Introduction

This chapter presents an approach to develop a simple activity that emphasized two key inquiry skills–asking questions that lead to further discoveries, and articulating and interpreting those discoveries in a group setting. Many of the colleagues in the field of informal education lament that the lauded idea of "lifelong science education" is notoriously fragmented–an often laborious process in which learners must build their own connections as they move between home and school, museum, Internet, library, and beyond. A report on Learning Science in Informal Environments by the National Research Council discusses this issue, and its recommendations call for greater integration of learning across settings. Educational researchers usually want their studies to inform practice, just as many practitioners want to know the results of research on educational innovations–but it's not always easy to integrate the two perspectives. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.