Steve ZuikerKyle Wright

Connected Gardening Cultivating interest & investment in data-infused gardening

Session 26.024Friday, April 17, 8:15 to 9:45am

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evolving cyber-physical systems

from sensor-based technologies (Pea et al, 1999; Krajick & Tinker, 2001) and probeware (Linn & Hsi, 2000) to prospect of national sensor networks (Borgman et al., 2008), including cyber-physical systems (Lee, 2008)

• accumulation of positive findings

• increasing availability, affordability, & diversity of instrumentation

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What are the benefits for science learning of new data visualizations [and] sensor networks? (Borgman et al., 2008, p. 25)

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vernier.com(Tinker, 2000)

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garden-based lessons

garden programs

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12 34 5 67 89

garden-cycle laboratories8

everyday practices in everyday settings

• everyday practices enable questions like “when is science?” (McDermott and Webber, 1998, p. 323)

• opportunities to do science and be scientific need not directly resemble the work of disciplinary experts

• learners can explore science in everyday experiences (Feinstein, Allen, & Jenkins, 2013)

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everyday practices in everyday settings

• everyday settings enable questions like “why here?” (Smith, 2002)

• confluence of a physical and cultural environment • investigating how to grow vegetables under local

climate and soil conditions (e.g., Rahm, 2002)

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Connected Gardening a design-based research project (Cobb et al, 2003)

• four phase progression through a full garden cycle (e.g., everyday practices & setting)

• learners develop and iterate garden plot design through observation and measurement

• seasonal plant selection

• seed & row spacing

• irrigation schedule

Connected Gardening 1st Design Iteration

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Connected Gardening a design-based research project (Cobb et al, 2003)

two embodied conjectures (Sandoval, 2014)

1. authenticity & indeterminacy of gardening recruits science practices into “a way of being in a social world, not a way of coming to know about it” (Hanks, 1991, p. 24); garden “authoring” couples agency with real-world accountability (Engle, 2006; Greeno, 2006)

2. gardening expansively frames scientific and gardening practices by organizing interplay between what is in a garden and what a garden is in (Engle, 2006; Engle, Nguyen, & Mendelson, 2011)

Connected Gardening 1st Design Iteration12

Methods

• Participants: 22 fourth graders and their teacher

• Data generation: participant-observation, field notes, student-generated artifacts, interviews, research team & teacher debriefings, audio/video recordings as appropriate

• Data transformation: content logs, data inventory tables

• Analytical framework: “transactions” (Dewey, 1938) as ways individuals, materials, and activities influence one another, especially in relation to Connected Gardening design

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Findings: a design narrative in two parts

• 1st & 2nd garden plot designs & outcomes

• 3rd garden plot design & outcomes

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1st & 2nd garden plot designs & outcomes

• both resulted in failure

• 1st iteration; learners did not design garden plot beyond rows & columns of seeds; seeds failed to germinate.

• 2nd iteration: seedlings transplanted from a seed tray; seedlings quickly died.

• Authentic design failures: learner-generated designs & garden-generated feedback foster agency & accountability (cf. Greeno, 2006)

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3rd garden plot design & outcomes

• successfully grew tasty corn

• teacher encouraged students to use probe at outset

• observation coupled with measurement re-mediated student transactions with garden plot

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3rd garden plot design & outcomes

• teacher facilitates data conversations during monitoring phase

• connecting observations with measurements in real-time and over time

• “we've had mushrooms growing so does that mean that it is getting too much water.” —Student 1

• “is that [low soil fertility level] because of the weeds?” —Student 2

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single-day sunlight exposure

time (hours)

sunl

ight

exp

osur

e

(510

nm)

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Conclusions

• simple cyber-physical system enhances productive transactions around ecosystem dynamics

• coupling observation and measurement through plot design recruits scientific practices to solve everyday gardening problems

• evidenced attunement of whole class participation to ecosystem dynamics

• ongoing tension between findings things out and getting things done (cf. Schauble et al., 1995)

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Investigate

Evaluate

ExplainMonitor

Harve

st Plan

Connected Gardening 2nd Design Iteration

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Future Research

• What is the reach of cyber-physical systems?

• potential to locate inputs, outputs, and outcomes of science projects in a broader and more participatory setting beyond yet within schools

• “re-scaling” projects gives rise to significance, productivity, and consequentiality in relation to broader rubrics of participation

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questions comments

suggestionssteven.zuiker@asu.edu

@szuiker

paper available at researchgate.net/SteveZuiker presentation available at slideshare.net/szuiker

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Zuiker, S. J., & Wright, K. (accepted). Learning in and beyond School Gardens with Cyber-Physical Systems. Interactive Learning Environments, 23 (5).

featured in a special issue on the topic of Learner-Generated Designs in Participatory Culture edited by Beaumie Kim, Lynde Tan, & Katerine Bielaczyc

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