Emerging technologies have the potential to enable new forms of hybrid spaces for promoting scientizing experiences, where science practice can become deeply intertwined with learners’ everyday lives, cultures, and values. In this talk I will present one such genre of technology - live physiological sensing and visualization (LPSV) tools - that sense and visualize learners’ internal organ functioning (i.e., heart rate, breathing rate) in real time on an e-textile shirt and a large-screen display. I will present ways in which elementary school children’s scientizing practices developed as they designed new science experiments with LPSV tools and insights about ways LPSV hybrid spaces can be designed to support learners’ scientizing practices. Next, taking a community-based approach, I will present two Third Place contexts for supporting place-based and cross-setting scientizing experiences. Oldenburg characterizes Third Places as places in which informal public life develops dynamically. Building on this definition, I will discuss a process that I call Third Place Design, where I leverage co-design with community members (i.e., youth, parents, teachers, informal educators, community volunteers) and iterative integration of new technologies into Third Place contexts in two projects. From my Third Place Design process in these projects, I will identify ways social media and community-based technologies (i.e., large interactive displays) can support community scientizing practices in community settings.
Tamara “Tammy” Clegg is an assistant professor in the College of Information Studies and the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy, and Leadership and at the University of Maryland. Her work focuses on developing technology (e.g., social media, mobile apps, e-textiles, community displays) to support life-relevant learning where learners, particularly those from underrepresented groups in science, engage in science in the context of achieving personally relevant goals. She seeks to understand ways such learning environments and technologies support scientific disposition development. Tamara’s work is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Studies, and Google.