The problem addressed in this study was that there is a lack of influence of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educational practices on the development and enhancement of STEM career interests for elementary-aged students who are enrolled in STEM programs. The purpose of this study was to explore how elementary school teachers…

The literature defines curiosity and interest, but it is not clear how interest can be generated, where interest is positioned in the learning process, and what the impact of interest is on cognitive and emotional development. This paper reports on a three-year, iterative design-based research project involving three separate cohorts totalling 57…

The aim of the Families Learning Across Boundaries Project (FamLAB) is to create an ecosystem that can enable and encourage young children's interest-driven learning across settings. With this in mind, the authors surveyed 407 professionals working in libraries--including librarians, media specialists, circulation managers, directors, and outreach…

Despite over three decades of legislation and initiatives designed to tackle the traditional gender divide in the science, technology and design fields, only a quarter of the registered architects in Australia are women. There are no statistics available for other design disciplines, with little known about why women choose design as a career path…

In this essay, Susan Engel argues that curiosity is both intrinsic to children's development and unfolds through social interactions. Thus, it should be cultivated in schools, even though it is often almost completely absent from classrooms. Calling on well-established research and more recent studies, Engel argues that interactions between…

This study examined the early interests of 109 children and their subsequent information contributions and pursuits in kindergarten. Four groups of children with similar interests were identified on the basis of the children's profiles of activities in the home, tracked bimonthly for over a year. Activity patterns reflected conceptual, social,…

The authors demonstrate how to tailor curriculum to support the varied interests, abilities, and talents of the children in a kindergarten class. Through words and photographs, they describe an in-depth study of rocks and sand, a topic of great interest to the children. The teachers posed open-ended questions that fostered high-level discussions.…

In 1987, 208 second graders were interviewed about their occupational aspirations and expectations, school likes and dislikes, educational plans, and other variables. They were reinterviewed every 2 years through senior year in high school. A 5-year post-high school follow-up was conducted, and 35 young adults (23 years old) from the original…

Despite the rapidly growing interest in children's gardens and attention to the positive benefits of gardening for children, little is known about the ways in which young people actually form interests in gardening. Using a sample of 9- and 10-year-old children at a school garden site in New York State, this study examined the ways in which…

Spending just a few hours in the classroom situation as a participant observer, one definitely recognizes "boredom" as one of the main features of this situation. In spite of the obvious relevance of boredom in the classroom situation there is almost no research on the topic of boredom at school. Boredom seems to be a taboo of sorts in…

Interest is a powerful motivator; nonetheless, science educators often lack the necessary information to make use of the power of student-specific interests in the reform process of science curricula. This study suggests a novel methodology, which might be helpful in identifying such interests--using children's self-generated questions as an…