Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Remy DouHeidi CianZahra HazariPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
This NOVA multiplatform media initiative consisted of a 2-hour nationally broadcast PBS documentary, Polar Extremes; a 10-part original digital series, Antarctic Extremes; an interactive game, Polar Lab; accompanying polar-themed digital shorts, radio stories, text reporting, and social media content; a collection of educational resources on PBS LearningMedia; and community screening events and virtual field trips for science classrooms. Across multiple media platforms the project’s video content had nearly 13 million views.
The research explored the potential for informal STEM learning
Science Hunters is an outreach project which employs the computer game Minecraft to engage children with scientific learning and research through school visits, events, and extracurricular clubs. We principally target children who may experience barriers to accessing Higher Education, including low socioeconomic status, being the first in their family to attend university, and disability (including Special Educational Needs). The Minecraft platform encourages teamwork and makes science learning accessible and entertaining for children, irrespective of background. We employ a flexible approach
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Laura HobbsCarly StevensJackie HartleyCalum Hartley
The Sustainability Teams Empower and Amplify Membership in STEM (S-TEAMS), an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot project, will tackle the problem of persistent underrepresentation by low-income, minority, and women students in STEM disciplines and careers through transdisciplinary teamwork. As science is increasingly done in teams, collaborations bring diversity to research. Diverse interactions can support critical thinking, problem-solving, and is a priority among STEM disciplines. By exploring a set of individual contributors that can be effect change through collective impact, this project will explore alternative approaches to broadly enhance diversity in STEM, such as sense of community and perceived program benefit. The S-TEAMS project relies on the use of sustainability as the organizing frame for the deployment of learning communities (teams) that engage deeply with active learning. Studies on the issue of underrepresentation often cite a feeling of isolation and lack of academically supportive networks with other students like themselves as major reasons for a disinclination to pursue education and careers in STEM, even as the numbers of underrepresented groups are increasing in colleges and universities across the country. The growth of sustainability science provides an excellent opportunity to include students from underrepresented groups in supportive teams working together on problems that require expertise in multiple disciplines. Participating students will develop professional skills and strengthen STEM- and sustainability-specific skills through real-world experience in problem solving and team science. Ultimately this project is expected to help increase the number of qualified professionals in the field of sustainability and the number of minorities in the STEM professions.
While there is certainly a clear need to improve engagement and retention of underrepresented groups across the entire spectrum of STEM education - from K-12 through graduate education, and on through career choices - the explicit focus here is on the undergraduate piece of this critical issue. This approach to teamwork makes STEM socialization integral to the active learning process. Five-member transdisciplinary teams, from disciplines such as biology, chemistry, computer and information sciences, geography, geology, mathematics, physics, and sustainability science, will work together for ten weeks in summer 2018 on real-world projects with corporations, government organizations, and nongovernment organizations. Sustainability teams with low participation by underrepresented groups will be compared to those with high representation to gather insights regarding individual and collective engagement, productivity, and ongoing interest in STEM. Such insights will be used to scale up the effort through partnership with New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS).
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Amy TuiningaAshwani VasishthPankaj Lai
Physical science and engineering remain the least diverse of all STEM fields---with regard to women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities---across all levels of STEM education and training. SCI-STEPS is an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot that will address this persistent challenge by developing a complete end-to-end pipeline (or system of pathways) from the beginning of college to the PhD, and then into the workforce. Many isolated efforts to broaden participation have shown promise, but they have not produced big enough impact. SCI-STEPS represents a concerted set of coordinated interventions---consciously facilitated, systemically linked, and purposefully disseminated. SCI-STEPS represents a broad regional network among major research universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, comprehensive universities, community colleges, national labs, and major scientific organizations. The goal of the network is to ensure that underrepresented individuals in the physical sciences and engineering can get from their starting point in STEM higher education---freshmen at 2-year or 4-year college---through the higher education pathways leading to an appropriate terminal degree and employment in the STEM workforce.
Women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities collectively represent the majority of college-age individuals entering higher education with an expressed interest in physical science and engineering. A growing body of research indicates that academic and social integration may be even more influential than academic abilities for retention of students. Thus, interventions aimed at stemming the losses of these individuals must ultimately be aimed at changing the system---including unwelcoming institutional climates, racial/ethnic/gender stereotyping, a lack of mentors with whom to identify, and evaluation methods that emphasize conformity over individual capabilities---rather than changing the individual. The SCI-STEPS pilot focuses effort on institutional readiness for implementation of best practice interventions at four key junctures: (i) college freshman to sophomore; (ii) undergraduate to graduate; (iii) PhD to postdoc; and (iv) postdoc to workforce.The pilot will proceed in three steps: (1) a planning phase, (2) development of an initial end-to-end pathways model with four Juncture Transition teams, and (3) scale-up of the SCI-STEPS "network of networks" with all initial partners. By addressing these objectives through a collective impact framework and embedded research, this pilot will demonstrate how best-practice interventions at each pathway juncture can be dovetailed and scaled up across a broad range of institutional types and across a large but distinct geographical area. Addressing these objectives will thus also serve to advance Broadening Participation efforts at a national scale, by suggesting the forms of institutional partnerships and best-practices that may inform other alliances in other STEM disciplines and/or different regional areas.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Keivan StassunNicole JosephKelly Holley-BockelmannWilliam RobinsonRoger Chalkley
Young people’s participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a matter of international concern. Studies and careers that require physical sciences and advanced mathematics are most affected by the problem and women in particular are under‐represented in many STEM fields. This article views international research about young people’s relationships to, and participation in, STEM subjects and careers through the lens of an expectancy‐value model of achievement‐related choices. In addition it draws on sociological theories of late‐modernity and identity, which situate
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Maria Vetleseter BoeEllen Karoline HenriksenTerry LyonsCamilla Schreiner
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Girls RISEnet project convened an international community to explore the role of science centers in issues of gender equity in STEM learning. This effort resulted in two major products, including this international literature review that synthesizes what is known about how science centers and museums contribute to girls' engagement with STEM, summarizes what is useful for practice, and identifies gaps in the research. In addition, an international survey identified common global themes and issues and began to outline opportunities for science centers and museums to advance gender equity.
