But with time, and by reaching a shared agreement on what “writing” and “science learning” really are, they formed a unique bond over the course of two years.
“We shared a general belief that communicating scientific knowledge was as important for students, their teachers, and museum educators as making new breakthroughs in scientific thought,” they wrote.
The Smash Jam Workshop concluded its first year with a mini film festival of all the videos created. The next year, the team developed three digital video workshops, providing opportunities for youth to review and redo their work. They also developed tools for collecting data on how the teens understand the science embedded in their video products.
The partnership has grown beyond the workshops into a rich and ongoing collaboration. The partners have expanded the program’s visibility and strengthened its staying power by developing a summer camp for local Pittsburgh teens.
“But perhaps most significant to us,” the team members wrote, “whenever we partners meet, the main topic of conversation is, How can we keep working together?” An ongoing partnership is crucial because, they wrote, by “working together, we are finding that new doors sometimes opened and some brilliant new ways of achieving our higher aims emerged.”
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