Bernie Zubrowski

Senior Scientist

Center for Science Education (CSE)

Bernie Zubrowski has spent much of his professional life devising ways to educate young people about science, both while they’re at school and when they are out in the world, away from the classroom. He has contributed to many of EDC’s landmark science curricula, including Elementary Science Study and the African Primary Science Program. He is currently directing several projects, including Explore It! Science Investigations in Out-of-School Programs and Video Resources for In-Depth Investigations of Pond Organisms. In his years with Boston’s Children’s Museum, Bernie designed exhibits that traveled to science centers across the United States. His 16 books—with titles like Siphons and Water Pumps and Blinkers and Buzzers—and 12 curriculum guides have influenced museum designers, educators, and parents throughout the world. Bernie is perhaps best known for designing hands-on learning activities that engage young people in scientific explorations with very simple materials. Under his guidance, children have made houses out of drinking straws, tops out of paper plates, and cars powered by balloons; they have concocted cakes and ice creams, invented sodas, and played with mirrors, shadows, and waves.

What led you to EDC?

I’ve got an unusual history with EDC because I worked here 30 years ago. I had been in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh and was back in the United States in graduate school when I happened to read an article in Esquire about the African Mathematics Programs that EDC was directing. I was fascinated, so I decided to look into this Education Development Center. I came to Boston and met Charlie Wolcott for lunch. He said they didn’t need anyone for the African Primary Science Program but they did need someone with a chemistry background for the Elementary Science Study (ESS). Well, he hired me on the spot. Here were all these renowned scientists and master teachers from MIT and Harvard working together, and here I was just out of college with my two years of teaching in the Peace Corps.

After several years at EDC, I took a job at the Children’s Museum [of Boston]. My work there was great, but after a while I decided that I wanted to do some things that are hard to do at a museum, like curriculum development and educational videos. And I really wanted to work with people who were more broadly affiliated with the formal education world. I realized it was time for me to reconnect with the people at EDC.

What aspect of your work do you find most personally satisfying right now?

What I love most is working directly with kids. I was in New York a few weeks ago visiting an after-school program in the Bronx that’s implementing a curriculum we’ve developed called Explore It! The kids were just great. They were all third and fourth graders who were really excited about the science. It was wonderful to see these kids getting so much out of our curriculum. I just love their enthusiasm.

I also get to go into classrooms and talk to kids about a project we’re doing with the EcoTarium. We put videos of pond organisms on CD-ROM—things like dragonfly larvae, tadpoles, goldfish, daphnia. Then the kids watch the videos and do some investigations about what they’re seeing. They’re able to study the organisms in real time, in slow motion, frame by frame. I love talking to the kids about what they’re discovering. Kids are the ultimate consumers of all that we do and I like to stay in touch with them. I think it’s important that we understand, from their point of view, what we are doing with them and for them.

Tell me about a project that you are especially excited about.

All three of my projects are pretty exciting, but Explore It! has an interesting history for me. About 10 years ago when I was at the Children’s Museum, I was very involved with after-school programs. But I got to feeling somewhat discouraged about the work because I had the sense that afterschool was the backwater of the education world—nobody really cared about it. Then I came to EDC and got involved with a curriculum development project in design engineering called A World in Motion. This work got me thinking again about the possibilities of after-school learning. So I put in a proposal to develop a project called Design It! It was a hands-on curriculum that got kids doing design engineering projects in after-school settings. Well, it got turned down the first time, but then the National Science Foundation (NSF) decided to fund it and it worked out really well. Now we’re following it up with Explore It!, a similar program that involves kids in physical science.

What’s the most interesting idea in your field right now?

In the world of informal education, the most exciting thing going on is the increased consideration given to after-school programs. With the push to make afterschool more educational, there has been more attention paid to science and engineering projects. I think that is pretty exciting. NSF is increasing the amount of money it grants for after-school programs; there is also interest at private foundations. I think understanding is growing that all kinds of programs—in museums, community centers, on TV—can complement what goes on in school.

But I do have a concern about all this increased attention. I worry that afterschool will become more and more like school. There is strong pressure on these programs to become more academic. I think there should be tutoring and academic help available to kids in after-school programs. But we also need to remember that kids need a break. They can’t be going to school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Programs like Design It! and Explore It! offer a kind of activity that is a lot of fun for kids and at the same time challenges them and complements what they are learning in school. You can’t put pressure on after-school programs to do what the schools should be doing.

What are your biggest challenges?

The challenge in after-school programs right now is in getting the word out about the importance of professional development for program directors and staff. Within the last five years a lot of money has been put into starting up programs, but the quality of some of these programs is questionable. There is growing recognition that the kind of ongoing support that works with teachers in the formal sector applies to after-school staff as well, if not more so. We’ve got to think long-term about professional development—a summer institute is not enough.

In the formal education world, a big challenge is how to keep the interest of the students at the center, while still attending to the standards and the other pressures for rigor and conceptual development. Especially at the elementary school level, children’s curiosity needs to be kept alive. That’s always my biggest goal.

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"Kids are the ultimate consumers of all that we do and I like to stay in touch with them. I think it’s important that we understand, from their point of view, what we are doing with them and for them."