elements of science programming in California 4-H; it will also afford a consistent, systematic strategy that will allow for the comparison of 4-H science programs within and across contexts (e.g., 4-H clubs, camps, afterschool programs), the evaluation of pedagogies, and assessments of targeted learner outcomes (Roberts 2007). Furthermore, the definition of scientific literacy in California 4-H intentionally includes the social aspects of science by engaging youth directly in relevant community issues. Such civic engagement is a key component of 4-H programming; in a larger context, however, it is essential to helping develop an informed public that is faced ever more frequently with decisions on science-related public policy issues.

About the Authors

Andrea Ambrose, who serves as the acting director of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Development Services, has thirty years of professional experience in the out-of-school education field including more than twenty years as an art and science museum educator, program developer, and fundraiser for organizations in Colorado, California, and West Virginia. She has taught standards-based science and art workshops for K–12 students, conducted professional development programs for K–12 educators, worked with and managed youth and adult volunteers, and secured significant funding from corporations, foundations, and public agencies for programmatic and capital projects. Her efforts to elevate the quality of out-of-school time programs for young people continue as she works to facilitate strong programmatic and funding partnerships on behalf of the University of California 4-H program and the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. She holds a B.A. in Studio Art and Art Education from Colorado State University and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Oregon.

Lynn Schmitt-McQuitty works as a county-based faculty member for the University of California Cooperative Extension and serves the geographic region of Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito Counties with youth development programming in nonformal science. 

Her scope of work is focused on developing multidisciplinary and integrated approaches to addressing California’s and the nation’s decline in youth science performance and achievement. This is accomplished by conducting applied research, education and programs with nonformal educators utilizing effective professional development models, curricula, and deliveries, to engage youth in self-directed learning and discovery.

Schmitt-McQuitty graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point in 1987 with a B.S. degree in Elementary Education with an emphasis in Outdoor Education, and obtained her M.S. degree in Outdoor Education in 1991 from Northern Illinois University.

The overarching goal of Martin H. Smith‘s work is to develop, evaluate, and publish effective, research-based science curricula and educator professional development models for school-based and nonformal education programs. Specifically, he focuses on educational materials and strategies that emphasize constructivism, reflective practice, and situated learning. His current work focuses on applied research related to youth scientific literacy in the areas of bio-security and water science education. He is also engaged in efforts to develop a theoretical basis for science education programming within California’s 4-H Youth Development Program, with an emphasis on defining scientific literacy, defining curriculum, and implementation fidelity. In his tenure at UC-Davis he has supervised twenty graduate fellows from science disciplines in education outreach work through the School of Education, has served on committees for graduate students (M.S. and Ph.D.), and has mentored over 450 undergraduate students involved in a wide variety of research, development, and extension efforts.

Steven Worker coordinates the California 4-H Science, Engineering, and Technology (SET) Initiative, an effort to strengthen youth science education in the 4-H Youth Development Program. Worker is a Ph.D. candidate at the UC Davis School of Education and is engaged in a qualitative case study of the co-construction of design-based learning environments by youth and adult volunteers in out-of-school time.

References

Bell, P., B. Lewenstein, A. Shouse, and M. Feder. 2009. Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Brennan, M. A., R.V. Barnett, and E. Baugh. 2007. “Youth Involvement in Community Development: Implications and Possibilities for Extension.” Journal of Extension 45 (4).

Bybee, R., and B. McCrae. 2011. “Scientific Literacy and Student Attitudes: Perspectives from PISA 2006 Science.” International Journal of Science Education 33 (1): 7–26.

Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century (U.S.), and Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (U.S.). 2007. Rising above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Covill, M., and I. Pattie. 2002. Science Skills: The Building Blocks for Scientific Literacy.” Investigating: Australian Primary and Junior Science Journal 18 (3): 20–22.

Else-Quest, N. M., C.C. Mineo, and A.H. Higgins. 2013. “Math and Science Attitudes and Achievement at the Intersection of Gender and Ethnicity.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 37 (3): 293–309.

Falk, J.H., M. Storksdieck, and L.D. Dierking. 2007. “Investigating Public Science Interest and Understanding: Evidence for the Importance of Free-choice Learning.” Public Understanding of Science, 16: 455–469.

Fenichel, M., and H.A. Schweingruber. 2010. Surrounded by Science: Learning Science in Informal Environments. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Fleischman, H.L., P.J. Hopstock, M.P. Pelczar, and B.E. Shelley. 2010. Highlights from PISA 2009: Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Old Students in Reading, Mathematics, and Science Literacy in an International Context (NCES 2011-004). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Dept. of Education.

