Characterizing Community-based Science Learning through Emotion and Play
Assertions about the benefits of authentic inquiry approaches to science education rely on the claim that content learning is advanced through group activity around shared purpose. They stop short, however, of examining and articulating the nature of such inter- and intra-individual processes as emotionally productive and for that reason facilitative of learning. Deep inquiry learning produces an experience of “collective indwelling” or play. By combining microethnographic analysis of youth interaction in a summer camp context with physiological measurement of emotional response through oximetry (blood oxygenation and heart beat), this project aims to understand the intersecting roles of cognition, communication, and emotion in science teaching and learning. This understanding stands to benefit all educational engagement efforts in informal as well as formal spaces.
Co-PI, Professor, Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
