The Adler Planetarium will expand access to STEM programs for African American and Latinx Chicago teens through a progressive series of entry-point, introductory, intermediate, and advanced level programs. Students in grades 7–12 will be invited to join teams of scientists, engineers, and educators to undertake authentic scientific research and solve real engineering challenges. In collaboration with schools and community-based organizations, Adler will develop and implement new participant recruitment and retention strategies to reach teens in specific neighborhoods. The initiative will help address the underrepresentation of Latinx and African Americans in engineering.
KID Museum will develop and test a framework for working with community organizations to design learning experiences and create a facilitation guide for integrating cultural appreciation with maker-based learning. Building on its established Cultural Days programming, the museum will partner with four organizations that represent the region's largest ethnic populations. Together, they will plan, design, prototype, and refine new programs and experiences for children ages 4 to 14 and their families. The project team will adapt an IMLS-funded STEM-expert co-development model to develop and present cultural programs both at the museum and in the community. The project team will evaluate and refine the programs through visitor surveys. The museum will share the resulting framework and facilitation guide with other informal learning spaces to support the implementation of similar programs.
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry will inspire diverse youth and families to use 21st century skills by creating hands-on Design Challenges where visitors work together to design and test multidisciplinary sustainable solutions to real-world problems. The museum will work closely with Oregon MESA, an organization that uses human-centered Design Challenges to teach STEM, invention, and 21st Century Skills to middle and high school students historically underrepresented in STEM fields. Project deliverables will include three Design Challenges; a Design Challenge Collaboration Playbook outlining how to develop Design Challenges using human-centered design in collaboration with MESA youth, families, and staff; and A MESA-OMSI Collaboration Sustainability Plan that lays out how to continue the partnership and programs beyond the grant. The impacts on families will be explored during front-end, formative, and summative evaluation activities.
Clark Planetarium will partner with the Salt Lake County Library System to extend STEM education for adolescent audiences throughout the regional community. The planetarium will create STEM classes in up to 18 different county libraries, with up to four library activity sessions each week. With each activity session, the project will engage middle school and high school aged participants in hands-on science, technology, and engineering activities that explore complex concepts and principles through simulations of robotic missions. Each visit will engage learners in STEM-focused activities that emphasize group work such as building robots, collecting and analyzing data, and solving problems. Over the span of three years, the project will reach over 7,700 teens. The Utah Education Policy Center will use observation, program records, and a brief online survey to measure the program's impact on STEM interest and improvement in confidence, attitudes, and behavioral intentions around STEM.
The goal of our ongoing research is to identify strengths and weaknesses of high school level science fair and improvements that can help science educators make science fair a more effective, inclusive and equitable learning experience. In this paper, we confirm and extend our previous findings in several important ways. We added new questions to our anonymous and voluntary surveys to learn the extent to which students had an interest in science or engineering careers and if science fair participation increased their interest in science or engineering. And we surveyed a national rather than
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. There are few empirical studies of sustained youth engagement in STEM-oriented making over time, how youth are supported in working towards more robust STEM related projects, on the outcomes of such making experiences among youth from historically marginalized communities, or on the design features of making experiences which support these goals. The project plans to conduct a set of research studies to develop: a theory-based and data-driven framework for equitably consequential making; a set of related individual-level and program-level cases with exemplars (and the associated challenges) that can be used by researchers and practitioners for guiding the field; and an initial set of guiding principles (with indicators) for identifying equitably consequential making in practice. The project will result in a framework for equitably consequential making with guiding principles for implementation that will contribute to the infrastructure for fostering increased opportunities to learn among all youth, especially those historically underrepresented in STEM.
Through research, the project seeks to build capacity among STEM-oriented maker practitioners, researchers and youth in the maker movement around equitably consequential making to expand the prevailing norms of making towards more transformative outcomes for youth. Project research will be guided by several questions. What do youth learn and do (in-the-moment and over time) in making spaces that work to support equity in making? What maker space design features support (or work against) youth in making in equitably consequential ways? What are the individual and community outcomes youth experience in STEM-making across settings and time scales? What are the most salient indicators of equitably consequential making, how do they take shape, how can these indicators be identified in practice? The project will research these questions using interview studies and critical longitudinal ethnography with embedded youth participatory case study methodologies. The research will be conducted in research-practice partnerships involving Michigan State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and 4 local, STEM- and youth-oriented making spaces in Lansing and Greensboro that serve historically underrepresented groups in STEM, with a specific focus on youth from lower-income and African American backgrounds.
