The University of Montana will create “Transforming Spaces” to foster a more inclusive, culturally responsive space for Missoula’s urban Indian population and to better meet the community’s needs. The project will explore cross-cultural, collaborative approaches to STEM and Native Science. In collaboration with Montana’s tribal communities, the museum’s education team and advisory groups will design and implement hands-on activities that engage visitors with Native Science. The project will engage tribal role models and partner with tribal elders to create a library of videos for tribal partners, K–12 schools, and organizations. The project will offer teachers professional development designed to fulfill the statewide mandate of Indian Education for All. The exhibit will connect Native and non-Native museum visitors, close opportunity and achievement gaps, and ensure that all Missoula children feel a sense of belonging in museums, higher education, and STEM.
This award is funded in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
This project will create the specification for a learner-controlled system to represent youth learning in Out-of-School-Time (OST) settings, to improve access to future Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities. For learners to pursue a STEM education, and STEM careers, they must be able to move through "gatekeeping" mechanisms that filter and sort students based on factors such as prior coursework and grades, teacher recommendations, and language proficiency assessments. Even though abundant evidence shows that such measures fail to capture all important aspects of STEM learning, they are traditionally relied upon in secondary and post-secondary STEM education contexts as indicators of preparation for future STEM learning. These systemic processes exclude certain minoritized groups, including Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), low income, immigrant and refugee youth, and youth learning English, from high-quality secondary and post-secondary STEM learning experiences because existing measures do not validate their prior knowledge and experiences. Yet, minoritized youth often engage in OST STEM learning opportunities, where their readiness for future learning opportunities is nurtured and valued. One challenge is to reliably document this readiness in a usable format so youth can access new STEM learning opportunities, especially in post-secondary contexts. This project builds strategically upon earlier work focusing on the democratization of STEM learning through vehicles such as digital micro-credentials or badges, and upon digital portfolios. Missing from these earlier efforts was integration of these platforms with an infrastructure that connected youth learners to OST STEM learning organizations and to future STEM learning opportunities. This Innovations in Development project brings together minoritized youth and their families, OST providers, and admissions officials from higher education institutions to explore the needed design features for OST "transcripts," and user stories that describe how software systems can support their creation and sharing. Grounded in the concept of mastery-based learning, where learning is demonstrated via action, learners will control what is included in the transcript so that they create their own narratives about their learning experiences. Recognizing that documentation is not the key focus of most STEM OST organizations, this project will provide direct support for identifying and codifying learning goals or outcomes that learners and their families find relevant and important within different STEM activities. This project 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.
The project will take a Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) approach and proceed by convening representatives from three main stakeholder groups (youth and their families, OST providers, and admissions staff) to engage in a series of discovery and design activities. Project partners, including the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MA), STEAMville (IL), STUDIO (WA), and Wolverine Pathways (MI), will work together with the PIs to design templates learners can use to characterize STEM learning from each provider, aligned with different STEM learning foci (e.g., computer science, computational thinking, cross-cutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and mathematics). Data collected from these sessions will be used to address the following research questions: (1) How and why do youth and families from minoritized communities understand and choose to participate in STEM OST learning opportunities?, (2) How do youth understand and interact with STEM OST learning opportunities?, (3) How do OST providers characterize the STEM learning goals in the activities they provide?, and (4) How do college admissions personnel view the role of informal STEM learning as part of a holistic admissions process? This work has the potential to further the understanding of how OST learning can be documented and shared as a part of the larger ecosystem of STEM learning trajectories. By deeply engaging the perspectives and voices of minoritized youth and families, this project seeks to develop a valid and trustworthy instrument that recognizes and serves their STEM learning, thus broadening the participation of minoritized youth in STEM education and careers. This work will also benefit OST providers, by translating the documentation of youth STEM learning into forms that may help communicate the efficacy of their programs in ways that further their missions, including communicating evidence of effectiveness to both future participants and funders.
Counterspaces in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are often considered “safe spaces” at the margins for groups outside the mainstream of STEM education. The prevailing culture and structural manifestations in STEM have traditionally privileged norms of success that favor competitive, individualistic, and solitary practices—norms associated with White male scientists. This privilege extends to structures that govern learning and mark progress in STEM education that have marginalized groups that do not reflect the gender, race, or ethnicity conventionally associated with
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Maria OngJanet SmithLily Ko
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
In our efforts to sustain U.S. productivity and economic strength, underrepresented minorities (URM) (for the purpose of this paper defined as persons of African American, Hispanic American, and Native American racial/ethnic descent), provide an untapped reservoir of talent that could be used to fill technical jobs. Over the past 25 years, educational diversity programs have encouraged and supported URM pursuing STEM degrees. Yet, their representation in STEM still lags far behind that of White, non-Hispanic men.
