Celebrating Science - A Family Science Project
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Through the leadership of Leroy Hood and Valerie Logan, a community partnership between Seattle Public Schools and community leaders was forged. In 1995, they submitted and received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support science education reform at the elementary school level. The core of this program was the adoption of additional inquiry-based science curriculum for each grade, Kindergarten through five. In 1998, this partnership expanded to include additional school districts in the region (Bellevue, Highline, Shoreline, and Northshore). The Center for Inquiry Science at Institute for Systems Biology in partnership with these school districts was awarded a second grant from the NSF to support a parallel program at the middle-school level.

While teachers and students were becoming engaged in these science education reform efforts, it became clear that students’ families needed a vehicle for understanding how these new teaching practices and materials would benefit students in learning scientific concepts. The new inquiry-based science materials, which had been professionally developed by national experts and founded on sound educational research, provided students with opportunities to explore science through a variety of hands-on inquiry-based investigations. The use of textbooks as the primary source of knowledge acquisition had become outdated.

To help families and the community at-large better understand inquiry-based science education reform in the schools, Family Science events were piloted with support from the Rathman Foundation and the Seaver Institute in 1995. In due course, Lee Hood and Valerie Logan in collaboration with school districts, applied and received funding from the National Science Foundation in 1996 to create a regional Family Science program with the goals of engaging and empowering families to learn science together and to build community support for inquiry-based science education.

The Family Science program at the Center for Inquiry Science brought together schools, parents, and community organizations to support science education reform in Seattle Public Schools. At each elementary school the Family Science program consisted of many different types of activities carried out over several years. The participating schools served economically, ethnically, and linguistically diverse populations, specifically:

Schools with more than 80 percent minority students;
Schools where 65 percent of students received free or reduced lunches.

Similar demographics were targeted at secondary schools where Family Science programs expanded in later years.

The Family Science program has been a success—reaching over 24,000 family members at Family Science events from over 60 schools in the Puget Sound area. This remarkable success was only possibly with participation from across the community - families, teachers, principals, school district leaders, informal science educators, out-of-school time educators, business leaders and scientists.

The Family Science staff encourages others to use this website and the Celebrating Science guide as a resource for supporting inquiry-based science education reform within their own community and to celebrate with us the progress of student achievement in science.
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