Gonzales, P., T. Williams, L. Jocelyn, S. Roey, D. Kastberg, and S. Brenwald. 2008. Highlights from TIMSS 2007: Mathematics and Science Achievement of U.S. Fourth- and Eighth-Grade Students in an International Context (NCES 2009–001 Revised). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Hairston, J.E. 2004. “Identifying What 4-H’ers Learn from Community Service Learning Projects.” Journal of Extension 42 (1).

Hobson, A. 2008. “The Surprising Effectiveness of College Scientific Literacy Course.” The Physics Teacher 46, 404-406.

Hurd, P.D. 1998. “Scientific Literacy: New Minds for a Changing World.” Science Education 82: 407–416.

Hussar, K., S. Schwartz, E. Boiselle, and G.G. Noam. 2008. Toward a Systematic Evidence Base for Science in Out-of-School Time: The Role of Assessment. Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency (PEAR), Harvard University and McLean Hospital.

Jones, R.A. 2012. “What Were They Thinking? Instructional Strategies That Encourage Critical Thinking.” The Science Teacher 79 (3): 66–70.

Kisiel, J. 2006. “Urban Teens Exploring Museums: Science Experiences beyond the Classroom.” American Biology Teacher 68 (7): 396, 398–399, 401.

Kress, C. A., K. McClanahan, and J. Zaniewski. 2008. Revisiting How the U.S. Engages Young Minds in Science, Engineering and Technology: A Response to the Recommendations Contained in The National Academies’ “Rising above the Gathering Storm” Report. Chevy Chase, MD: National 4-H Council.

Lang, M., S. Drake, and J. Olson. 2006. “Discourse and the New Didactics of Scientific Literacy.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 38 (2): 177–188.

Laugksch, R.C. 2000. “Scientific Literacy: A Conceptual Overview.” Science Education 84 (1): 71–94.

Millar, R. 2008. “Taking Scientific Literacy Seriously as a Curriculum Aim.” Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching 9 (2): 1–18.

Miller, J. 2006. “Civic Scientific Literacy in Europe and the United States.” Paper presented at the annual conference of the World Association for Public Opinion Research, Montreal, May.

National Center For Education Statistics. 2011. The Nation’s Report Card: Science 2009 (NCES 2011-451). Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2009/2011451.pdf (accessed June 12, 2015).

National Research Council (NRC). 2007. Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

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Nitzberg, J. 2005. “The Meshing of Youth Development and Community Building. Putting Youth at the Center of Community Building.” New Directions for Youth Development 106: 7–16.

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Smith,M.H., and L. Schmitt-McQuitty. 2013. “More Effective Professional Development Can Help 4-H Volunteers Address Need for Youth Scientific Literacy.” California Agriculture 67 (1): 47–53.

Smith, M.H., and C.J. Trexler. 2006.”A University-School Partnership Model: Providing Stakeholders with Benefits to Enhance Science Literacy.” Action in Teacher Education 27 (4): 23–34.

Smith, M.H., S.M. Worker, A.P. Ambrose, and L. Schmitt-McQuitty. 2015. “‘Anchor Points’ to Define Youth Scientific Literacy within the Context of California 4-H.” California Agriculture 69 (2): 77–82.

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The Alan Friedman who telephoned to ask to be excused from working on the SENCER-ISE project for a while so that he could focus on his medical condition was the same Alan Friedman who called on numerous other occasions to say he had a glimmer of an idea or a fully imagined project in mind that would help move the work we are doing from being “nice to necessary.”

Two weeks ago, Alan reported that he had received a “very bad diagnosis” but that he had consulted with people he trusted. He expressed confidence in the people at Sloan Kettering and had hopes for a plan of attack that sounded equally audacious and arduous.

Though there was a thin curtain of sadness and apprehension in his voice, Alan’s general tone and style differed little in our last call from the many other conversations we had had about other ambitious, arduous, and audacious plans.

“I think we have an opportunity,” he would say. And then he would go on to describe an idea he had to encourage formal and informal educators to work for the common good, to strive for what some have called a “perpetual dream” to improve the human condition by enlarging what we all can come to know.

Our last conversation happened on the same day we had previously been scheduled to have lunch. We were to meet at the Century, where of course no business is conducted, so we just planned to talk about the future. Instead, we had that phone call.

On the call with Ellen Mappen and me, Alan spoke with his usual calmness, his usual clarity, in his usual cadence, and with that same curiously wonderful musicality that inhabited each one of his sentences. (Without knowing for sure its source, I have always attributed that sonority to the benefits that come to someone who is as comfortable speaking in French as in English.) He even mustered some humor.

Sensing our shock and our fear, I suspect, Alan took great pains to assure us that getting back to work on our mutual project was a high priority for him. As always, Alan exhibited more concern for our feelings and needs than he expected us to pay to his.