To understand the reasons why this is occurring, the American Association for
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Yolanda S. GeorgeVirginia Van HorneShirley M. Malcom
The University of Texas at Austin's Texas Advanced Computing Center, Chaminade University of Honolulu (CUH), and the Georgia Institute of Technology will lead this NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot (DDLP) to establish a model for data science preparation of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) students at the high school and undergraduate levels. The project is premised on the promise of NHPI communities gaining access to, and the ability to work with, large data sets to tackle emerging problems in the Pacific. Such agency over "big data" sets that are relevant to Pacific issues, and contemporary skills in data science, analytics and visualization have the potential to be transformative for community improvement efforts. The effort has the potential to advance knowledge, instructional pedagogy and practices to improve NHPI high school and undergraduate students performance in and attraction to STEM education and careers.
The project team will work to: 1) Increase interest and proficiency in data science and visualization among NHPI high school and undergraduate students through a summer immersion experience that bridges computation and culture; 2) Build data science capacity at an NHPI serving undergraduate institution (CUH) through creation of a certificate program; and 3) Develop and expand partnerships with other organizations with related goals working with NHPI populations. The month-long summer training for 20 NHPI college students, and five NHPI high school students, takes place at CUH and focuses on data science, visualization, and virtual reality, including working on problem sets that require data science approaches and incorporate geographically, socially- and culturally-relevant research themes.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kelly GaitherRosalia Gomez
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The University of Maine will address the grand challenge of increasing Native American participation in the science,technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) enterprise in an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot project addressing culturally relevant pedagogy, incorporating Community Elders, Cultural Knowledge Keepers, and mainstream secondary and higher education institutions in the development of STEM pedagogy that can be replicated to other underrepresented and underserved populations. Partners in the effort include the Wabanaki Youth in Science program (WaYS)(a non-profit organization), Salish Kootenai College (a Tribal College), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a research university), the National Indian Education Association (a non-profit membership organization) and the current NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot project at the University of Maine (the Stormwater Research Management Team (SMART)). This NSF INCLUDES partnership provides students with evidence-based STEM activities involving culturally relevant internships, mentoring, STEM professional development activities and other support. Non-native students will reciprocally participate in Native American learning environments.
The foundation for the project's activities is based on the WaYS program in science education that incorporates Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). The goals of the project are to: 1) create and integrate curriculum that embraces TEK and western science as equal partners; 2)develop and implement protocols to incorporate a continued mentorship program for WaYS and STREAM engineering students; 3)develop a framework to bridge the gap between high school and college; and 4) foster collaboration among Community Elders, Cultural Knowledge Keepers and University of Maine faculty in a model that could be transferred to other communities. Internal and external evaluation activities will add to the scholarly literature on educating Native Americans and non-native students in STEM disciplines. Dissemination of project results will include published peer-reviewed journal articles on newly developed pedagogy and conference presentations at the American Indian Science and Engineering (AISES) national conference, the National Diversity in STEM Conference, National Science Teachers Association, AAAS, ASEE and the National NSF INCLUDES Network.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Darren RancoJohn DaigleMindy CrandallShaleen Jain
This project is a Design and Development Launch Pilot (DDLP) of the NSF INCLUDES program. The goal of the project is to enhance the knowledge and applicability of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for a broad cross-section of people living in the U.S,-Affiliated Pacific Islands. The focus will be on water resources, which is an extremely important topic for this region and equally relevant nationally. The project will engage local community groups and schools in water monitoring, sampling, and analysis, in order to promote the benefits of science education and careers among a population that is underrepresented in these areas. Moreover, the project will improve the capabilities of the island residents for making decisions about sustainable use and protection of these scarce resources. A functioning network will be established among the islands that will have a positive impact on the health and well-being of the residents.
