BeeSpace: Integrating the Curriculum by Connecting Learning and Life Chip Bruce Library and Information Science, UIUC with thanks to Susan Fahrbach Biology, Wake Forest University

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BeeSpace Integrating the Curriculum by
Connecting Learning and LifeChip BruceLibrary
and Information Science, UIUCwith thanks
toSusan FahrbachBiology, Wake Forest University
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Situation in Science Education

• Science today colony collapse, global warming,
  biodiversity, medicine, space, computers/networks
• Science education pipeline, citizens, education
  in general, political leaders
• BeeSpace opportunity multidisiplinary,
  accessible, meaningful questions
• Puzzle complex ideas and tools, under
  development, diverse constituencies
• A project of same scale as BeeSpace itself

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Integrative Learning

• "connecting skills and knowledge from multiple
  sources and experiences applying skills and
  practices in various settings utilizing diverse
  and even contradictory points of view and,
  understanding issues and positions
  contextually." Huber, Hutchings, Gale,
  Integrative Learning for Liberal Education (2005)
• Fostering students abilities to integrate
  learningacross courses, over time, and between
  campus and community lifeis one of the most
  important goals and challenges of higher
  education. Carnegie Foundation
• No "gap in kind (as distinct from degree) between
  the child's experience and the various forms of
  subject-matter." Dewey, The Child and Curriculum
  (1902)

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Stratified earths?

• Experience has its geographical aspect, its
  artistic and its literary, its scientific and its
  historical sides. All studies arise from aspects
  of the one earth and the one life lived upon it.
  We do not have a series of stratified earths, one
  of which is mathematical, another physical,
  another historical, and so on. All studies grow
  out of relations in the one great common world.
  When the child lives in varied but concrete and
  active relationship to this common world, his/her
  studies are naturally unified. Relate the
  school to life, and all studies are of necessity
  correlated. John Dewey, The School and Society
  (1900)

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Four specific developments (1902)

• expansion of transportation and the circulation
  of ideas so that it is no longer physically
  possible for one nationality, race, class, or
  sect to be kept apart from others, impervious to
  their wishes and beliefs
• relaxation of the bonds of social discipline and
  control
• intellectual life, facts, and knowledge more
  connected with daily occupations and ordinary
  surroundings
• prolongation of continuous instruction

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School as Social Center
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• Apis mellifera, the Western honey bee, as the
  model organism, with its recently sequenced
  genome
• Microarray experiments generating a database of
  gene expressions for social behavior
• BeeSpace Concept Navigator enables users to
  navigate a uniform space of diverse databases and
  literature sources for hypothesis development and
  testing uses statistical literature analyses to
  discover functional relationships between genes
  and behavior
• An international community of laboratories
  studying honey bees and related organisms
• 5 million grant from NSFs Frontiers in
  Integrative Biological Research program,
  2004-2009
• www.beespace.uiuc.edu

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Unpacking the Puzzle
Third Annual BeeSpace Workshop, May 21-22,
2007 www.beespace.uiuc.edu
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Education Resources

• Bee Biology
• Booklet by high school biology teacher (D. Stone)
• Video of talk by G. Robinson, with question set
• Video footage of bee behaviors
• Bee Research
• Video tour of Bee Lab
• Links to Honey Bee Genome materials
• BeeSpace Research (molecular basis of social
  behaviors)
• Video caring for the BeeSpace bees (K. Pruiett)
• Anatomy of a BeeSpace Experiment (D. Stone)
• Videos researchers at work (M. Sarma, A.
  Boardmann, S. Liang, R. Velarde)
• Bees In the Classroom
• Bioinformatics for Beginners freshman seminar
  (S. Fahrbach)
• Middle school visits with bee researchers (G.
  Robinson, N. Ismail)
• Video teacher education activities with bees (S.
  Fahrbach)
• Software Support
• Training for researchers using BeeSpace software
  in-house, lab visits, online help

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Bioinformatics for Beginners _at_WFU

• First-year seminar taught by S. Fahrbach in Fall
  2006
• Classes 1x/wk. for 150 minutes
• Students introduced to bioinformatics via nature
  vs. nurture issue and BeeSpace Navigator
• Students build skills and display mastery by
  developing new BeeSpace educational materials for
  younger students
• Special features
• Session with science librarian to create online
  resource page
• Field trip to research apiary
• Videoconference with Bruce Schatz
• Access to online BeeSpace educational resources
• Use of NCBI tools and resources
• Presentation of final projects to BeeSpace PIs
  via teleconference

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B4B_at_WFU Student Projects

• Projects were required to conform to the North
  Carolina Standard Course of Study.
• Projects required a deliverable for use in the
  classroom and an accompanying teachers manual.
• Materials are ready for use Summer 2007, and will
  be broadly accessible via the BeeSpace website.
• Students created a board game (BeeLand), a
  Jeopardy game, a web site, several PowerPoint
  presentations, and rules for a game to be played
  outdoors.

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Successes/Challenges of B4B_at_WFU

• Introduced to bioinformatics concepts, challenges
  of effective search, modern formulations of
  nature/nurture in human behavior
• Embraced learning-by-teaching, worked effectively
  in groups to complete projects
• Interacted directly with researchers
• Proved resistant to idea of gene x environment
  interactions
• Sometimes distracted by minor technical glitches
  (delays getting BLAST results, printer failures,
  videoconferencing problems)
• Busy student schedules and low proportion of
  intended science majors precluded student
  transition to active participation in outreach

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Next Steps

• Additional education resources coming to project
  website
• Summer workshop for grade 8-9 students Colony
  Collapse Disorder activities involving bee
  biology, insect pollination of plants, and
  computer search and retrieval of biological
  information learners reviewed the learning
  activities for incorporation into next years
  sessions
• Assessing outcomes and challenges of connecting
  middle school-age through undergraduate learners
  with leading-edge research
• First-year seminar at Wake Forest to be offered
  in Fall 2007 and Fall 2008 BeeSpace volunteers
  are needed for videoconferences in Fall 2007

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Lessons

• Literature summarized for students gt Literature
  analyzed and explored by students
• Laboratory work described to students gt
  Laboratory work done by students
• Curriculum development for students gt curriculum
  development by students
• Educational research on students gt educational
  research by students

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Conclusion

• One cannot understand the history of education in
  the United States during the twentieth century
  unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won
  and John Dewey lost. Ellen Condliffe Lagemann
• To put the distinction sharply, Thorndike saw
  humans in the image of the machine Dewey saw
  them in the image of life. Richard Gibboney