He said he would call us as his health permitted. He asked us to carry on and to share word of his call with only those who needed to know. We were to await further word from him before telling others.

Late last week, when “news” started to come out that Alan was gravely ill, I entertained the comforting illusion that this could have been an extremely bad example of something starting in facts—facts I knew to be true—and descending into rumor. I prayed for an e-mail from Alan bearing the subject line: “News of my demise has been greatly exaggerated.”

As the numbers of people close to Alan began to contact one another to share thoughts, tributes, and memories, my hopes grew fainter. We now have word that Alan died yesterday (May 4, 2014).

There will be times and occasions for proper memorials befitting a man of as many parts as Alan possessed and whose career spans so much intellectual space and so many phases in the history and development of informal education.

We will each have our opportunities to add our own meager contributions to what I am sure will be a panoptic body of tributes—a museum of its own, you could say.

For today, however, I only want to let you know that when we spoke that last time, just two weeks ago, I did get to tell Alan that I loved him. Indeed, Ellen was able to say the same and to let him know that Hailey and all in our community who had the great good fortune of working with him closely did so as well. We told him how much it means to us to work with him and we said we would miss him during his temporary absence from our work. We promised him that we would carry on in his absence. So now, in the face of this profound loss, we will keep that promise.

I need time to collect my thoughts, but something I don’t need time to think about is my first impression of Alan, an impression that has only grown in intensity in the several years we have worked together.

I remember the day and place I met him. Eliza Reilly had invited us to a SENCER regional meeting she had organized at Franklin & Marshall College. I did a talk, as did Alan.

I had become entranced with something called “informal science education” and had had a chat with some folks at NSF about an idea I had that they, and I am speaking of Al DeSena here in particular, had been particularly encouraging about.   I liked my idea (as I tend to), but I was aware just how little I knew about the world of informal science education.

It so happened that Alan, Ellen, and I got seated next to one another at the tables at lunch. Listening to Alan’s ideas, responding to his gentle inquiries, and hearing myself reframe my thoughts in response to his, I had an overwhelming sense that an adult had finally entered our conversation!

Though I now know he was only a few years older than I am and though I am blessed to have wonderful colleagues, Alan seemed to me then as he does now to be uncommonly sage, a truly wise man.

I know I am not alone in having that sense of Alan: Alan as the adult, the wise man, the friend, the understanding and patient parent figure, the man willing to lend his luster to your unpolished idea, the man rigorous and demanding of high quality first in himself and then in others, but relaxed and comfortable in manifold and diverse social situations, and, above all, the man who was a quiet, tireless, and amazingly effective worker in the causes that had the extra benefit to be ones that he shared.

The last thing Alan would want is for our memories of him and his legacy to become enshrined or, worse yet, encased, in some old-fashioned specimen display. If ever there were an occasion for a living museum, it is the celebration of Alan’s life, his work, and his place in our lives.   We will need to become the “living exhibit” of Alan’s work.

It is hard taking this in. For many of you, getting to know Alan recently—as recently as it was for me, too—seemed to be more the beginning of what we expected would be a long time of working together, not the premature and abrupt end that confronts us today.

Consolation eludes me.

Perhaps because of its title, but more for what it says to me about the human condition, as well as our need to take time to observe death and mourn, and still to keep going, I think now, not of science, but another way of knowing that was dear to Alan. I recall the words of W.H. Auden:

Musée des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

 

I know you will join me in extending our sympathy to Alan’s wife, Mickey, and to the remarkable family of Alan’s many friends and admirers of which we at the National Center, the SENCER-ISE project, and the SENCER community constitute another small part.

– Wm. David Burns

Originally published May 5, 2014

 

At the core of Alan’s vision for the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) was the commitment to providing the opportunity for high school and college students to develop their interests in science by sharing the experience of discovery with others. For nearly 30 years, the brilliance of that vision has been proven through the many programs Alan created and inspired, most notably the Science Career Ladder (SCL).

Established in 1986, the SCL program began as a series of graduated opportunities that enabled young people to interact with the public by helping visitors to engage with the science behind the exhibits and demonstrations. Combining youth development and youth employment, the SCL provides high school and college students with a meaningful work experience that offers growth through continuous training and peer mentoring.

The creation of the Science Career Ladder captures many of the qualities that made Alan so invaluable to the informal science field. Alan came to the New York Hall of Science when it was effectively derelict. The building was closed to the public and he often recounted how the first time he visited after taking the job there were puddles on the floor. He and his deputy Sheila Grinell had a knack for finding excellent colleagues, and they quickly pulled together a small committed team, including Dr. Peggy Cole and Dr. Marcia Rudy (who is still at NYSCI.) As the first exhibitions came together, Alan realized the need for a corps of floor staff who could greet the public, help to maintain the exhibitions, and generally enliven the visitor experience. The Exploratorium, a science center in San Francisco founded by Frank Oppenheimer, had created a program for Explainers, and that model was the core of a very smart and opportunistic synthesis that Alan and Dr. Cole created. They recruited students from nearby Queens College with interests ranging from theater to physics, and gave them sufficient training to become Explainers, thereby fulfilling an operational need.

