Creating Wonder: Book Offers New Vision for Learning Science

<p>Students in the U.S. and Finland participating in a new project-based learning model are not only learning more, but becoming more engaged in class, research from Michigan State University shows. <br> <br> It’s an approach schools everywhere should adopt, the researchers say, to ensure the next generation of students is prepared to solve the scientific problems of their time. <br> <br> They explain powerful early findings from their ongoing international experiment in a new book for educators, policymakers and researchers. "Learning Science: The Value of Crafting Engagement in Science Environments," will be available in February 2020 from Yale University Press. <br> <br> “When students are encouraged to use their imagination, figure out phenomena in the world and solve problems, they develop knowledge they can use in their lives and they actually become more excited about what they are learning,” says Joseph Krajcik, co-author and director of the <a href="https://create4stem.msu.edu/">CREATE for STEM Institute at MSU</a>. “Now that we have seen the impact of these changes, we are hoping to help many more teachers rethink how their students experience science.”<br> <br> Krajcik, co-author Barbara Schneider and their team used a $3.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop and study teaching and learning materials for high school physics and chemistry based on the principles of the Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS. <br> <br> Unlike traditional instruction requiring students to memorize facts, NGSS emphasizes deep understanding of core scientific ideas and the practices of real scientists as students make sense of the world in which they live. <br> <br> The project, one of many cutting-edge efforts at MSU to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, education represents a collaboration with colleagues at the University of Helsinki in Finland. <br> <br> Though Finland is known globally for its high student achievement, its schools face the same chal