Pasadero Blog ProtoGenie For Teaching Science to Children

The August 2015 issue of Scientific American presents a very interesting article about teaching science to children. The title is "Kids are Scientists Too." The author Michael Wysession reports on the prospects of success of the large-scale initiative to improve the teaching of science to children called NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards). According to Wysession, "This initiative is the result of a bipartisan, state-led effort at rewriting K-12 science performance expectations in a way that will not only engage and excite students but also allow them to learn science by doing science, as opposed to memorizing facts about science. Research in science education has shown that letting students participate in the multiple practices that scientists actually do enables the children not only to enjoy and value the science more but to do a better job of retaining the scientific content." Obviously, research design is one of the very important things that children should learn early in their careers and ProtoGenie is the online support software that was built to teach this critical aspect of research. ProtoGenie gives students opportunities to learn the principles and practice of research through hands-on creation and execution of scientific plans and it is ideal for online courses and distance curricula related to science.