Intergenerational learning at a nature center: families using prior experiences and participation frameworks to understand raptors

Family learning outdoors: Guided participation on a nature walk

“…Our two research findings above, as well as findings from a related analysis of outdoor learning (Zimmerman & McClain, 2014), suggest that informal education research and policy needs to consider the learning that happens on nature trails as learning in informal institutions. Within the case of our focal family, we illustrated through the elders' embodied science knowledge and the family's comfort with cultural tools related to science inquiry, that the trails were active sites of learning.…”

“…Just as Nespor's school‐based ethnography () established the importance of physical interactions and the body in classroom learning, our trail‐based microethnography shows how physical touch, embodied science knowledge, and parental maneuvering of a child's body supported science learning in outdoor informal settings. While this analytical work focused on one family, we noted this kind of physical structuring in other families, especially with preschool children, in our dataset (Zimmerman & McClain, ). Our study suggests that when looking at families with young children, an analysis of the role of embodied science knowledge as an indicator that learning has occurred and physical guided participation processes may be fruitful to understand the learning that occurs in informal science settings.…”

“…In this article, microethnographic data collection and analysis techniques were applied to the video record (52 minutes) from one focal family as they engaged together outdoors. The full study includes 17 hours of video from 12 nature walks (Zimmerman & McClain, ), interviews, 527 photographs (taken by the researchers and by the families) of the nature walks, and field notes from each walk. The data used in this paper were as follows: Primary: 52 minutes of video of the focal family interacting together outside.…”

“…Through a study of one family, we investigated how cultural tools were used to make sense of the natural objects visible in the local ecosystem and how family members guided the participation of other family members in the use of cultural tools. The full study included survey data from 28 families and ethnographic data from 16 families with at least one child between ages 3 and 16 (Zimmerman & McClain, ).…”

“…A focus on family learning has emerged over the past decade (see Ellenbogen, Luke, & Dierking, ) both in environmental education (e.g., Ballantyne, Fien, & Packer, ; Duvall & Zint, ) and in informal science education (Bell et al, ; Ellenbogen et al, ). Research on learning related to biology and the environment has occurred at aquaria (Kisiel et al, ; Rigney & Callanan, ; Rowe & Kisiel, ), homes (Zimmerman, ), zoos (Falk et al, ; Fraser & Sickler, ), science centers (Ash, ; Gutwill & Allen, ; Zimmerman et al, ), botanical gardens (Eberbach & Crowley, ; Tal, ; Zimmerman et al, ), nature centers (Kimble, ; McClain & Zimmerman, ; Zimmerman & McClain, ), and natural history museums (Palmquist & Crowley, ; Tare, French, Frazier, Diamond, & Evans, ). Methodologies across these studies of biology and environmental learning in informal settings include conversational analysis, experimental approaches, designed interventions, and developmental psychology controlled investigations.…”