2007 Annual International Conference

Restructuring Science Education Through Research

As your NARST President-elect, I invite you to submit proposals for presentation at our annual meeting in 2007 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our NARST Executive Board decided, with your input through a survey last year, to support the city of New Orleans in its recovery from hurricane, Katrina, in 2005, and to keep our meeting there. This was the year we were to be in conjunction with NSTA, but NSTA withdrew from New Orleans after the hurricane and their 2007 meeting will be in St. Louis, Missouri.

I want you to know in early May of this year Past President Jim Shymansky and I visited New Orleans and our hotel specifically to assess the situation, to see the hotel, and experience the city. We felt that all will be well next year for our meeting. Already the city is vibrant and if anything, much cleaner that I remembered it from earlier NARST meetings. I took various photographs to share with you that are in this E-NARST News and on our NARST Web site. Also the many residents and business people of New Orleans thanked me for bringing our annual meeting to New Orleans.

The pre-conference workshops will be on Sunday afternoon, April 14th, and the opening session will be Monday morning, April 15th. We will close with our awards luncheon on Wednesday, April 17th. Our hotel is the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel on 500 Canal Street. I’ve included a few pictures to show you the upbeat feeling I had of our hotel and New Orleans. At a nearby restaurant called Tiramisu, there was an “Open” sign, which I took as a message that not only is the restaurant open (and it has delicious food and with walls that open to the sidewalk) but also the city of New Orleans is open to us.

Our theme for the meeting is Restructuring Science Education Through Research, which is what I feel we do as science education researchers. Therefore, when you submit your proposals, keep this theme in your mind.

The Presidential team, the entire NARST Board, and DMG look forward to seeing you in New Orleans.

(excerpts from message by Penny J. Gilmer, President-elect of NARST)

Dates

April 15, 2007 - April 18, 2007

Location

Sheraton New Orleans Hotel 500 Canal Street
New Orleans, LA

2007_Program.pdf1.34 MB

2007_Abstracts.pdf1.16 MB

Plenary Sessions

The role of reading, writing, and language in supporting inquiry-based science in our schools: Why we must lead with the science

P. David Pearson, Dean, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

In his presentation, Pearson argues, from the point of view of an ardent reading researcher, that for all too long, science instruction has been marginalized by an excessive reliance on text and vocabulary instruction to ‘get the content on the table’ for students at all levels, primary through secondary school.

Toward a brighter future for science education: Cogenerating success through participatory inquiry

Kenneth Tobin, Professor of Urban Education, The Graduate Center of CUNY

It is a challenge to embrace a premise that all participants in research in science education will benefi t from studies in which they participate. No longer can researchers discover gaps and inequities without acting to resolve them as they are identifi ed and understood.