More than just a game: Transforming social interaction and STEM play with Parkopolis.

Attitudes towards the Use of Educational Robotics: Exploring Pre-Service and In-Service Early Childhood Teacher Profiles

“…Children are born with an innate desire to tinker and a natural curiosity; the preschool classroom environment is particularly rich in opportunities to do this by engaging actively in STEM activities [5,6]. Thus, incorporating more technology-based educational tools in early childhood education curriculums might yield the most significant benefits possible by helping children develop skills they will need in the future [7,8].…”

Put Your Data to Use: Entering the Real World of Children and Families

“…This second project again began as basic research and dovetailed with applied aims. We call it Playful Learning Landscapes (Grob, Schlesinger, Pace, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2017; Hassinger-Das, Bustamante, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, 2018; Ridge, Weisberg, Ilgaz, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, 2015; Zosh, Fisher, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2013). Our research in the lab was centering on how the quality along with the quantity of talk might play an important role in building words and grammar (Hirsh-Pasek et al, 2015).…”

“…All of the tasks are vetted through scientists who work in early science and mathematical learning. Preliminary results indicate that even compared with a rocket-building exhibit, Parkopolis encourages the kind of language that builds STEM skills (Bustamante et al, 2018). Again, our path was from the basic science to its application and then to testing the use-inspired basic research to determine whether it worked.…”

Questions in a Life‐Sized Board Game: Comparing Caregivers' and Children's Question‐Asking across STEM Museum Exhibits

“…Parkopolis-the life-sized board game for STEM learning-is a recent example of a Playful Learning Landscapes installation tested in a children's museum for its potential to elicit STEM conversation and interactions between children and caregivers (Bustamante et al, 2020). Parkopolis challenges children with various playful activities-informed by research in early STEM education-such as dice with whole numbers and fractions (e.g., rolling "2 and 1 / 4 " to move 2 1 / 4 spaces on the board), a giant ruler for measurement games, a hopscotch game to challenge children's cognitive flexibility and inhibition, a shape zone that targets early geometry, and music pipes of various heights that prompt pattern recognition and working memory (see Figure 1 and Appendix).…”

“…Furthermore, in Parkopolis, specifically, adults and children often need to respond to questions to proceed with the game, for example, by answering game cards to advance forward or by responding to a query about the dice to inform an adult how many spaces they need to move. Bustamante et al (2020) reported that children and caregivers playing in Parkopolis used more whole number, fraction, reasoning, and pattern language compared to a STEM-focused control exhibit at the same museum where children launched foam rockets. Furthermore, adults in Parkopolis used cell phones less frequently than adults in the control exhibit, which may have led to more caregiver-child interaction.…”