Many studies have examined the impression that the general public has of science and how this can prevent girls from choosing science fields. Using an online questionnaire, we investigated whether the public perception of several academic fields was gender-biased in Japan. First, we found the gender-bias gap in public perceptions was largest in nursing and mechanical engineering. Second, people who have a low level of egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles perceived that nursing was suitable for women. Third, people who have a low level of egalitarian attitudes perceived that many STEM
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Yuko IkkataiAzusa MinamizakiKei KanoAtsushi InoueEuan McKayHiromi M. Yokoyama
Reframing engineering activities to emphasize the needs of others has the potential to strengthen engineering practices like problem scoping, while also providing more inclusive and socially relevant entry points into engineering problems. In a three-year design-based research project, we developed novel strategies for adding narratives to engineering activities to deepen girls’ engagement in engineering practices by evoking empathy for the users of their designs. In this article, we describe a set of hands-on engineering activities developed through iterative development and testing with 190
Makerspaces are learning environments that engage participants in authentic science and engineering practices, using hands-on and collaborative approaches to support activities and projects that foster creativity, interest, and skill development. Recently there has been a rapid growth of makerspaces in schools and in informal places like museums, libraries, and community centers. However, many of these spaces are not accessible to all members of society. This project will produce a model for a STEM makerspace that focuses on increasing access. The model has four critical components that operate together: affordable housing, informal STEM learning, maker education, and multi-generational learning. This project will develop and study the community-based, multigenerational makerspace model for Bayview Towers, a 200-unit affordable housing complex in Connecticut. The Multi-Gen STEM Makerspaces project brings together CAST, a non-profit education research organization, the NHP Foundation/Operation Pathways, a national affordable housing provider, and the Boston University Social Learning Lab, which researches the social context for STEM learning. The project will produce a Multi-Gen Maker Playbook comprised of an educational guide for a series of four-week workshops around different themes and modes of making. The Playbook will also serve as a program model that guides similar communities on how to create and run sustainable and thriving maker programs of their own. Families in the Bayview Towers community will build an understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts through participation in an onsite makerspace. Families will relate what they are doing through making to longer-term goals connected to STEM learning, education, and careers. The project will also enable the engagement of individuals in the co-design (individuals provide creative contributions) of making that can be translated into community structures and values that support a sustainable makerspace. The affordable housing context will provide understanding of individual and other social factors that impact learners' sense of STEM identity. The project will support mobility from poverty by including STEM learning as part of the resident services.
The research will examine how low income communities access, engage, and learn in makerspaces, and relate their learning to relevant goals. The team will use design-based research (DBR) whereby participants and researchers work together to design interventions intended to explore theory through cycles of enactment, analysis, and revision. The DBR research will answer the following questions:
In what ways, if any, does the model support residents experiencing STEM learning as consequential?
What kind of making goals do residents set and how do they embed STEM in these goals?
If residents experience STEM learning as consequential through the workshops, do they also see the relationship between their making goals and longer term goals?
Do those residents that use the makerspace more frequently experience more positive outcomes in terms of consequential STEM learning?
How do the various makerspace structures - training of facilitators, dedicated space and equipment, Playbook - support the model?
Are groups of residents participating regularly in the makerspace and if so, who is in these groups? Do these groups start to identify as a maker community? Is the community finding the makerspace of value?
In what ways does the organization and operations of the makerspace support building a sustainable model for multigenerational and consequential learning?