At the same time, they recognized a broader need for expert science teachers. They started to shape the Explainer program into the Science Teacher Career Ladder (as it was originally called) and secured significant funding on the hypothesis that this kind of apprenticeship would encourage more young people to become science educators (before the term STEM was born). This hypothesis turned out to have significant value in encouraging STEM participation, and an early survey documented that over 60 percent of the early Science Career Ladder cohort went on to careers in STEM fields, the majority of those in STEM teaching.

This, in turn, helped to shape the invaluable Wallace Foundation supported Youth Alive program, which disseminated and strengthened youth programs at science centers and children’s museums. While Youth Alive was designed to foster youth development across many domains, the Science Career Ladder continued, and continues to this day, serving the dual purpose of enlivening a visit to NYSCI and fostering STEM careers among its diverse community of participants.

The SCL has become not only a highly recognized program that other institutions have modeled, but also an integral part of NYSCI. The Explainers are the diverse face of our museum, supporting the exploration of science with a range of skills and activities. The SCL’s mission is to encourage young men and women from across New York City to pursue STEM careers. Students participating in the SCL demonstrate enhanced science content knowledge, confidence in oral presentations, and strong problem-solving skills, and they show significant growth in communication abilities, interpersonal skills, and leadership.

In its current form the SCL reaches between 120 and 160 young people a year, with about 85 percent coming from a minority background. As the SCL has evolved, so have the programmatic supports that are offered to participants to expand their skill sets, better preparing them for their next academic and career steps. From career development workshops to opportunities to connect with STEM professionals, the program exposes its participants to a wide range of options that are there for them to pursue.

To honor Alan’s contributions to NYSCI and the field at large, NYSCI has established the Alan J. Friedman Center for the Development of Young Scientists through a generous founding grant from the Noyce Foundation. The Friedman Center will encompass the Science Career Ladder program and will create opportunities for high school and college students across New York City to explore their prospects in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. The goals of the Friedman Center are to develop NYSCI as a place where youth and community organizations can learn about STEM opportunities, with multiple pathways for engaging youth in the STEM career pipeline. As it develops, the Friedman Center will make strategic investments to develop, pilot, and roll out new events and opportunities that broaden our reach to youth in New York City. Alan’s memory will continue to be honored and his legacy will live on.

About the Author

Priya Mohabir has been with the New York Hall of Science for the last 15 years, starting as an Explainer herself. In her various roles in Education and the Explainer teams, Priya has led numerous projects developing and leading professional development for diverse audiences. As the new Director of the Alan J. Friedman Center for the Development of Young Scientists, Priya will lead the Science Career Ladder as well as the Science Career Ladder Institute. Working with the Explainer leadership team she will continue to develop new and interesting opportunities for the Explainers and Residents. We expect to add additional programs to cultivate the interests and careers of young scientists in ways we can now only imagine.

 

Personal Note:

As an alumna of the Science Career Ladder (SCL) program, the I have had invaluable support all along the way. From the motivation to challenge myself to the network of colleagues with whom I share this experience, the SCL has supported my professional growth and has introduced me to some great friends.

 

Alan Friedman was my boss (from 1974-1986), my mentor, and my friend ever since. He was also my ideal example of a true gentleman. Evidence of this came almost every time he would say something. When he was being honored at the 40th Gala Anniversary of the Lawrence Hall of Science, I was struck by how he spoke in his opening words not of himself, but of all the other people who he felt had made important contributions to our collective work.

The first planetarium show I learned to present at the Lawrence Hall of Science was “Stonehenge,” and that creation of his still stands among the best audience participation shows I know of. He was so creative and responsive to new ideas. When I came to him with feedback from my audiences, who wanted to see and hear more about the constellations, he went right to work on a new idea that became one of our most successful and replicated shows: “Constellations Tonight.” I always use that one as an iconic example of audience participation. Instead of the presenter pointing out constellations and spewing out facts and stories, we start by simply handing out star maps to all the audience members and teaching them how to use them.

I’m proud and honored to be part of the team at the Hall that carries on the legacy of audience participation planetarium shows that Alan pioneered in the Participatory Oriented Planetarium (POP) workshops and the Planetarium Educator’s Workshop Guide, which evolved into Planetarium Activities for Successful Shows (PASS; now at http://www.planetarium-activities.org/). To this day we encourage other digital planetariums to include live audience participation in their repertoire of shows, and not to rely simply on recorded programs.

