This project will teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts to preschoolers by creating a mobile app to guide families through sequenced sets of videos and hands-on activities, building on the popular PBS KIDS series Work It Out Wombats!
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marisa WolskyJanna KookJessica Andrews
Community Partnerships in STEM — a project of the Sciencenter and partners Downtown Ithaca Children’s Center and My Brother’s Keeper Ithaca — will expand opportunities for local youth from low-income households to engage with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through hands-on programming. Sciencenter and its partners will co-develop relevant, accessible, and inclusive programs for youth and deliver the programs at the museum and at partner locations. As a result of this project, local youth from low-income households will come to see science as a process for learning about the world through experimentation and exploration that is relevant to their everyday lives.
Operation Full STEAM is an exploratory outreach project of the Cade Museum designed to close achievement gaps for underserved elementary school students in Alachua County, Florida. It provides hands-on learning experiences in science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) for students as they move from second to fifth grade in three Title I schools. The museum is implementing the project in collaboration with the Alachua County School District and corporate and community partners. This phase of the project will see the students through 4th and 5th grade where standard 5th grade science testing in the schools will measure the impact of the program. In addition to improving academic performance, the project aims to cultivate greater interest in STEAM disciplines among students from culturally and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds, inspire the pursuit of further education, and contribute to a more inclusive and equitable innovation economy.
The Mississippi Children’s Museum will complete WonderBox, a 1,500 square foot-STEAM exhibit in the museum’s existing arts gallery. WonderBox will address a critical need in Mississippi for increased education in STEAM subjects during elementary grades—particularly for those individuals who are underserved and lack adequate access to resources. Through the proposed exhibit area and programming, children from all backgrounds will explore topics such as design, art, coding, robotics, engineering, and circuitry. It will encourage active exploration and inquiry-based learning while facilitating parent/caregiver interaction with hands-on activities and guided conversations that will inspire children to design, create, and invent. Additionally, the gallery will offer children opportunities to interact with concepts from industries that are vital to Mississippi’s economy in an environment that encourages innovation and creative problem solving.
The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will conduct the Million Orchid Project Authentic STEM Initiative to provide inclusive and accessible STEM learning opportunities for approximately 1,800 students annually from the most diverse and under-resourced middle and K-8 schools in Miami–Dade County. The initiative will use the Fairchild's STEMLab — a mobile plant propagation lab designed especially for schoolchildren — to bring the museum’s specialized scientific research to young learners in South Florida neighborhoods. Students and teachers will collect and analyze scientific data, devise research questions, and test hypotheses that will advance local conservation and contribute to the propagation of endangered orchids. Students will have the opportunity to explore STEM careers through interactions with Fairchild botanists.
The Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden will strengthen and expand its “Living Laboratory,” a hands-on outdoor youth environmental education program. New curricula will target students in preschool through 6th grade to expand the reach of the program. Additional programming will serve students in middle school and high school, including facilitating guided research projects for students in the district STEM Fair. Partnerships with local organizations will help to expand inclusive programming for at-risk and economically disadvantaged students and make the program free. They will use student-created videos of their experiments and activities to create multimedia online tutorial resources for educators.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robin Sarabia
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio will expand its professional development program for educators in Chicago Public Schools and surrounding suburbs with low-income populations. The Teaching by Design program integrates design-based inquiry and problem-solving into K-12 curricula. It connects Wright's design philosophy to contemporary issues in STEAM subjects. Following a multi-year pilot, the trust will bring the project to scale by delivering 12 professional development seminars, developing 100 new lesson plans, enhancing the program's online platform, evaluating the project's short- and long-term impact, and cultivating a sustainable Teaching by Design learning community. The seminars will provide educators with a fully immersive artmaking and design experience that can be replicated in the classroom and connected to cross-curricular themes and learning standards. The project aims to reach 90 educators in at least 40 schools, 9,000 students, and an estimated 3,000 website users.
Early learning experiences for children have the potential to make a lasting impression on a young person, and ultimately influence their interests, school trajectories, and professional careers. As such, there has been an increasing effort to understand what can make these experiences more or less productive for young people, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields that face ongoing challenges related to workforce development. A better understanding of what happens during and after early engineering activities - and in particular, what contributes to a productive and engaging experience for children between the ages of 3 and 5 - can inform the design of new activities and potentially catalyze greater interest and learning about engineering at a young age. This study seeks to add new knowledge in this area by exploring how and why different elements of engineering activities for young children might be more or less effective for early learners. In addition, the study also examines engagement and interest related to engineering at the family level, acknowledging the essential roles that parents and families play in the overall development of young children. Finally, this study includes a specific focus on low-income and Spanish-speaking families, thereby engaging with communities that historically have less access to early science and engineering learning opportunities and remain persistently underrepresented in these fields. In order to maximize the impact of this research, findings from this study will be shared broadly with parents, educators, and researchers from multiple fields such as engineering education, child development, and informal/out-of-school time education.
