liberty science center

liberty science center

The Impact and Significance of Liberty Science Center in Promoting STEM Education

1. Introduction to Liberty Science Center

Liberty Science Center is a hands-on learning center that encourages student-directed learning through exhibits, school programs, and real-time experiences. With fully equipped centers, many schools do not have enough funding for educational field trips. This critical external learning opportunity is disappearing for many students in the state of New Jersey and other areas across the globe. With many local districts cutting funding for educational field trips, schools are challenged to secure transportation to and from cultural institutions. Assuring science trips continue to be cut from school budgets, external field trips are now history. Liberty Science Center experiences have provided justice to this, primarily by serving such students with disproportionately lesser access to equitable education by bringing schools from Atlantic City, Paterson, and Newark Districts on scholarship-supported field trips, and some offsite experiences. We support all modalities of learning through capacity building in teaching and learning. The review is based on John Dewey’s Experiential Learning Theory. Dewey stressed the extension of experiential learning and the importance of cultivating curiosity and pursuit of interests as the ultimate driving forces behind learning. Liberty Science Center, by providing scholarly direction and student engagement, creates a rich environment for self-achieving learning pursuits in STEM.

In the last decade, Liberty Science Center, a STEM center of New Jersey, has been serving as an advocate for STEM education, engaging over 250,000 students and teachers in a single year through field trips and outreach programs. The significant role of Liberty Science Center in New Jersey State has not been publicly addressed quantitatively. For the purpose of this research, based on John Dewey’s Experiential Learning Theory, this study reveals how Liberty Science Center is important and effective in promoting STEM education. Impact is key to our organization’s success. We believe in the power of science and school field trips to unlock students’ potential and lay the foundation for fulfilling careers. Through field trips, students can directly apply and reinforce Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts, gain workplace skills, and understand career opportunities.

2. Innovative Exhibits and Programs

It is obvious from the activities in the LSC that LSC is very dedicated to promote the awareness of S & T in the American society. The Liberty Science Center has a long tradition of serving groups with special needs, to this day offering both school and family programs for those with hearing and sight impairments. New programs for senior citizens and people with autism or physical disabilities have been set up in response to feedback from classes and families who requested more options for group visits. Similarly, programs about developing technology and scientific understanding were shifted to focus on nurturing creative thinking, learning skills, and technology difficulties that students actually exhibit. There are also special Literacy Programs.

Exhibition is the main attraction for the LSC. The exhibition topics are updated periodically to suit the theme of the day. The LSC has about 250 exhibits. In order to increase the LSC value as a science center, the presentation technology is also being enhanced. Additional sound system and audio presentations are being used. The narratives are revised and new lighting is installed. In addition to that, the LSC also comes up with innovative programs to stimulate and build interest in science. There are also programs for kids as young as two to five years old.

3. Partnerships and Collaborations for STEM Education

Various partnerships and collaborations are in place that enable the Liberty Science Center to provide an extraordinary educational experience for all of its guests. Through a cooperative effort with Verizon, the Center has equipped all school-aged children who attend a public, private, religious, or parochial school in Hudson, Passaic, Essex, and Union Counties (a total of approximately 450,000 students from 330 districts) with a one-time opportunity to enjoy the extensive resources available at the Liberty Science Center at no cost to the students or the schools. This partnership includes transportation by bus, ferry, and light rail for students at schools beyond a forty-five mile radius of the Center. This initiative enables area schools that lack transportation funds to participate in the extensive resources that the Center has to offer.

Liberty Science Center is an educational resource for educators and administrators, homeschoolers, and students. Classes can be arranged to meet specific New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for math, science, and technology, and all programs are designed to support and extend the concepts presented in the current exhibitions. Field trip programs include workshops in classrooms at Liberty Science Center. Special programs can be arranged at additional times and can be taken off-site as needed (for a fee). There are various presentation formats such as assemblies, outreach labs, and project-based instruction. Professional development seminars help teachers integrate museum experiences into their core curriculum.

4. Community Outreach and Inclusivity

They also acknowledge the business of science particularly well. Of the respondents, 69% express strong agreement that “science centers are a good place to visit to find out about the latest developments in science.” More than two-thirds of physical scientists and engineers in the United States participated in these kinds of field trips as children according to the CV survey. These were the intervals when the U.S. led the world in research and development. Reinstituting this form of encouragement for potential science and engineering careers could have similar stimulating effects. Among previous YSEP participants: 24% choose college majors in science, plus more than 10% in civil, environmental or electrical engineering. Science centers help build a vibrant pooled labor force.

There is another quality at the LSC which binds it closer to its communities. The majority of evaluations conducted by the LSC provide evidence that the center has achieved an unexpected democratic result. Unlike the all too prevalent social aggregation of museum visits by either income, education, age, or ethnicity of participants, the LSC serves a wide array of visitors: rich/poor, minority or mainstream, young/old. LSC reaches its communities particularly well. When asked, 93% of the visitors indicate that science center experiences enhance learning. More than one-half of families say science centers are their primary source of exciting and interesting exhibits related to science. They reinforce science teaching occurring in the schools. More than 60% of the children surveyed for one study bring attention to the LSC as a relevant source of educational enrichment.

5. Future Directions and Potential Impact

Another crucial factor lies outside LSC’s control: the need to renew, reorganize and reinvigorate American science education, particularly in inner city schools. In some respects, these also are symptoms of the absence of the tradition begun by CPH of leadership coming out of federally financed high energy physics research. Once it became clear that facilities like Fermi Lab, SLAC and CERN gave these areas an indispensable advantage, physics departments could attract a diverse student body, because they were secure in receiving a quality education. This translated into first-class scientific accomplishments. The ultimate in diverse student recruitment, the absence of other student options, while initially regrettable in moral terms, turned into significant advantage for the system. These truths should be self-evident, but are now encapsulated in a cliché that “students are making career decisions in middle school.” The consequences of this are now upon us. Only a lack of will prevents their correction. LSC, with its unique capacity to provide motivation and exposure, also must take a lead.

In conclusion, we note that a crucial first step to achieving a broader impact from the increased student interest in science and technology that Liberty Science Center (LSC) sparked is getting the schools to take advantage of this interest. Research suggests that while interest is necessary for persisting and developing ability in science, it is not sufficient. Teachers require both coursework and knowledge of how to translate the excitement, not unlike the action-restrained contemplation of the energy and intelligence achievements of the First Industrial Revolution can now encourage – into useful content for their students. In one sense, this reflective action is what currently makes highly successful schools function. This is a direction LSC needs to pursue both for the good of society, but also to avoid charges of not taking full advantage of its “products” or taking seriously their long-term functionality.