This project will use water as a highly relevant topic in order to involve a wide range of individuals in both general STEM learning and the basic scientific principles as applied to water resources. Specific aspects include engaging K-12, higher education, informal educators and community members to manage water resources in a sustainable fashion that will reduce disaster risk. In addition, the project will empower local communities through water literacy to make better informed, evidence-based decisions that balance the needs of diverse stakeholder groups. The overarching goal is to further advance the inclusion of underrepresented learners in STEM fields. Benefits to society will accrue by: increasing STEM learning opportunities for ~6,500 students from underserved and underrepresented Indigenous Pacific Islanders that will enhance their eligibility for STEM careers; building community resiliency through a collective impact network to resolve emerging water crises; and fostering collaboration among different constituencies in remote communities to make better-informed decisions that reflect the needs and constraints of diverse interests.
The Yellowstone Altai-Sayan Project (YASP) brings together student and professional researchers with Indigenous researchers and communities in domestic and international settings. 4 MSU and 2 tribal college student participants engaged research projects with their home communities in the western U.S.—Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux, Fort Berthold Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara—and with Indigenous communities in Mongolia Research was initiated with home communities in spring 2016, and with Indigenous researchers and herder (seminomadic) communities in the Darhad Valley of
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristin RuppelCliff MontagneLisa Lone FightBadamgarav DovchinTaylor ElderCamaleigh Old CoyoteJoaquin Small-RodriguezEsther HallTillie StewartKendra Teague
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This INCLUDES award to the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network will focus on building STEM research and teaching capacity of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). HBCUs and TCUs share the impact of disparities that affect their communities and are constantly seeking STEM research and education solutions to engage students and prepare them to be fully involved in developing innovative and effective remedies that will address these disparities. The QEM Design & Development Launch Pilot (DDLP) Project is a collaboration that will provide an underpinning for broadening the participation of institutions involved in improving the enrollment and retention of minority students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). To be competitive in a future global economy, the Nation must make a larger investment in the STEM education of its underrepresented groups, including, males and persons with disabilities. Failure to make such an investment can weaken our STEM infrastructure and inhibit the continuity of the Nation as a world leader in STEM.
The project's initial partners consist of five HBCUs (Morehouse College, Morgan State University, Spelman College, Tuskegee University, and University of Maryland Eastern Shore) and two TCUs (Aaniiih Nakoda College and United Tribes Technical College) with the aim of expanding to 12 institutions as well as adding business/industry partners and STEM-focused professional societies. The goals of the DDLP project are to: (1) build and sustain an alliance to increase the participation of African Americans and Native Americans in STEM education, research, and the workforce; (2) strengthen the STEM research, instructional, and mentoring capacities of partner HBCUs and TCUs; and (3) develop and promote broadening participation (BP) practices to address academic and professional career needs of African American and Native American males to significantly increase their representation in STEM. The QEM DDLP will implement evidence-based and data-driven approaches to developing research, education, and mentoring activities that can be tailored to institutional needs and context. The resulting outcome will be an increase in the capacities of HBCUs and TCUs in STEM that will position these institutions for sustained contributions to national broadening participation initiatives.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Shirley McBayLeander McDonaldLaura-Lee DavidsonEugene DeLoatchJuliette Bell
Northern Michigan University's Center for Native American Studies and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion will lead this Design and Development Launch Pilot about culturally inclusive K-16 STEM education for American Indian and Native Alaskan (AIAN) students. This project was created in response to the NSF Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES) program solicitation (NSF 16-544). The INCLUDES program is a comprehensive national initiative designed to enhance U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discoveries and innovations focused on NSF's commitment to diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation in these fields. The INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilots represent bold, innovative ways for solving a broadening participation challenge in STEM.
The full participation of all of America's STEM talent is critical to the advancement of science and engineering for national security, health and prosperity. Our nation is advancing knowledge and practices to address the undergraduate STEM achievement and the graduation gap between NAAIs and non-native Americans. This project, the NSF INCLUDES: Indigenous Women Working Within the Sciences (IWWS), has the potential to advance knowledge, instructional pedagogy and practices to improve the performance of NAAI high school students and undergraduate students in STEM.
This project team will work to: (1) pilot activities and coursework to train K-16 STEM educators about American Indian inclusive methods and materials, (2) to provide AIAN high school students with STEM college preparatory experience using inclusive STEM practices, and (3) to provide a cohort of female AIAN high school students additional university experiences and mentors as these students transition to postsecondary education. Activities include a five-day summer educators institute for 40 K-16 STEM educators, an additional weekend workshop for 20 K-16 STEM educators, a summer STEM academy for 96 AIAN high school students, a STEM weekend workshop for female AIAN high school students, and a mentoring program for AIAN high school students.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
April LindalaJessica CruzMartin Reinhardt