This study has the potential to have a transformative impact on engineering education by developing both educational products and conceptual frameworks that advance the field's knowledge of how to effectively engage young learners and their parents/caregivers in meaningful and productive engineering learning experiences. This study seeks to break new ground at the frontiers of early childhood engineering, specifically through a) articulating and refining a new integrated conceptual framework that weaves together theories of learning and development with theoretical constructs from engineering design and b) applying and refining this integrated framework when creating, implementing, assessing, and revising components of family-based engineering activities for early learners, particularly those from low-income and Spanish-speaking families. Unlike many other early childhood engineering programs, this project focuses on the family context, which is the primary driver of learning and interest development at this age. The study therefore provides an opportunity to advance the field by both helping young children build engineering skills and interests before starting kindergarten while also empowering parents to support their children's engineering education at a critical developmental period. Additionally, by enhancing parent-child interactions and supporting a range of early childhood development goals, this project will also contribute to efforts to decrease the persistent kindergarten readiness gap across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. The research ultimately supports efforts to increase the diversity of individuals who will potentially enter the engineering workforce.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. There are few empirical studies of sustained youth engagement in STEM-oriented making over time, how youth are supported in working towards more robust STEM related projects, on the outcomes of such making experiences among youth from historically marginalized communities, or on the design features of making experiences which support these goals. The project plans to conduct a set of research studies to develop: a theory-based and data-driven framework for equitably consequential making; a set of related individual-level and program-level cases with exemplars (and the associated challenges) that can be used by researchers and practitioners for guiding the field; and an initial set of guiding principles (with indicators) for identifying equitably consequential making in practice. The project will result in a framework for equitably consequential making with guiding principles for implementation that will contribute to the infrastructure for fostering increased opportunities to learn among all youth, especially those historically underrepresented in STEM.
Through research, the project seeks to build capacity among STEM-oriented maker practitioners, researchers and youth in the maker movement around equitably consequential making to expand the prevailing norms of making towards more transformative outcomes for youth. Project research will be guided by several questions. What do youth learn and do (in-the-moment and over time) in making spaces that work to support equity in making? What maker space design features support (or work against) youth in making in equitably consequential ways? What are the individual and community outcomes youth experience in STEM-making across settings and time scales? What are the most salient indicators of equitably consequential making, how do they take shape, how can these indicators be identified in practice? The project will research these questions using interview studies and critical longitudinal ethnography with embedded youth participatory case study methodologies. The research will be conducted in research-practice partnerships involving Michigan State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and 4 local, STEM- and youth-oriented making spaces in Lansing and Greensboro that serve historically underrepresented groups in STEM, with a specific focus on youth from lower-income and African American backgrounds.
This project will teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts to preschoolers by creating a series of mobile apps to guide families through sequenced sets of videos and hands-on activities. To support families at home it would also develop a new library model to build librarians' computational thinking content knowledge and self-efficacy so they can support parents' efforts with their children. Computational thinking is a an increasingly critical skill for learning and success in the workforce. It includes the ability to identify problems, brainstorm and generate solutions and processes that can be communicated and followed by computers or humans. There are few projects that introduce computational thinking to young children. Very little research has been done on the ways that parents can facilitate children's engagement in CT skills. And developing a model that trains and supports librarians to become virtual coaches of parents as they engage with their children in CT, will leverage and build the expertise of librarians. The project's target audience includes parents and children living in rural areas where access to CT learning may be very limited. Project partners include the EDC, a major research organization, the American Library Association, and BUILD, a national association that promotes collaborations across library, kindergarten readiness, and public media programming.
The formative research study asks: 1) What supports do parents of preschoolers in rural communities need in order to effectively engage in CT with their children at home? and 2) How can libraries in rural communities support joint CT exploration in family homes? The summative research study asks: 3) how can an intervention that combines media resources, mobile technology, and library supports foster sustained joint parent/child engagement and positive attitudes around CT? Researchers will develop a parent survey, adapting several scales from previously developed instruments that ask parents to report on children's use of CT-related vocabulary and CT-related attitudes and dispositions. Survey scales will assess librarians' attitudes towards CT, as well as their self-efficacy in supporting parents in CT in a virtual environment. During the formative study, EDC will pilot-test survey scales with 30 parents and 6 librarians in rural MS and KY. Analyses will be primarily qualitative and will be geared toward producing rapid feedback for the development team. Quantitative analyses will be used on parent app use, using both time query and back-end data, exploring factors associated with time spent using apps. The summative study will evaluate how the new media resources and mobile technology, in combination with the library virtual implementation model, support families' joint engagement with CT, and positive attitudes around CT. The researchers will recruit 125 low-income families with 4- to 5-year-old children in rural MS and KY to participate in the study. They will randomly assign families within each library to the full intervention condition, including media resources, mobile technology, and library support delivered through the virtual implementation model, or the media and mobile-technology-only condition. This design will allow researchers to understand more fully the additional benefit of library support for rural families' sustained engagement, and conversely, see the comparative impact of a media- and mobile-technology only intervention, given that some families might not be able to access virtual or physical library support.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. This project is co-funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.