When Alan was President of the International Planetarium Society (1985-1986) I heard him say in a speech that the uniqueness of a planetarium experience comes in no small part from the feeling of community the audience can get by all being together and sharing the experience under the dome. And I’ll never forget one of the many things he taught me that comes up again and again. He said that when presenting a planetarium show and deciding what to include, we should always leave the audience wanting more, rather than trying to squeeze every idea and related fact into the show.  Getting them excited is more important than cramming their brains with stuff they’ll forget anyway. I have found this wisdom to be applicable far beyond planetarium shows, including another expression related to this same idea: that students are not just empty vessels into which teachers should pour their knowledge.

I’m so lucky to have known Alan!

About the Author

Alan Gould was Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science Planetarium (UC Berkeley) from 1998-2009. He has over 36 years of experience developing and presenting hands-on science activities and 22 years of experience organizing and leading teacher education workshops. He was also Co-Investigator for Education and Public Outreach for the NASA Kepler mission (2000-2015), Co-Directs the Hands-On Universe project, and is co-author of Great Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS) teacher guides. Currently he works on the Full Option Science System (FOSS) middle school course revision team and directs the Global Systems Science high school curriculum project at Lawrence Hall of Science

 

Dr. Alan Friedman was a brilliant science educator with whom I worked closely for about a decade. Early in our collaboration, he described how the best ideas are found at the intersection of science with the arts and humanities. Throughout his career, Alan explored that intersection, and he was always excited by projects at the New York Hall of Science and elsewhere that drew from the best of the sciences, the arts, and the humanities. In his lifelong exploration of this juncture, he presaged more recent efforts to integrate science with the arts under the banner of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math). This short article will explore some of Alan’s published work in which he very systematically examined the mutual influence among science, art, and the humanities. I will also connect his engagement with the arts and the humanities to his museum work.

Early in Alan’s career, he demonstrated a predilection for creating his own path and framework for understanding the impact of science on society. After a successful career as an experimental physicist—he used to describe with relish how he loved putting together experimental apparatus from the kinds of random equipment he found around the lab—he received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities Basic Research Program. This represented a radical turn away from the career path of his research peers who were pursuing academic positions, post-doc fellowships in physics, and National Science Foundation grants.

The fellowship supported a collaboration with literary critic Carol C. Donley that resulted in a book published in 1985 called Einstein as Myth and Muse (Cambridge University Press). Donley and Friedman wrote about how “Einstein’s exciting ideas established him as a muse from science, inspiring and supporting interpretation in the arts…. With the explosions of the atomic bomb of 1945… Einstein suddenly came to represent a contemporary version of the Prometheus myth, bringing atomic fire to a civilization unprepared to handle its immense powers.” Einstein, they write, is a uniquely central character in the twentieth-century imagination, as he “did not merely move with the flow of cultural history, but cut a new channel across the conventional separations of science and the humanities” (Preface, ix–x). This invites speculation that Alan was inspired by Einstein not only in his scientific endeavors, but also in his desire to “cut a new channel across the conventional separations of science and the humanities.”

In the ensuing several years, Alan devoted his energies to the building of programs, audiences, and entire museums, first at the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, then at Cité des Sciences in Paris, and finally at the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI). His signature programs, such as the Science Career Ladder at the NYSCI were notable for how they put human and social concerns at the heart of the STEM learning enterprise. The first permanent exhibition at the NYSCI was called Seeing the Light and was created by the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco that has been the locus of art and science collaboration since the 1960s. Much of that exhibition was created by artists, so from NYSCI’s inception, art was at the core of the visitors’ experience. Alan also invited collaborations with artists and artists groups such as Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI), resulting in a series of commissions, competitions, and installations.

The integration of art into the visitor experience at science centers had a specific focus at NYSCI. Alan’s vision, central to NYSCI’s mission, was always to make science accessible to diverse learners from different backgrounds. As Dr. Anne Balsamo wrote in her introduction to a catalog of NYSCI-commissioned artwork: “Located as it is in the nation’s—and the world’s—most ethnically diverse county, [NYSCI] is focused on addressing the diverse learning styles manifested by different visitors…Just as there are people who learn best from a linear and explicit display of scientific phenomena, there are others who draw important insights by contemplating the beauty and suggestiveness of a piece like Shawn Lani’s Icy Bodies” (Intersections: Art and Science at the NY Hall of Science 2006).

