The Cre@tive Expedition for science literacy

Abstract

Students experience the natural science subjects as lacking relevance in relation to their everyday lives. New solutions are needed to maintain students' interest in science subjects. Students' interests are closely linked to the experience of relevance and meaningfulness, which can be promoted by experiential learning with a high degree of student involvement. Students acquire knowledge and skills through practical experiments and scientific data collection and analyses, which can increase their interest in science and increase their science literacy. Citizen science projects involve the public in research, including the problem-definition and development phases. The current project is embedded in education science with the purpose of designing, testing, and evaluating innovative learning activities with the active involvement of students and teachers. These learning activities involve experiential learning and integrate participants' bodies, senses and physical activities, with the goal of increasing participants interest in science and developing their scientific literacy. By an exploratory and emerging process, which involved researchers, practitioner, and students, we created The Cre@tive Expedition. In The Cre@tive Expedition participants use their bodies and senses to solve tasks at the outdoor Active Living Laboratory. The concept is structured as an educational Escape Room designed for participants to problem-solve, collaborate, and be active and experimental. Until now, the concept has been tested in three settings, which has fueled the vision of the development of the Active Living Laboratory as a place where children, teens, and other citizens can engage with science, as well as scientists, and participate in experimenting through inspiring and physically active STEM learning activities. With a citizen science approach, we will explore and develop the involvement of students in all phases of the research project, which is currently in the initial development phase. Based on our participation in CitSci2022, we will further develop our involvement of the public in the research process and in the development of new ways of integrating the body, senses and physical activities through fun, inspiring, and challenging learning.