Learning to See, Seeing to Learn is a National Science Foundation-funded project to develop www.macroinvertebrates.org, a digital observation tool and set of informational resources that can supplement volunteer biomonitoring trainings and improve aquatic macroinvertebrates identification. Project researchers are interested in how trainers and volunteers use the tool, as well as how training that incorporates the tool impacts volunteers’ confidence in and accuracy around aquatic macroinvertebrates identification. In November 2018, project partner, Stroud Water Research Center, conducted a
Few would argue that the national parks provide significant value to both the nation and the world. The question remains though, What is that value and how to measure it? Increasingly, a key indicator of this value is the learning that parks support. However, as we will discuss, even defining what is meant by educational value is challenging, let alone coming up with a park-specific set of metrics to measure this dimension of value of national parks.
Background. STEM identity has emerged as an important research topic and a predictor of how youth engage with STEM inside and outside of school. Although there is a growing body of literature in this area, less work has been done specific to engineering, especially in out-of-school learning contexts.
Methods. To address this need, we conducted a qualitative investigation of five adolescent youth participating in a four-month afterschool engineering program. The study focused on how participants negotiated engineering-related identities through ongoing interactions with activities, peers
Informal STEM field trip programming is a large, yet under-researched area of the education landscape. Informal STEM education providers are often serving a more privileged section of society, leading to a risk of perpetuating inequalities seen throughout the education landscape. In an attempt to address the lack of research, this thesis explores the relationship between educational equity and informal STEM field trips. The intention was to collect data using a critical ethnography approach to the methods of qualitative questionnaire and interviews of informal STEM educators. A change in
For the SciGirls Strategies supplemental activity, ten educators were trained to be SciGirls Strategies trainers during June 2019. During that time, they developed action plans for their local teacher training. The goal was for each Trainer to train ten or more teachers in their local schools/districts. Trainers could plan and schedule their workshops to fit their local context in order to accomplish the objectives of building teacher’s confidence and skills in using gender equitable and culturally responsive teaching strategies.
After the training workshop, the trainers met once a month
The Space Science Institute’s (SSI) National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL), in partnership with the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the University of Virginia (UVA), was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop and implement a 3-year program, Project BUILD (Building Using an Interactive Learning Design). Project BUILD aims to bring together public library staff from six libraries (three rural and three urban) and professional engineers from ASCE to engage youth in grades 2-5 and their families in age-appropriate, technology-rich
The SciGirls in Space Front End Evaluation included surveys with project advisors, girls and families about the nature and extent of partner program offerings to help inform production of media and use of media in outreach. Question 1: To what extent do advisors, girls and their family members find the girls and professionals featured in the (existing) episodes and role model videos to be effective role models? Question 2: To what extent do they find episode topics and stories relevant to their everyday lives?
With funding from NIH SEPA, OMSI is creating a mid-sized travelling exhibition that will promote public understanding of neuroscience research and its relevance to healthy brain development in early childhood.
The purpose of this report is to support the project team by assessing the extent to which the prototype activities, content, and labels tested contributed to visitor engagement, understanding, confidence, and future use of one or more strategies outlined. It was important to the project team that the exhibition be developed in collaboration with the communities for whom it is
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), in partnership with scholars from Utah State University and educators from the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), has developed the Spatial Ability and Blind Engineering Research (SABER) project to assess and improve the spatial ability of blind teens in order to broaden their participation in STEM fields. The goals of the project include:
Contribute to the knowledge base of effective practices regarding informal STEM education for the blind, particularly relating to the development of spatial reasoning abilities.
Educate families, blind
This long-term follow-up study utilized mixed method design to elicit information from the previous alumni cohorts over the past ten years. Extensive qualitative analysis supports quantitative findings across five intended program outcomes (content; science identity, science communication, 21st century skills and positive youth development; and networking. It also documents additional non-specifically targeted outcomes (e.g., parenting and community involvement); influence of specific program components; and visions for future alumni programming. Qualitative data derive from two sources -
Char Associates conducted an evaluation of the four-year, NSF-funded project, Interpreters and Scientists Working on Our Parks (iSWOOP). The project brought interpreters and scientists together in multi-day professional development sessions at five national parks with the purpose of showcasing scientific research that usually goes unseen and unappreciated by park visitors. iSWOOP coordinated the development and delivery of digital libraries including animations, still photos, thermal and high-speed videos, and maps to give visual support to explanations of particular scientific studies. In
Embedded assessment (EA) is particularly well-suited for evaluating citizen science volunteers’ proficiency of science inquiry skills; however they remain uncommon in informal education. Using design-based research, we are examining processes to streamline EA development by building on existing data validation procedures within five citizen science projects. Here, we focus on the critical first step of supporting citizen science project leaders in identifying appropriate skills that are important, relevant, accessible, and potentially hiding in plain sight in their existing data. Our research