In 1997, Alan wrote a kind of credo about his belief in the mutuality of science and art, and why they are both critical for addressing his principal commitment to public education in science. Published originally in 1997 in the journal American Art (11 [3]: 2–7), the article begins with a deep and subtle reading of a pre-Hubble photograph of a cluster of galaxies. To the uninformed eye, particularly one jaded by the dramatic colorized images from the Hubble telescope, the picture has no particular drama. It is a series of small spirals, slashes, and dots of light in a reddish monochrome. Alan systematically uncovers the thrilling nature of discovery embodied in the image. Revealing that there are “trillions of suns” in the image, he systematically walks the reader through the distances involved, which are so great that they are not measured in kilometers, but in light years. The images we are seeing originated several hundred million years ago, and it has taken light all that time to reach us.

He then deftly connects the image to a profoundly contemporary phenomenon, the plasticity of space and time. He writes,

Einsteinian space-time tells us, among other things, that this particular arrangement of these galaxies in space and time cannot be thought of as a simple universal image. This photograph is valid from our own place in time and in space, but as seen from other locations in the universe, or even from within the Hercules Cluster itself, these galaxies would never have had this particular arrangement. Infinitely many valid descriptions of the cluster are possible, all different but all related precisely to each other by the equations of Einstein’s relativity theory. 

Simultaneity is one of the most profound casualties of the new Einsteinian view of the universe. Simultaneous events are strictly a local phenomenon, not a universal one. There can be no single snapshot of this cluster of galaxies which is uniquely “correct,” because there is no such thing as a “moment in time” for the universe as a whole. We can continue to think of our own time and our own planet as having moments, but we must learn that thinking about the whole universe requires different, less familiar organizing principles and metaphors (2–3).

Alan is clearly thrilled by the implications of this shift in perspective and wants all of us, young and old, to share that thrill. And this impetus leads him to a surprising turn. “Like most science educators I have thought long and hard about what is wrong with science education in this country. I have concluded that the solution is not just more good science teachers and good science curriculum, but also more and better arts education [my emphasis]. That is because what it takes to be astonished and moved by this photograph is not simply learning the names and numbers that go with the image, but understanding how those facts are part of the larger story of our history, cultural accomplishments, and aspirations” [my emphasis].

Because Alan was such a lucid and precise explainer, there is no way to summarize this seminal article that is shorter than the article itself. Suffice it to say that the essay draws deeply from poets, novelists, playwrights, and composers past and present to demonstrate the power of the arts not only as a way of understanding science, but as a critical perspective for understanding and constructing reality and a life full of interest and engagement. While he was passionate about the value of the scientific world view, “looking around at my colleagues…I would have a hard time proving that scientists are happier, have more stable marriages, vote more intelligently, or are more effective participants in their broader communities than are people with similarly deep professional commitments to the arts or the humanities.”

In 2000, a major essay on the life and work of Remedios Varo written by Alan appeared in a catalog raisonné of the work of this mid-century Mexican artist, who was closely aligned with the surrealist movement in Europe and Mexico. In this essay, he notes that the contemporary rediscovery of her work has taken place among both the science- and art-interested public. Through a close reading of her paintings, Alan carries through his theme of the explanatory power of imagination and the mutual inspiration offered between the arts and the sciences. Varo came of age during the great scientific revolutions of the twentieth century, and Alan’s research demonstrates that she read widely among the classic popular science writers of the time such as Fred Hoyle, a particular favorite of both Varo and Alan.

Through this reading, Varo connected the formation of the universe, all its elements, and human beings. Life is built on the elements created during the cataclysms of the early universe. Alan acknowledges that, on the surface, Varo’s paintings appear to be influenced by more imaginative worldviews, such as the world of alchemy and magic, but his ability to read the paintings empathetically with the eyes of a scientist and a humanist reveals the deep interweaving of scientific understanding. Alan is an excellent art critic in the Varo catalog, revealing new science-informed richness in the paintings while honoring the centrality of imagination, of beauty, and of the complexity of Varo’s worldview. The final paragraph of the essay is resonant and revealing: “The world doesn’t have to make sense; but scientists bet their careers that it does. That is their ultimate act of faith. It sometimes makes scientists feel lonely, particularly in cultures where ‘bad luck’ is a more common explanation than a painstakingly crafted, if only partially successful, model. But scientists believe that the universe is ultimately understandable. I think Remedios Varo shared that faith with us.”

A few times a month, I would drop into Alan’s office next to mine and ask him to explain some bewildering aspect of contemporary science that I had encountered in my reading— the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal; “Spooky Action at a Distance” (quantum entanglement); the multiverse; string theory; the twentieth century’s panoply of counter-intuitive theories that are only distantly comprehensible for laypeople. Alan would patiently walk me through a vastly simplified explanation with no hint of condescension and a sense that there was nothing he’d rather be doing. I was edified and changed by these discussions and I know thousands of others had similar experiences over Alan’s lifetime. The breadth of his understanding was reflected in his engagement with the arts and humanities, and his ability to bridge between C.P. Snow’s famous “two cultures” is one his great legacies.

