The STEAM Para Todos project will transform a prominent exhibit in the Marbles Kids Museum into a vibrant space that fosters culturally relevant STEAM learning and exploration for all museum visitors, particularly the growing Hispanic, dual-language learner population in Wake County, N.C. The three-year project will involve research, testing, design, installation, and evaluation. The museum will work with the school system, STEM partners, the local arts community, and organizations engaged with the Hispanic community to develop the exhibit. Guiding the project will be a community of practice, comprised of museum professionals; researchers with expertise in STEAM education, dual language learners, and culturally responsive informal learning; partners from STEM businesses; creative arts organizations; the Wake County Public School System; and stakeholders from the exhibit's intended audience. Project partners include Wake County Public School System, Que Pasa, US2020, Visual Arts Exchange, North Carolina Society of Hispanic Professionals, and Google Fiber.
The Children's Museum at La Habra's Lil' Innovators Early Childhood STEM project will increase STEM skill and engagement among early childhood preschool teachers, disadvantaged preschoolers, and their parents. Delivered in partnership with three of La Habra's Head Start and California State Preschool program schools, the project will provide 224 preschoolers and 20 teachers with a year-long program offering increased developmental skills in STEM for underserved, low-income Hispanic students who are primarily English Language Learners. Teacher outcomes will include improved strategies for teaching STEM and increased teaching quality of STEM subjects. Parent outcomes include increased belief in the importance of STEM and increased ability to support their child's STEM learning. The standards-based education project will improve the museum's ability to serve its public by creating a community of practice consisting of a network of administrators, educators, and evaluators who will work together to improve the quality of STEM education for the youngest learners in this academically-challenged community.
Hero Elementary is a transmedia educational initiative aimed at improving the school readiness and academic achievement in science and literacy of children grades K-2. With an emphasis on Latinx communities, English Language Learners, youth with disabilities, and children from low-income households, Hero Elementary celebrates kids and encourages them to make a difference in their own backyards and beyond by actively doing science and using their Superpowers of Science. The project embeds the expectations of K–2nd NGSS and CCSS-ELA standards into a series of activities, including interactive games, educational apps, non-fiction e-books, hands-on activities, and a digital science notebook. The activities are organized into playlists for educators and students to use in afterschool programs. Each playlist centers on a meaningful conceptual theme in K-2 science learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joan FreeseMomoko HayakawaBryce Becker
The independent evaluators at Knight Williams Inc. developed a front-end survey to gather background and baseline information about the 16 partner organizations selected to conduct outreach programs as part of SciGirls CONNECT2. The goal was for two people from each partner organization to complete the online survey about their background and prior use of the SciGirls Seven and related strategies. A total of 30 partner representatives completed the survey by the requested deadline, resulting in a response rate of 94%. The majority identified as program leaders, with smaller groups saying they
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), in collaboration with neuroscientists at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), museum professionals, and community partners, proposes to create a 1,000 to 1,500-square-foot traveling exhibition, accompanying website, and complementary programming to promote public understanding of neuroscience research and its relevance to healthy brain development in early childhood. The exhibition and programs will focus on current research on the developing brain, up to age 5, and will reach a national audience of adult caregivers of young children and their families, with a special emphasis on Latino families. The project will be developed bi-culturally and bilingually (English/Spanish) in order to better engage underrepresented Latino audiences. The exhibition and programs will be designed and tested with family audiences.
The exhibition project, Interactive Family Learning in Support of Early Brain Development, has four goals that primarily target adult caregivers of children up to age 5:
Foster engagement with and interest in neurodevelopment during early childhood
Enhance awareness of how neuroscience research leads to knowledge about healthy development in early childhood
Inform and empower adult caregivers to enrich their children’s early learning experiences
Reach diverse family audiences, especially Latino caregivers and their families
A collaborative, multidisciplinary team of neuroscience researchers, experts in early childhood education, museum educators, and OMSI personnel with expertise in informal science education and bilingual exhibit development will work together to ensure that current science is accurately interpreted and effectively presented to reach the target audiences. The project will foster better public understanding of early brain development and awareness and confidence in caregivers in using play to enrich their children’s experiences and support healthy brain development. Visitors will explore neuroscience and early childhood development through a variety of forms—multi-sensory, hands-on interactive exhibits, graphic panels, real objects, facilitated experiences, and an accompanying website.
Following the five-year development process, the exhibition will begin an eight-year national tour, during which it will reach more than one million people.
This project will incorporate lessons learned from our previously funded SEPA, based in five Title I elementary schools in the District of Columbia and Prince George’s County Maryland. In this proposal, “SCIENCE” will engage a new audience of learners in their out of school time in the setting of community libraries. We will provide programming that uses hands- on, inquiry-based learning based on our established art and science curriculum designed to improve the physical, cognitive and social development of children and their families.
