John Falk and Lynn Dierking, Oregon Sea Grant Professors of Free-choice Learning, are giving an invited lecture April 11 at the National Science Foundation headquarters in Arlington, VA. Their joint lecture, “An Ecological Approach to Understanding Lifelong STEM Learning: A Story in Two Voices” is part of the Distinguished Lecture Series hosted by the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources.

Using examples from their own research, Dierking and Falk plan to “discuss how they reframe STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Math] learning research to better acknowledge and describe STEM learning as a cultural activity: a set of activities situated within a complex ecological community that affords myriad opportunities for STEM experiences of widely varying content, depth, quality, and accessibility.”

Falk and Dierking, internationally-known experts in free-choice learning (how people learn in out-of-school settings), serve in other leadership roles at OSU: Falk as director of the Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning; Dierking as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Education. They are professors in the College of Education.

Dr. John Falk

Dr. Lynn Dierking