Participants will include 90 youth and 90 adults from the resident community at Bayview Towers. Research data to be collected includes open-ended response measures for scoring residents' interpretation, analysis and understanding of each workshop elements. Also, interview protocols will be used to guide the refinement of the Multi-Gen Maker Playbook features and analyze usability, feasibility, engagement and user experience of the Multi-Gen Maker Playbook within the platform. The program will use semi-structured interview protocols on participants' goals and STEM identity and focus group protocols on community maker values and makerspace structures. Additionally, a Likert-style survey on STEM identity will also be adapted from the Science Identity Scale. Project evaluation will examine the overall achievement of program goals and objectives. Project results will be communicated by traditional means of dissemination to scholars and practitioners. The team will also create targeted digital media, including online articles, podcast interviews, and blog posts, to reach a broader audience.
This Innovations in Development award 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. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sam Catherine JohnstonKathleen CorriveauJess GropenKim DucharmeKenneth White
Research shows that algebra is a major barrier to student success, enthusiasm and participation in STEM for under-represented students, particularly African-American students in under-resourced high schools. Programs that develop ways to help students master algebra concepts and a belief that they can perform algebra may lead to more students entering engineering careers. This project will provide an online engineering program to support 9th and 10th grade Baltimore City Public Schools students, a predominantly low-income African-American cohort, to develop concrete goals of becoming engineers. The goals of the program are to help students with a growing interest in engineering to maintain that interest throughout high school. The project will also support students aspire to an engineering career. The project will develop in students an appreciation of requisite courses and skills, and increase self-efficacy in mathematics. The project will also develop a replicable model of informal education capable of reinforcing the mathematical foundations that students learn during the school day. Additionally, the project will broaden participation in engineering by being available to students during out-of-school time and by having relaxed entrance criteria compared to existing opportunities in supplemental engineering curricula. The project is a collaboration between the Baltimore City Public Schools, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and Expanded School-Based Mental Health programs to support students both during and after participation. The project will benefit society by providing skills that will allow high school students to become members of tomorrow's highly trained STEM workforce.
The research will test whether an informal, scaffolded online algebra-for-engineering program increases students' mastery and self-efficacy in mathematics. The research will advance knowledge regarding informal education by applying Social Cognitive Career Theory as a framework for measuring program impact. The theoretical framework will aid in identifying mechanisms through which students with interest in engineering might persist in maintaining this interest through high school via algebra skill mastery and increased self-efficacy. The project will recruit 200 youth from the Baltimore City Public Schools to participate in the project over three years. Qualitative data will be collected to assess how student and school socioeconomic factors impact implementation, student engagement, and outcomes. The research will answer the following questions: 1) What effect does program participation have on math mastery? 2) What direct and indirect effects do program completion and supports have on students' mathematics self-efficacy? 3) What direct and indirect effects do program components have on engineering career goals by the end of the program? 4) What direct and indirect effects does math self-efficacy have on career goals? 5) To what extent are the effects of program participation on engineering career goals mediated by math self-efficacy and engineering interest? 6) How do school factors relate to the implementation of the program? 7) What socioeconomic-related factors relate to the regularity and continuation of student participation in the program? The quantitative methods of data analysis will employ descriptive and multivariate statistical methods. Qualitative data from interviews will be analyzed using an emergent approach and a coding scheme guided by theoretical constructs. Project results will be communicated to scholars and practitioners. The team will also share information through school newsletters and parent communication through Baltimore City Public Schools.
This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings.
Making, which supports interest-driven skill-development and learning, has been recognized as having the potential to engage underserved youth in STEM. Makerspaces are community spaces that allow participants to create items using tools, such as 3-D printers, computer-aided design, and digital fabrication technologies. Makerspaces and making-related programs are often inaccessible, unaffordable, or simply not available to underserved youth. Digital Harbor will partner with recreation centers, two in Pittsburgh and two in Baltimore, to research, refine and implement an equity-based approach to making that will engage underserved youth aged 12-16 in making. The project will prepare out-of-school time (OST) educators to collaboratively develop culturally sensitive curricula with underserved youth to engage them in maker-based technology and computer science experiences. The project will (1) design a professional development program that will prepare and support local educators to collaboratively design and deliver localized, maker-based, STEM curricula; (2) research the impact of these programs on both educators' and youth's self-efficacy, creativity, and attitudes towards STEM; and (3) develop and evaluate an online Localization Toolkit that will prepare educators in makerspaces across the nation in using an equity-based approach to create localized content. The project will result in four new maker sites (two in Baltimore and two in Pittsburgh directly impact 4 sites (10 educators and 240 youth). The project will result several resources that will support the development and educational programs of other community sites. The resources will include the Localization Toolkit, Case Studies, Best Practices, and Research Study. The Localization Toolkit has the potential to strengthen infrastructure and capacity building in OST maker-based programs, as well as other informal and formal education programs using similar pedagogies and design principles.
