The Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) will collaborate with the Children's Museum of Houston, Miami Museum of Science and the New California Media (an association of over 500 ethnic media organizations) to provide youth ages 7-10 with standards-based science and math activities using newpapers as a vehicle. Mathematics and science challenges, already field-tested by the LHS, are presented as educational inserts using cartoons, on a weekly or monthly basis. The content to be addressed includes numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, science as inquiry and life science through engaging formats in Spanish-language newspapers. While building on the "Newspapers in Education" program, strategic impact will be realized by demonstrating the ability of a more intensive approach to reach families of underserved and underrepresented audiences through a collaboration of print media, museums, libraries, schools and community organizations. The ultimate goal is to increase exposure to informal science education activities at museums and in Spanish-language media. Deliverables include the newspaper activities (designed for families to use at home), family sessions at local libraries, science centers, after school programs and community organizations as well as a festival and website. Promotional sessions at New California Media Expos and workshops at the Asociation of Science and Technology Centers conferences will introduce the project to media and museum partners. This project will target underserved communities in California, Texas and Florida and is estimated to reach more than 450,000 families by year three.
This project will create the infrastructure to provide Hispanic media with an ongoing source of high-quality science news tailored to meet the needs and interests of Hispanics. The proposed Hispanic Science News Service website will be a downloadable internet resource site for Hispanic print, radio and internet editors, journalists and producers to access science stories, radio capsules and science information resources. This service would be promoted through partnerships with the National Association of Hispanic Publishers, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and The Hispanic Radio. Specific media deliverables will include: Exploracion, a weekly, Spanish-language newspaper column; La Ciencia en Breve: El Universo a tu Alcance (Science News Briefs); Exploracion, a daily science radio news capsule; and uploads of science content to the Univision.com website.
Jim Metzner Productions is developing a means to broaden and deepen the reach and impact of the "Pulse of the Planet," the short-format science and nature radio series that is currently carried on approximately 300 stations. The plans are to develop and broadcast a Spanish-language version of the series and to continue production and increase the carriage of the short-format programs. In addition to broadcast radio, the series also will be available in RealAudio on the National Geographic Web site, and the project has its own Web site.
To address a lack of informal science education opportunities and to increase community capacity to support STEM education for their children, Washington State University's Yakima Valley/Tri Cities MESA program, the Pacific Science Center, and KDNA Educational Radio have developed a set of informal science initiatives that offer complementary learning opportunities for rural Latino families. The goal of this four-year program is to create a sustainable informal science infrastructure in southeastern Washington State to serve families, increase parental awareness, support and involvement in science education and ultimately increase the numbers of rural Latino youth pursuing STEM-related under graduate studies. This program is presented in English and Spanish languages in all of its interconnected deliverables: Two mobile exhibits, beginning with one focused on agricultural and environmental science developed by The Pacific Science (PCS) Center; Curriculum and training in agriculture, life sciences and facilitating learning; Curriculum and training for community members to provide support to parents in encouraging the academic aspirations of their children developed by PSC and MESA; 420 Youth and parents from the MESA program trained to interpret exhibits and run workshops, community festivals, family science workshops and Saturday programs throughout the community; Four annual community festivals, quarterly Family Saturday events, and Family Science Workshops reaching 20,000 people over the four-year project; Take home activities, science assemblies, a website and CDs with music and science programming for community events; A large media initiative including monthly one hour call-in radio programs featuring science experts, teachers, professionals, students and parents, 60-second messages promoting science concepts and resources and a publicity campaign in print, radio and TV to promote community festivals. These venues reach 12,500-25,000 people each; A program manual that includes training, curriculum and collaborative strategies used by the project team. Overall Accesso la Ciencia connects parents and children through fun community activities to Pasco School District's current LASER science education reform effort. This project complements the school districts effort by providing a strong community support initiative in informal science education. Each activity done in the community combines topics of interest to rural Latinos (agriculture for instance) to concepts being taught in the schools, while also providing tools and support to parents that increases their awareness of opportunities for their children in STEM education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
James PrattD. Janae' LandisDonald LynchMichael Trevisan
The Mount Washington Observatory is expanding the daily, nationally broadcast radio program, "The Weather Notebook." The two-minute programs inform an estimated 2.5 million weekly listeners about the science underlying weather. During this three-year phase of the project, the project will broaden the range of science content by deepening the connections of weather and climate with other scientific disciplines, especially earth systems science. The project also hopes to double the size of the listening audience by increasing the number of stations carrying the series. In addition, they will produce Spanish-language versions of the programs and distribute them through the Hispanic Radio Network. In response to listeners' requests for longer programs, the project will produce 20 to 30 approximately five-minute modules that will be broadcast in existing radio series such as "Marketplace" and "The Cultivated Gardener." Ancillary educational materials will be provided for students, teachers, families and others interested in further learning about topics included in the broadcast programs.
The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory is requesting $581,736 over three years to produce and distribute a Spanish language version of Star Date, a daily radio program that covers astronomy, space exploration, and other space-related topics. The purpose of the new program is to increase scientific literacy among the Spanish-speaking segment of the American population, inspire a greater interest in astronomy and space science, and encourage younger listeners to enter space or other science-related fields. Collateral ancillary material related to astronomy will also be developed and distributed.
