Location Science Research: A Review

This document presents a broad review of facility location and location science research. The goal of this report is not to provide an exhaustive list of location science topics (an undertaking far beyond the scope of a single journal article), but rather to provide the reader with a more general review of the location science research landscape. This document starts with a short introduction to some of the more germane aspects of all location science research.     

Cultivating Culture: Preparing Future Teachers for Diversity Through Family Science Learning Events

Preservice teachers (PSTs) participated in Family Science Learning Events (FSLEs) at a university designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution. PSTs were required by the instructor to conceive and design culturally relevant science activities as well as implement these activities with K‐8 students and their families during three separate FSLEs each semester. After school venues included elementary and middle schools located in ethnically diverse school districts. Data collected from these future teachers included qualitative PST reflections, lesson plans, project board/activity evaluation by peers, and a quantitative survey instrument (modified SEBEST) to assess PSTs perceptions of teaching diverse learners. Results suggest that using FSLEs as an integral component of teacher preparation can be a powerful facilitator of learning for all involved, increasing excitement for learning, confidence in using culturally relevant activities and valuable experience in working with family members, particularly Hispanics. In addition, using culturally relevant science activities deepened content knowledge and gave PSTs the opportunity to use culturally responsive activities with Hispanic students and their families, increasing feelings of self‐efficacy in science teaching with diverse learners.     

Playfulness: A Motivator in Elementary Science Teacher Preparation

Research suggests that teacher preparation courses should model hands-on activities promoting positive attitudes toward science. This study investigated the qualities of activities in a field-based science methods course that motivate preservice elementary teachers to implement them in their own classrooms. Ratings of the activities as fun, interesting, and having a high potential for learning were highly correlated, and the preservice teachers predicted that they would more likely implement activities they rated high on these qualities. A comparison of activities ranked high and low in fun suggests that activities ranked high tended to be exploratory in nature, taught process skills in context, enabled the preservice teachers to experience something new in a nonthreatening way, and promoted social interactions. ¹     

The Integration of Science,Mathematics, and Technology in a Discipline-Based Culture

The culture of the middle years of schooling in Western Australia, as in many parts of the world, is predominantly discipline based. This paper focuses on exceptions to this norm by describing examples of integrated teaching of science, mathematics, and technology in seventh- to ninth-grade classrooms. Several different forms of integration were found in the 16 Western Australian schools examined in this study, including thematic approaches, cross-curricular approaches, technology-based projects, and local community projects. Interviews with teachers in these schools raised several implementation issues, including the process of getting started, implications for teachers and students, implications for schedule structure, and implications for departmental structure. All the forms of integration observed in this study were through secondary means, in which the discrete subject discipline boundaries were being maintained. The deep culture of subject disciplines, underwritten by curriculum documents organized in terms of subjects, means that there may be few incentives for teachers to teach and students to learn in an integrated manner.