About the Author

Eric Siegel is Director and Chief Content Officer at the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI), where he leads the program, exhibition development, research, and science functions.  Eric has been in senior roles in art and science museums for more than 30 years and has published extensively in the museum field.  He has taught on the graduate faculty of the New York University Museum Studies program and Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and as invited lecturer throughout the country.  He has served as President of the National Association for Museum Exhibition; Board Member of Solar One, an urban environmental organization in NYC; and Chairman of the Museums Council of New York City.

 

I last took a long walk with Alan on February 3, 2014, along the corniche in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, where we had gone to teach 18 Saudis how to run science centers. This workshop would be our last joint gig, after 40 years of parallel careers and many shared projects. We had half a day before the workshop was to start, and so we strolled beside the Persian Gulf and chatted.

Not then but in earlier conversations, Alan had told me about SENCER-ISE, and how gratified he was by its progress. He had worked hard to bring together people with differing institutional perspectives, and he was optimistic about the future. No Pollyanna, he knew both sides would have to bend. He said—not in so many words but this is the gist of it—that the universities would have to deal with real people as opposed to an amorphous “general public,” and that the science centers would have to up their content game. But there was so much to be gained. He envisioned many more cross-sector projects, and, if he were still with us, he would have inspired collaborations to help them flourish. Everyone at SENCER-ISE knows Alan had the desire, the imagination, and the political acumen to make it happen.

SENCER-ISE was not the first time Alan worked across sectors or disciplines. As an undergraduate he had contemplated majoring in English, but even after physics won out, he continued to relish literature and art. Early in his career, he wrote about connections between science and literature. Later he experimented with theater in the science center: at the New York Hall of Science he commissioned and produced a one-act play dramatizing disagreement between two scientists about quantum mechanics. And for more than 40 years, he delighted in his wife’s career as a columnist and mystery writer. Alan was a connoisseur; he could talk eloquently about so many things—and he would go on and on, unless you stopped him. Which brings me back to our conversation beside the sea.

I asked Alan why he hadn’t brought one of his beloved radio-controlled helicopters to Saudi Arabia—for years he flew them at all sorts of meetings to illustrate points and for fun, because fun is a terrific teacher. He explained that since he had had to bring two sets of light sources and adapters for a demonstration—our students would be segregated by gender in adjoining rooms—there was no room in his luggage. I asked how large his ‘copter collection had become. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of what followed:

• The best piece in his small collection of scientific instruments was a sixteenth-century, orrery-like device that maps the motions of Jupiter. His wife, Mickey, had spotted the curiosity and they took it home, later to discover its meaning and rarity. (Alan respected the work of all scientists, even ancient ones. He wanted everyone to appreciate science as he did, and he believed that, given the right tools, everyone could.)
• Speaking of Mickey, she had just finished re-issuing seven mystery titles in e-book form. Alan said the moral of the story was “be sure to get electronic rights for anything you publish, and guard your name.” It seems there was another (male) Mickey Friedman who wrote mysteries, which screwed things up for a while. (Ever the raconteur, Alan made a frustrating escapade in electronic publishing sound downright funny.)
• Speaking of family, Alan asked, “How’s Michael now that he’s a married man?” He had last seen my son at age eight, but he always seemed to know Michael’s actual age and stage of life. Other colleagues might ask after my “little boy,” but Alan would keep track. He was my friend as well as my colleague, so he cared about what I cared about.
• Speaking of kids, Alan worried that the New York mayor’s single-minded pursuit of extended kindergarten was siphoning support from other important endeavors, like the cultural organizations Alan had worked so hard to defend. (Some years ago, he led the fight against retaliation by the former mayor’s office against the Brooklyn Museum for exhibiting scatological art—and won.)
• Speaking of cities, Al Khobar appeared to be a refuge for the wealthy. The mansions were barricaded behind tall fences with elegantly crafted gates. As we walked, Alan photographed gate after gate, stopping to admire one particular gate bearing two lovebirds perched on a branch, in silhouette, in iron work against white opaque glass. It was lovely. Alan had an eye, as well as the urge to document. (In fact, his image collection—many thousands of slides and jpegs of the science museums he visited over the decades—will be catalogued by the Association of Science-Technology Centers and made available to all in late summer 2015.)

Every so often a passing car would honk at the two of us as we crossed a street. We wondered if we had failed to observe an Arabic sign. Or maybe the fact that I was wearing jeans, although my head was covered, was provoking a wolf-whistle. But I didn’t worry. Walking with Alan Friedman, I felt safe. He was a man—and a thinker, teacher, leader, and mentor—in whom everyone could have confidence.