NEON, Inc. a not-for-propfit corporation, proposes a television series for children, initiallyu 30 programs, suitable for daily or weekly broadcast, for home viewing via PBSA (with appropriate availability elsewhere). Program length: 30 Minutes. The premise: Three Wufniks--creatures from the cartoom world--draw their way into our world and with the help of children, undertake the adventure of finding our what it's all about. Thesek characters (played by adult professional performers in structurally sophisticated fantasy/animal costumes), move from dthe uncertain world of animated film into a range of encounters with ourrock-solid environment, get to know children and adults, scientists and laypeople, and must continually reconstruct their naive theories and their image of life on earth. The concept, designed to appeal to five- to nine-olds, combines education with entertainment (and is inclusive of other age groups, such as parents, to enhance educational effect). School and other non-broadcast distribution of program elements is planned, plus ancillary materials including computer software and print. The educational approach is interdisciplinary, with emphasis both on content and the development of positive attitudes towards science and mathematics; sub-objectives geography and history. The Principal Investigators are a television producer experienced in science programming for children, and a scientist with extensive children's educational television background. Program appeal for girls and minorities is integarl to the design; project staff will also cover a broad spectrum. Encouragement of science-and math-related audience activities is a project objective. Planning includesds extensive outreach and promotion related to the show premise.
Under the Planning Grant Guidelines, the Arizona Science Center will explore "Using Narrative to Introduce Science Concepts to Diverse Audiences at a Science Center." By bringing together a group of experts to review key questions about the uses and structure of narrative, the staff of the science center will 1) develop a strategy and range of approaches to science storytelling, 2) develop ideas for story premises and texts to interest visitors representing diverse populations and including women, people in non-technical occupations and minority families, 3) conduct research to determine visitor's attitudes to these materials in order to learn about the appeal and effectiveness of the narratives. Finally, they will synthesize and broadly disseminate their findings. The discussion will be focused on a comprehensive set of 120 exhibits entitled "How We Live With The Sun." The topics include light and optics; heat, cooling, and convection; weather, electricity; and technologies for harnessing solar energy. These topics represent the physical science that underlies the way people adapt to the desert and the ways in which Arizonans have applied knowledge of science fundamentals to useful ends.
"Stormchasers" is a 35-minute, IMAX/OMNIMAX film to be produced, exhibited, and distributed by the Museum Film Network, NOVA/WGBH Boston, and MacGillivray Freeman Films-the same team responsible for the critically acclaimed film "To the Limit." "Stormchasers" is a tale of scientific discovery and natural wonder that will take audiences on a journey around the planet to encounter the origins of the earth's weather patterns, to experience our most extreme storms (monsoons, hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes,) and to witness scientists who study and predict weather events. Using a combination of conventional IMAX documentary filmmaking methods, computer animation, and unique photography, the film will depict the intricate relationship between the drama of nature and the efforts of humans to pursue the systematic understanding of the natural world. The film and its ancillary materials will be offered to the 34 space theaters located at U.S. science museums in 1994-1995. Educational materials will be developed to extend the film's reach into the classroom. Special viewing programs will be offered at science museums, targeting minority, disadvantaged, and female youth and their teachers.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Jeffrey KirschPaula ApsellSusanne SimpsonBarbara Flagg
KCTS Television is producing 20 new programs for the third season of "Bill Nye the Science Guy." The series, which has received an enthusiastic public response, will continue to be on PBS stations during the week and syndicated to commercial stations on weekends. The twenty topics for Season range from earth science, to physical science, to life science, to technology and include programs on such diverse subjects as spiders, time, life cycles, inventions, flowers, architecture, computers, probability, invertebrates, and forensics. Outreach activities for the third season are designed an emphasis on reaching out to new audiences, especially girls and children of color. The Season III outreach components consist of: o "The Big News of Science" - a newsletter distributed through youth serving organizations as well as being mailed directly to viewers at home o An at-home science kit - an easy to use kit that enables children and their families to perform science experiments together at home. Two-thirds of the kits to be distributed directly to youth and one-third will be distributed to children participating in afterschool and community programs. o Teacher's Kit - to be distributed to fourth grade teachers nationwide. o Special appearances - As Bill Nye's schedule permits, he will present a live, traveling science demonstration show in selected urban communities. The programs will be based at science museums, community centers, or similar venues and will include an explanation about the science content of the series, and demonstrations of science experiments where children are invited to participate. o A PBS station outreach kit - This material will provide PBS outreach and education staff with programs, tips for developing local science outreach projects, and a list of informal science resources. The staffing for Season III will remain basically the same as it has been for Seasons I and II. Bill Nye will remain as Chief Writer and Host, Elizabeth Brock will continue as Executive Producer, and James McKenna and Erren Gottlieb will remain the series producers.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth BrockJames McKennaErren GottliebWilliam Nye