SCIENCE will include instructional units, web based activities and ‘hands on/brains on’ manipulation utilizing our compact, portable and unique “art and science in a box”, which consolidates all materials needed to bring excitement to STEM learning. We will focus on preventative health areas of concern to our community, including asthma, stress, cardio-metabolic risk, sleep and behavioral issues, including bullying, genetic diseases like sickle cell disease and, injury prevention at home, in school and with sports.
We will also provide professional development training for informal educators. Specifically, we will adapt our previously successful in-school curriculum for a broader group of children from grades K–5 who utilize the District of Columbia Public Libraries (DCPL) and Enoch Pratt Free Library (EPFL). The curriculum is aligned to both Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, and will be expanded with the addition of bioengineering/imaging/computing, and mindfulness.
With our integrated-art focused STEM and preventative health educational program, we will empower children by encouraging curiosity and discovery as well as providing tools to incorporate health and science messaging to improve school readiness. Over the course of the five years, we will implement the program progressively in 10 DCPL branches and 2 Baltimore branches. Programming will take place during winter and spring breaks, professional development days, special holidays and weekends.
We will continue our successful one week hospital summer program, Dr. Bear’s Summer Science Experience, an interactive STEAM experience which takes place in the hospital and its research laboratories. In addition to student focused programming, we will also create Family Learning Events—entertaining and collaborative programs for families—to be held in DCPL and EPFL branches with a focus on disease prevention which adversely affects our community. Take home materials will include handouts, web resources, apps and links in in both English and Spanish, and will focus on reading readiness and mastery of STEM concepts.
The purpose of the proposed project, Community of Bilingual English-Spanish Speakers Exploring Issues in Science and Health (CBESS), is to increase linguistic diversity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)-healthcare fields, including biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research careers. With support of the large group of Spanish-English bilingual (SEB), STEM-healthcare professionals that was formed during this proposal preparation, CBESS will contribute to the pipeline between K–12 and higher education/career.
CBESS will recruit Spanish-English bilingual (SEB) high-school students at the end of tenth grade and implement several language-supported STEM-healthcare interventions during the eleventh and twelfth grade (17 months): family-engaged career exploration; Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned, inquiry-based, youth-led summer research residential program; community outreach/dissemination, internships, and mentoring.
Applying methods that are known to be effective with the target population, CBESS will also train undergraduate, near-peer instructor-mentors—STEM-healthcare Leadership Trainees (LT)—in inquiry-based instruction and strategies for positioning K–12 bilingual students as “insiders” in STEM-healthcare, as well as in the responsible conduct of research and mentoring skills, followed by practical application with SR.
CBESS will develop and expand the nascent SEB STEM-healthcare community of practice (CoP) that was created during CBESS proposal preparation. Committed academic, clinical, research, and community partners will contribute to research and evaluation efforts, and support the pipeline between K–12 and higher education/career through Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), framing priority community health issues to be addressed by each cohort of SR from among issues identified by the SR during the application process. Finally, the CoP will target long-term institutional sustainability for linguistically diverse students in STEM-healthcare education and careers.
Twin Cities PBS BRAINedu: A Window into the Brain/Una ventana al cerebro, is a national English/Spanish informal education project providing culturally competent programming and media resources about the brain’s structure and function to Hispanic middle school students and their families. The project responds to the need to eliminate proven barriers to Hispanic students’ STEM/neuroscience education, increase Hispanic participation in neuroscience and mental health careers and increase Hispanic utilization of mental health resources.
The program’s goals are to engage Hispanic learners and families by
empowering informalSTEM educators to provide culturally competent activities about the brain’s structure and function;
demonstrating neuroscience and mental health career options; and
reducing mental health stigma, thus increasing help-seeking behavior.
The hypothesis underpinning BRAINedu’s four-year project plan is that participating Hispanic youth and families will be able to explain how the brain works and describe specific brain disorders; demonstrate a higher level of interest of neuroscience and mental health careers and be more willing to openly discuss and seek support for brain disorders and mental health conditions.
To achieve program goals, Twin Cities PBS (TPT) will leverage existing partnerships with Hispanic-serving youth educational organizations to provide culturally competent learning opportunities about brain health to Hispanic students and families. TPT will partner with neuroscience and mental health professionals, cultural competency experts and Hispanic-serving informal STEM educators to complete the following objectives:
Develop bilingual educational resources for multigenerational audiences;
Provide professional development around neuroscience education to informal educators, empowering them to implement programming with Hispanic youth and families, and
Develop role model video profiles of Hispanic neuroscience professionals, and help partner organizations produce autobiographical student videos.
We will employ rigorous evaluation strategies to measure the project’s impact on Hispanic participants: a) understanding of neuroscience and brain health, particularly around disorders that disproportionately affect the Hispanic community; b) motivation to pursue neuroscience or mental health career paths; and c) mental health literacy and help-seeking behavior. The project will directly reach 72 Hispanic-serving informal STEM educators and public health professionals, and 200 children and 400 parents in underserved urban, suburban and rural communities nationwide.