 

About the Author

Now retired, Sheila Grinell enjoyed a forty-year career as a leader of science centers. In 1969, fresh out of graduate school, she joined Frank Oppenheimer to create The Exploratorium, a seminal science center widely emulated around the world, serving as Co-director for Exhibits and Programs. Later, she helped restart the New York Hall of Science, serving as Associate Director. From 1993 to 2004 she served as founding President and CEO of the Arizona Science Center, leading the effort to create a new, vibrant institution for greater Phoenix.

For the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), Sheila created a week-long professional development program for people starting science centers offered 1988-1996. While consulting for a wide range of agencies that included corporations, professional associations, museums, and public television producers, she wrote the leading book on science centers. She was elected a Fellow of both ASTC and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in recognition of her innovative work.

I am honored but saddened to write a brief introduction to this section that includes remembrances from a number of Alan J. Friedman’s colleagues. Alan was the inspiration behind the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement’s SENCER-ISE initiative, a project to encourage cross-sector partnerships between informal science and higher education institutions, and was also its founding project director.

Wm. David Burns, in his introduction to this special issue of Science Education & Civic Engagement: An International Journal on informal science education, notes that he “saw Alan as a humanist and scientist.” Certainly the selections that follow from Alan’s colleagues bear witness to the multifaceted nature of his interests, experiences, ideas, and lasting contributions to the field of education, science, and literature and to the impact he had on the lives of the many colleagues who knew him. Alan’s interests were wide ranging and included not just a desire to communicate science to the general public, students, and teachers but also to examine cultural influences on science and technology.

In an interview published in these pages in the Summer 2011 issue, Alan described how he came to the field of informal science education. He was a solid-state physicist by training and in 1973 held a visiting professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. He mentioned how he had wandered into the Lawrence Hall of Science, one of the pioneering public science-technology centers. This experience changed his life and he ended up spending twelve years at that institution, primarily as the Director of Astronomy and Physics, with a short leave to serve as the Conseiller Scientifique et Muséologique at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris from 1982–1984. In 1984, he became director of the New York Hall of Science, a position he held until he retired in 2006. At NYSCI, he revitalized the moribund institution. A description of what he found in 1984 (“zero attendance the year before he arrived”) compared with what NYSCI had become by 2006 when he retired can be found on the NYSCI website: 447,000 visitors with over 90 full-time staff and 150 high school and college students who served as Explainers in the Science Career Ladder program, one of Alan’s lasting initiatives. In his retirement years, Alan was a Museum Development and Science Communication Consultant and a cherished scholar at the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement.

To open this section, Sheila Grinell shares her memories of Alan’s last trip abroad, to Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and of her long working relationship with him. In relating her conversation with Alan that took place before their meetings started, she mentions his goal of using SENCER-ISE to bring together educators who have different “institutional perspectives” and also gives us a “Reader’s Digest” version of what they discussed. From Eric Siegel, we learn about how Alan always explored the “intersection of science with the arts and humanities” and wanted to understand “the impact of science on society,” and we learn much about Alan’s intellectual interests and pursuits that ranged well beyond directing a major science center. Alan Gould’s brief remembrance highlights how much he learned from Alan Friedman about planetarium presentations and how best to engage audiences in this exciting experience. Priya Mohabir focuses on Alan’s contribution to the education of high school and college students and his vision to empower them as science communicators while they themselves learned science. David Ucko’s “SENCER Synergies with Informal Learning” gives us an overview of how David Burns and I came to collaborate with Alan in our efforts to work across different educational sectors. David Ucko also provides us with an understanding of the differences between formal and informal learning and his thoughts about SENCER as “a model for synergistically integrating aspects” of these different modes of education. We end this section with a reissuing of “In Memoriam,” David Burns’ memorial tribute that he wrote on May 5, 2014, the day after Alan’s untimely death.

We have lost Alan Friedman and greatly miss his wisdom and friendship. But as Alphonse DeSena, our Program Director in the Division of Research and Learning at the National Science Foundation (NSF), wrote recently,

Over several decades of service to education and science, Alan Friedman’s ideas, actions, and accomplishments were many, insightful, and significant.   His contributions in varying capacities to NSF’s mission and programs were frequent, critical, and game changing.  We at NSF and in the informal science education field cherished him as a colleague, as (in my case) a mentor, and as a friend. His legacy will continue for years to come.

 

About the Author

Ellen F. Mappen is a senior scholar and current director of the SENCER-ISE initiative at the National Center for Science & Civic Engagement. She was the founder and long-time director of the Douglass Project for Rutgers Women in Math, Science, and Engineering at Rutgers University and was the director of Healthcare Services at the New Brunswick Health Sciences Technology High School. In these positions, she has worked to provide opportunities that encourage women and students of color to enter STEM fields. She served as SENCER coordinator for SENCER-ISE. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Rutgers University.