Science Career Inquiry - Exploring Native Cultural Experiences (SCI-ENCE)

Science Career Inquiry - Exploring Natural Community Examples (SCI-ENCE) The Science Career Inquiry - Exploring Natural Community Examples (SCI-ENCE) program introduces an innovative way to teach science to students in grades 2-8; by creating locally applicable storyboards. Students will meet local STEAM scientists, learn of their career pathways, and participate with them in increasingly complex science activities, games and experiments through a set of ten age-appropriate storyboards. With this curriculum, elementary and middle/intermediate school youth will gain greater understanding of STEAM fields and the concepts of scientific research while exploring their local resources and habitat in a community based, appropriate learning methodology. The goal of the SCI-ENCE Program is to increase interest in science and science careers by creating and implementing an elementary and middle/intermediate school science curriculum based on storyboards, or illustrated descriptions of the science pathways that local individuals have taken to pursue science careers. These pathways are scattered with age-appropriate and NGSS aligned games, activities and experiments for students to do during each age group from grades 2 to 8. Students will visit with 10 different STEAM scientists over the course of their learning and grow their science skills and career awareness with the protagonists of their storyboards. These will be performed in both school based and after school programs, supplemented with meeting the STEAM scientists, field trips and recommendations for additional informal science activities.