This Innovations in Development award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Refugee youth are particularly vulnerable to STEM disenfranchisement due to factors including limited or interrupted schooling following displacement; restricted exposure to STEM education; and linguistic, cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic, and racial minority status. Refugee youth may experience a gap in STEM skills and knowledge, and a conflict between the identities necessary for participation in their families and communities, and those expected for success in STEM settings. To conduct research to better understand these challenges, an interrelated set of activities will be developed. First, youth will learn principles of physics and computing by participating in cosmic ray research with physicists using an instructional approach that builds from their home languages and cultures. Then youth periodically share what they are learning in the cosmic ray research with their parents, siblings, and science teachers at family and community science events. Finally, youth conduct reflective research on their own STEM identity development over the course of the project. Research on learning will be conducted within and across these three strands to better understand how refugee youth develop STEM-positive identities. This project will benefit society by improving equity and diversity in STEM through (1) creating opportunities for refugee youth to participate in physics research and to develop computing skills and (2) producing knowledge on STEM identity development that may be applied more broadly to improve STEM education. Deliverables from this project include: (a) research publications on STEM identity and learning; (b) curriculum resources for teaching physics and computing to multilingual youth; (c) an online digital storytelling exhibit offering narratives about belonging in STEM research which can be shared with STEM stakeholders (policy makers, scientists, educators, etc.); and (d) an online database of cosmic ray data which will be available to physicists worldwide for research purposes. This Innovations in Development proposal is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
This program is designed to provide multiple contexts, relationships, and modes across and within which the identity work of individual students can be studied to look for convergence or divergence. To achieve this goal, the research applies a linguistic anthropological framework embedding discourse analysis in a larger ethnography. Data collected in this study include field notes, audio and video recordings of naturalistic interactions in the cosmic ray research and other program activities, multimodal artifacts (e.g., students' digital stories), student work products, interviews, and surveys. Critically, this methodology combines the analysis of identity formation as it unfolds in moment-to-moment conversations (during STEM learning, and in conversations about STEM and STEM learning) with reflective tasks and the production of personal narratives (e.g., in digital stories and interviews). Documenting convergence and divergence of STEM identities across these sources of data offers both methodological and theoretical contributions to the field. The research will offer thick description of the discursive practices of refugee youth to reveal how they construct identities related to STEM and STEM disciplines across settings (e.g., during cosmic ray research, while creating digital stories), relationships (e.g., peer, parent, teacher), and the languages they speak (e.g., English, Swahili). The findings will be of potential value to instructional designers of informal learning experiences including those working with afterschool, museums, science centers and the like, educators, and scholars of learning and identity.
This Innovations in Development award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Tino NyaweloJohn MatthewsJordan GertonSarah Braden
A makerspace is a place where participants explore their own interests and learn by creating, tinkering, and inventing artifacts through the use of a rich variety of tools and materials. This project will develop and research a flexible model for makerspaces that can be adapted to local settings to support informal STEM learning for hospitalized, chronically ill patients in pediatric environments who are predominantly youth of color from low-income backgrounds. These youth are subject to health disparities and healthcare inequities. Their frequent absence from school and other activities disrupt friendship formations, reduce their opportunities for social support, reduce their access to environments where they can feel a sense of self-agency through learning and creative activities. Through patient centered co-design, this project will build adaptable STEM makerspace environments conducive to STEM-rich learning, the exercise of self-agency, and development of STEM identity. Project design will focus on the sensitive nature of working with vulnerable populations (i.e., immunocompromised patients). The project will develop and disseminate several resources: (1) a flexible makerspace model that can be adapted to work in different pediatric settings; (2) research methods for conducting research in highly sensitive environments with and alongside young patients; and (3) professional development resources and a playbook including guidebook and facilitators guide that will articulate principles and processes for designing, implementing and sustaining makerspaces in pediatric settings. These resources will be widely disseminated through maker and other informal STEM networks.
The project will pursue two innovations. First, the project will develop the physical design of adaptable informal STEM makerspaces in pediatric settings. Second, the project will develop innovative patient-centered methodologies for studying approaches to physical design and the effects of makerspace installations for informal STEM-learning, self-agency, and STEM identity development. Using a design-based research approach, the project will investigate: (1) the extent to which physical makerspace designs support access to material, relational, and ideational resources for STEM-learning and well-being; (2) the extent to which makerspace installations, researchers, and medical care staff support patients in accessing and generating tools and other resources for personal learning and a sense of agency; and (3) the extent to which makerspace design with a focus on affording material, relational, and ideational resources provide rich opportunities for young patients to explore their own interests and cultivate STEM identities. One of the project's innovations, beyond development of adaptable makerspace model involves developing an innovative patient-centered methodology for conducting educational research toward broadening participation in STEM in highly sensitive medical care environments. The project will employ a mixed-methods research design and collect a variety of data to address these areas of research including documentation of makerspace design plans and renderings, observational data gathered through fieldnotes, video and audio recordings, informal interviews with patients, their families, and child-care staff, and patient generated artifacts. Articles for researchers and practitioners will be submitted for publication to appropriate professional journals and peer-reviewed publications.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings.
This Innovations in Development award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.