Informal science learning (ISL) organizations that are successful at providing meaningful science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) experiences for Latino children, youth, and their families share some common traits. They have leaders and staff who believe in the importance of developing culturally relevant models and frameworks that meet the needs and acknowledge the legacy of STEAM in Latino communities. Such organizations are willing to take risks to create experiences that are culturally meaningful, garner funding and implement programs by working closely with their
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Cheryl JuarezVerónika NúñezExploratorium
In this article, we investigate how the national imperative to increase opportunities for young women of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and to broaden their participation was taken up locally at two high schools in one school district. Using ethnographic and longitudinal data, we focus on four young women of color (two at each school) as they negotiated STEM-related identities in the discursive and practice contexts of their lives at school. Using Holland and Lave’s concept of history in person, we view the young women as fighting for particular versions of a
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), in collaboration with New York University's Institute for Education and Social Policy and the University of Southern Maine Center for Evaluation and Policy, will develop and evaluate a new teacher education program model to prepare science teachers through a partnership between a world class science museum and high need schools in metropolitan New York City (NYC). This innovative pilot residency model was approved by the New York State (NYS) Board of Regents as part of the state’s Race To The Top award. The program will prepare a total of 50 candidates in two cohorts (2012 and 2013) to earn a Board of Regents-awarded Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree with a specialization in Earth Science for grades 7-12. The program focuses on Earth Science both because it is one of the greatest areas of science teacher shortages in urban areas and because AMNH has the ability to leverage the required scientific and educational resources in Earth Science and allied disciplines, including paleontology and astrophysics.
The proposed 15-month, 36-credit residency program is followed by two additional years of mentoring for new teachers. In addition to a full academic year of residency in high-needs public schools, teacher candidates will undertake two AMNH-based clinical summer residencies; a Museum Teaching Residency prior to entering their host schools, and a Museum Science Residency prior to entering the teaching profession. All courses will be taught by teams of doctoral-level educators and scientists.
The project’s research and evaluation components will examine the factors and outcomes of a program offered through a science museum working with the formal teacher preparation system in high need schools. Formative and summative evaluations will document all aspects of the program. In light of the NYS requirement that the pilot program be implemented in high-need, low-performing schools, this project has the potential to engage, motivate and improve the Earth Science achievement and interest in STEM careers of thousands of students from traditionally underrepresented populations including English language learners, special education students, and racial minority groups. In addition, this project will gather meaningful data on the role science museums can play in preparing well-qualified Earth Science teachers. The research component will examine the impact of this new teacher preparation model on student achievement in metropolitan NYC schools. More specifically, this project asks, "How do Earth Science students taught by first year AMNH MAT Earth Science teachers perform academically in comparison with students taught by first year Earth Science teachers not prepared in the AMNH program?.”
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Maritza MacdonaldMeryle WeinsteinRosamond KinzlerMordecai-Mark Mac LowEdmond MathezDavid Silvernail
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 will develop and test intergenerational science media resources for parents that are participating in adult education programs and their young children. The materials will build on the research-based and successful children's television program, Fetch with Ruff Ruffman. The target audience includes parents enrolled in adult education programs who lack a high school diploma or are in English as a Second Language classes. These resources will support parents' engagement in science activities with their children both in the adult education settings as well as at home. Adult and family educators will receive professional development resources and training to support their integration of the parent/child activities. Project partners include the National Center for Families Learning, Kentucky Educational Television, and Alabama Public Television,
The goals of the Ruff Family Science project are to: (1) investigate adult education settings that feature an intergenerational learning model, in order to learn about the unique characteristics of adults and families who are enrolled in these programs; (2) examine the institutional circumstances and educator practices that support joint parent/child engagement in science; (3) iteratively develop new prototype resources meet the priorities and needs of families and educators involved in intergenerational education settings; and (4) develop the knowledge needed to create a fuller set of materials in the future that will motivate and support diverse, low-income parents to investigate science with their children. The research strategy is comprised of three main components: Phase 1: Needs Assessment: Determine key motivations and behaviors common to adult education students who are also parents; surface obstacles and assets inherent in these parents' current practices; and examine the needs and available resources for supplementing parents' current engagement in family science learning. Phase 2: Prototype Development: Iteratively develop two prototype Activity Sets, along with related educator supports and training materials, designed to promote joint parent-child engagement with English and Spanish-speaking families around physical science concepts. Phase 3: Prototype Field Test: Test how the two refined prototype Activity Sets work in different educational settings (adult education, parent education, and parent and child together time). Explore factors that support or impede effective implementation. Sources of data for the study include observations of adult and parent education classes using an expert interview protocol, focus groups, adult and family educator interviews, and parent surveys.