This project reached the underserved Hispanic audience with 200 ninety-second Earth and Sky programs in Spanish for broadcast on commercial and public radio stations, and longer programs (8-15 min.) with interviews with Hispanic scientists, teachers and writers who serve as role models for Hispanic young people. Programs were on the cieloytierra.org web site ith Spanish language science blogs, daily sky charts and links to other relevant Spanish and scientific web sites. Project partners included The Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science.
The University of Texas at Austin requests $399,341 to expand the current Universo translations of StarDate into Spanish to more culturally relevant programs for a growing Hispanic audience. Plans include creation of longer programs with a different format for Hispanic Heritage Month for 1998-2000 and creation of complimentary collateral materials for distribution to 200 Spanish- language radio stations. Programs will also be distributed to 1,650 classrooms. A teacher's guide for using Universo in the classroom will be developed in English with activities available in both English and Spanish. A parent's guide to Universo/StarDate will also be produced to encourage parents to get involved in skywatching activities.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This education project is a time sensitive opportunity related to the March 9, 2016 Total Solar Eclipse occurring in a remote part of the world located in Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia, a U.S. affiliated Pacific Island nation. The path of totality is only 100 miles wide and passes through only a few Pacific Island nations ending in Hawaii. This project uses this unique phenomenon to educate a large US and international audience about solar science using multi-platforms with integrated video, social media, and public programs. Project deliverables include the production of a broadcast of the eclipse live from Waleia in the Federated States of Micronesia on March 9, 2016 making it accessible to hundreds of countries and millions of people around the world via satellite and live streaming on the Internet. Additional deliverables include on-site educational programs at science centers and planetariums as well as media resources for long-term use. These resources will enhance the interest and preparedness for additional public engagement when the 2017 eclipse occurs in the U.S. Making new research understandable and accessible to the public is an important activity of the U.S. research enterprise. NSF is making a substantial investment in solar physics research by funding the construction of the world's largest solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope which is slated to begin operations in late 2019 and operated by the National Solar Observatory. This new facility will revolutionize researchers' capability to study the Sun and its magnetic fields. This education project leverages that investment with a major public engagement opportunity that has the potential for reaching millions of students, teachers, and the public both in the U.S. and worldwide through the Internet.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
ExploratoriumRobert SemperNicole MinorRobyn Higdon
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. In this project, Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) will produce Latina SciGirls, a fourth season of the Emmy Award-winning television and transmedia project SciGirls. Latina SciGirls includes six half-hour television episodes of SciGirls filmed in Spanish, showing groups of Hispanic girls and their Latina STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) mentors investigating culturally relevant science and engineering problems of interest to Hispanic communities across the U.S. Television mentors and girls will be filmed in Hispanic communities in the southwest and southeastern U.S. and represent various cultural backgrounds and ethnicities. TPT will also create a series of family and girl-friendly online role model video profiles in Spanish and English of Latina STEM professionals. In addition to the media components, the project will provide opportunities to connect girls and their families with in-person Latina role models and STEM programming via community outreach in diverse Hispanic communities across the country. The goal of the project is to promote positive STEM identity development in middle school-age Hispanic girls. Hispanic women are the largest group of minority females, constituting 8% of the U.S. population, however, the participation of Hispanic women in science and engineering is significantly low: in 2010, just 2% of all of the scientists and engineers in the U.S. workforce were Hispanic women. The approach to Latina SciGirls is rooted both in research-based strategies proven to engage girls in STEM, and the need to address specific barriers that prevent many Hispanic girls from participating fully in STEM activities. These barriers include lack of STEM identity (girls' perception of themselves as scientists or engineers), limited exposure to STEM role models, and low parental engagement and English proficiency. Research shows that Hispanic girls have high interest and confidence in STEM, and a strong work ethic, but lack support and exposure to STEM professionals. TPT will uniquely leverage the power of national media and outreach to enable Latina STEM professionals to interact with girls and their families both onscreen and in person. Latina SciGirls episodes will be broadcast nationally by PBS and the nation's largest Hispanic network, Univisión, and streamed online at PBSKids.org. Resources will be made available to additional Spanish-speaking communities nationwide through the NSF-funded outreach program, SciGirls CONNECT, and through partnership with the National Girls Collaborative Project. TPT will commission an external research study with the University of Colorado-Boulder, which will test the hypothesis: The SciGirls model, when augmented to address specific barriers to STEM engagement of Hispanic girls ages 8 to 13 and their parents, will promote the development of positive STEM-related identities in Hispanic girls. In this capacity, the study will investigate Hispanic girls' personal experiences engaging with the project deliverables and how those experiences contribute to their STEM-related identity development against cultural and gender-based stereotypes. An external evaluation by Knight-Williams, Inc. will include front-end, formative and summative phases. The front-end evaluation will involve stakeholders in the development of a Spanish language program that features culturally appropriate storylines and showcases Latina STEM professionals. Formative evaluation will include focus groups of girls and families offering their reactions to the appeal and perceived value of the program. Summative evaluation will capture the reach of the broadcast, online components and community events. TPT will disseminate the research and evaluation findings through presentations at national conferences, including the American Education Research Association, National Science Teachers Association, and at www.InformalScience.org. The project's evaluation and research about the complexities of the cognitive and experiential factors that influence Hispanic girls' STEM identity development will contribute to the field's understanding of this subject and the larger efforts of broadening minority women's participation in STEM.
Capitalizing on the appeal of the PBS KIDS project PLUM LANDING, PLUM RX will research and develop resources to help families and educators infuse environmental science learning into outdoor prescription programs, while ensuring they are appropriate for broad use in other informal settings. The growing outdoor prescription movement is designed to increase the amount of time children spend outside in nature. Programs are structured so that health care providers write "prescriptions" for children to engage in outdoor activity, and informal educators "fill" these prescriptions by facilitating youth and family participation in outdoor activities. There is preliminary evidence that these programs are getting kids outside, but best practices for transitioning "get outside" programs to become "get outside and learn about the environment" programs remain unidentified. PLUM RX is designed to build this knowledge and create resources that are responsive to the needs of both English and Spanish-speaking urban families. The project will work with informal educators and families through multiple cycles of implementation and revision, testing and refining PLUM LANDING resources (animations, videos, games, hands-on science activities, and support materials for informal educators and families), with the goal of designing an effective and accessible PLUM RX Toolkit for national dissemination. 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 (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) learning in informal environments. The proposed research is designed to ensure that the PLUM RX Toolkit--the resources and support materials--will meet the needs of educators working in non-specialized urban settings. Education Development Center (EDC) and WGBH developers will collaborate on design-based research at three urban outdoor prescription programs serving low-income families: Philadelphia Nature Rx in Philadelphia, PA; Outdoors Rx in Boston, MA; and Portland Rx Play in Portland, OR. Moving through cycles of implementation, observation, analysis, and revision, the research team will work closely with educators, families, and developers to determine how the programmatic and structural features of the learning environment, the actions of the educators, and the intervention itself can most effectively support children and families' outdoor exploration in urban contexts. Toolkit materials will include resources for kids and families (including Spanish-speaking families) and informal educators (including those who work with families and directly with children in out-of-school settings). Directors from the three urban outdoor prescription programs will contribute to every phase of the research process, including recruiting families and youth who will participate in a weekly sequence of activities. The overarching focus of the analysis process will be on systematically describing the interaction between two dimensions of implementation: What happened during pilot implementations, and the factors that constrained or supported implementation as planned; and the quality of what happened, which will be defined with reference to the intended impacts. EDC will use a structured descriptive coding process to analyze the qualitative evidence gathered through interviews and observations during design and testing periods. Products of the research activities will include: a series of formative memos to the development team; a report mapping changes made to PLUM RX Toolkit materials in response to formative input and the intended impact of those changes; and findings regarding commonalities and differences across sites in the interaction of local contextual factors and the implementation success of the PLUM RX Toolkit. Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) will provide independent, summative evaluation of the project. Through this process, PLUM RX will build broader knowledge about how to design educational resources, geared for both families and informal educators, which respond to the unique challenges of exploring environmental science in urban environments.
Through "Addressing the Science of Really Gross Things: Engaging Young Learners in Biomedical Science Through a Fulldome Planetarium Show and Supporting Curricula," Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in close collaboration with NIH-funded researchers at the UNC and a leading children's book author, will develop an informal science education media project and a suite of hands-on, inquiry-based curricula based on the media project for use in science centers, museums and schools. This project will build the pipeline of future researchers and create awareness of NIH-funded research by generating interest and excitement among children age 9-13 in the health sciences and related careers and building their science content knowledge. To achieve the objective, the investigators will develop a fulldome planetarium show; create correlating curricula for summer camps, afterschool programs, scout programs, science center field trips, science clubs and schools; and produce a DVD highlighting careers in the health sciences. In addition, the project will use several methods to target populations traditionally underrepresented in the biomedical fields, including featuring professionals from underrepresented populations in the multimedia and curricula products, making outreach visits to counties with large populations traditionally underrepresented in health science research careers, and producing a Spanish-language version of the products. The use of a known brand, "Grossology," is an innovative way to connect to children in the target age range and to encourage the informal science education community to embrace health-science content in their fulldome theaters. In addition, the project's hub-and-spoke approach further encourages adoption of this programming by providing informal science venues with both an engaging experience (hub) and the supporting curricula (the spokes) that is necessary to extend the show's potential for having significant educational impact. A strong project team maximizes the project's likelihood for success. The team includes fulldome producers and educators from Morehead and NIH-funded researchers with expertise in appropriate science content areas. In addition, the investigators have created a network of consultants, advisory board members and evaluators that will create feedback loops designed to ensure high-quality, scientifically-accurate, educationally-effective products. The investigators will use a combination of free and revenue-based dissemination strategies to ensure that the products of this award are broadly distributed. These strategies hold significant promise for creating broad use of this project's products in the nation's science centers, museums and classrooms.