The project will use a mixed-methods approach in researching the challenges and processes involved in establishing the four maker sites in Baltimore and Pittsburgh, the approaches and effectiveness of the professional development program on OST educators, and the impacts of the project of participation on the self-efficacy, creativity, and attitudes on participating youth and educators. The research study will apply several instruments and data collection sources to develop quantitative data, including youth attendance logs, the Upper Elementary and Middle/High School Student Attitudes toward STEM survey, a retrospective technology self-efficacy survey and pre-post surveys. In addition to project document review, the researchers will collect qualitative data through educator interviews, educator focus groups, and youth focus groups. Project research and resources will reach key audiences of learning scientists and OST educators through articles in peer-reviewed and practitioner journals, public events and professional conferences. These audiences will also be reached through the project website, which will share project resources. The project will reach OST sites across the country directly through dissemination partners, including the National Recreation and Parks Association, Association of Science and Technology Centers, and statewide out-of-school networks.
This Innovations in Development award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Virtual Reality (VR) shows promise to broaden participation in STEM by engaging learners in authentic but otherwise inaccessible learning experiences. The immersion in authentic learner environments, along with social presence and learner agency, that is enabled by VR helps form memorable learning experiences. VR is emerging as a promising tool for children with autism. While there is wide variation in the way people with autism present, one common set of needs associated with autism that can be addressed with VR is sensory processing. This project will research and model how VR can be used to minimize barriers for learners with autism, while also incorporating complementary universal designs for learning (UDL) principles to promote broad participation in STEM learning. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. This project will build on a prototype VR simulation, Mission to Europa Prime, that transports learners to a space station for exploration on Jupiter's moon Europa, a strong candidate for future discovery of extraterrestrial life and a location no human can currently experience in person. The prototype simulation will be expanded to create a full, immersive STEM-based experience that will enable learners who often encounter cognitive, social, and emotional barriers to STEM learning in public spaces, particularly learners with autism, to fully engage and benefit from this STEM-learning experience. The simulation will include a variety of STEM-learning puzzles, addressing science, mathematics, engineering, and computational thinking through authentic and interesting problem-solving tasks. The project team's learning designers and researchers will co-design puzzles and user interfaces with students at a post-secondary institute for learners with autism and other learning differences. The full VR STEM-learning simulation will be broadly disseminated to museums and other informal education programs, and distributed to other communities.
Project research is designed to advance knowledge about VR-based informal STEM learning and the affordances of VR to support learners with autism. To broaden STEM participation for all, the project brings together research at the intersection of STEM learning, cognitive and educational neuroscience, and the human-technology frontier. The simulation will be designed to provide agency for learners to adjust a STEM-learning VR experience for their unique sensory processing, attention, and social anxiety needs. The project will use a participatory design process will ensure the VR experience is designed to reduce barriers that currently exclude learners with autism and related conditions from many informal learning opportunities, broadening participation in informal STEM learning. Design research, usability, and efficacy studies will be conducted with teens and adults at the Pacific Science Center and Boston Museum of Science, which serve audiences with autism, along with the general public. Project research is grounded in prior NSF-funded research and leverages the team's expertise in STEM learning simulations, VR development, cognitive psychology, universal design, and informal science education, as well as the vital expertise of the end-user target audience, learners with autism. In addition to being shared at conferences, the research findings will be submitted for publication to peer-reviewed journals for researchers and to appropriate publications for VR developers and disseminators, museum programs, neurodiverse communities and other potentially interested parties.
This Innovations in Development award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Teon EdwardsJodi Asbell-ClarkeJamie LarsenIbrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki