Lived Science Narratives

Background

Lived Science Narratives is a NSF-funded project that investigates how to contextualize learning of elementary science topics with children’s everyday experiences through the use of wearables, specifically the smartwatch. Requirements of universal education have necessarily led to the modern model of instruction straying away from the traditional apprenticeship paradigm whereby learning occurred in-situ. Within the bounded setting of the classroom, educators attempt everyday to make up for this loss of context in instruction by using various strategies, such as drawing from their own life experiences to provide real-life scenario examples in their teaching, asking students to bring in stimulus materials from home, or organizing field trips. We tap into the new wave of wearables, specifically the smartwatch, to design technologies that can help to contextualize the learning of elementary school science topics in a lived curriculum.

Activity

  • We are currently investigating motivational design frameworks for smartwatch applications that allow elementary school-aged children to capture science-related stories.
  • We are also investigating the type of science stories that children can capture in their everyday life.

Project Team Members

  • Brittany Garcia (Research Assistant, Psychology)
  • Colin Banigan (Undergraduate student, Computer Science)
  • Beth Nam (PhD student, Architecture)
  • Dr. Sharon Lynn Chu (Assistant Professor, Visualization)

Related Publications

  1. Chu, S. L. and Garcia, B. (Conditionally Accepted). Toward Wearable App Design for Children’s In-the-World Science Inquiry. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI '17). Yokohama, Japan. ACM. 
Lived Science Narratives