Educational outreach facilities provide unique opportunities to learn sciences at the forefront of research. An example is Biosphere 2, a site of environmental and ecological research, which is coupled to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Research facilities can evoke the relevance of sciences in everyday life. This is important in secondary schooling to increase students’ engagement in sciences, while environmental challenges continue to expand. We therefore examined the role of fascination and motivation on learning with 5th to 12th grade students who participated in a half- to full-day on-site education program. Our data confirmed the construct of fascination through Rasch and factor analysis, revealed substantial knowledge gains, showed effects of motivation and fascination on knowledge scores, and suggested that authentic learning enhanced science engagement. Results further indicated that both instruments measure an analogous construct, while motivation appeared to have more predictive power on cognitive achievement.

教育外展设施提供了在研究前沿学习科学的独特机会。一个例子是生物圈 2，这是一个环境和生态研究场所，它与可持续发展教育 (ESD) 相结合。研究设施可以唤起科学在日常生活中的相关性。这在中学教育中很重要，可以提高学生对科学的参与度，同时环境挑战也在不断扩大。因此，我们与参加半天到全天现场教育计划的 5 至 12 年级学生一起研究了魅力和动机在学习中的作用。我们的数据通过 Rasch 和因子分析证实了迷恋的构建，揭示了大量的知识增益，显示了动机和迷恋对知识得分的影响，并建议真实的学习增强了科学参与。结果进一步表明，这两种工具都测量了类似的结构，而动机似乎对认知成就具有更强的预测能力。