STARS: Students Tackling Authentic & Relevant Science

STARS: Students Tackling Authentic & Relevant Science. What does “authentic and relevant” science for youth really mean?

Presenters: April Luehmann, University of Rochester & Sara Hagenah, University of Washington

How do you design inquiry-worthy questions that entice youth engagement, set them up for success while still requiring youth-shaping, and stretch youth images of where science is and what science can do? In this webinar, we will identify some of the reasons this work is so important and so hard. We will share examples and strategies for development based on 10 years of Science STARS after school inquiry experiences, engaging the audience in some of this important thinking. Sara will invite us into the depth of this past fall’s lived design process of University of Washington’s Science STARS, as they designed authentic questions that they were surprised to “find” around a local science issue that lay right outside their classroom window.

Science STARS has also recently published a series of blog posts written by Science STARS students. Funded by an NGCP mini-grant, STARS Blog Science: A Voice for Urban Girls in Science offers a unique look into the lives of a group of girls and how they think about science.