RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
In collaboration with TERC and informal learning organizations across the United States, COSI’s Center for Research and Evaluation (CRE) is part of an NSF-funded project, Research to Understand and Inform the Impacts of Ambient and Designed Sound on Informal STEM Learning.
The Virginia Air and Space Center will enhance its Space Gallery exhibit and increase its capacity to deliver high-quality, high-impact STEM programming. The museum will purchase, adapt, and install three interactive, digital exhibits that will complement existing displays and enhance visitors’ overall experiences. The digital exhibits will include a moon lander that users can pilot; a simulated Mars rover and micro-copter that will allow guests to navigate a Martian atmosphere and surface; and a stellar playground where users can build their own solar system through an intuitive touch-interface that incorporates planets, stars, violent supernovas, black holes, and other space oddities. The project team will develop new curricula related to the exhibits to use with school groups and summer camps.
The Arboretum at Flagstaff will complete an interactive outdoor exhibition to provide relevant and science-based climate change information to its northern Arizona audience, as well as visitors from throughout the state. Project activities include the addition of three kiosks to the climate change exhibition; developing standards-based curriculum guides for educators to assist them with both onsite and classroom instruction for students in grades 6-8; and the development of new webpage interfaces designed to make data files and curriculum guides readily available. The climate change center will engage students and general audiences in the STEM components of real-time climate change research, interpretation, and mitigation.
This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
The Accessible Oceans study will design auditory displays that support learning and understanding of ocean data in informal learning environments like museums, science centers, and aquariums. Most data presentations in these spaces use visual display techniques such as graphs, charts, and computer-generated visualizations, resulting in inequitable access for learners with vision impairment or other print-related disabilities. While music, sound effects, and environmental sounds are sometimes used, these audio methods are inadequate for conveying quantitative information. The project will use sonification (turning data into sound) to convey meaningful aspects of ocean science data to increase access to ocean data and ocean literacy. The project will advance knowledge on the design of auditory displays for all learners, with and without disabilities, as well as advance the use of technology for STEM formal and informal education. The study will include 425 participants but will reach tens of thousands through the development of education materials, public reporting, and social media. The study will partner with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Discovery Center, the Georgia Aquarium, the Eugene Science Center, the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired, and Perkins School for the Blind.
The project will leverage existing educational ocean datasets from the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative to produce and evaluate the feasibility of using integrated auditory displays to communicate tiered learning objectives of oceanographic principles. Integrated auditory displays will each be comprised of a data sonification and a context-setting audio introduction that will help to make sure all users start with the same basic information about the phenomenon. The displays will be developed through a user-centered design process that will engage ocean science experts, visually impaired students and adults (and their teachers), and design-oriented undergraduate and graduate students. The project will support advocacy skills for inclusive design and will provide valuable training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students in human-centered design and accessibility. The project will have foundational utility in auditory display, STEM education, human-computer interaction, and other disciplines, contributing new strategies for representing quantitative information that can be applied across STEM disciplines that use similar visual data displays. The project will generate publicly accessible resources to advance studies of inclusive approaches on motivating learners with and without disabilities to learn more about and consider careers in STEM.
This Pilots and Feasibility Studies project is supported by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
There is a vein of democratic idealism in the work of science museums. It is less about political democracy than epistemological democracy. As a one-time museum educator and a researcher who studies science museums, I have always thought of it in terms of an unspoken two-part motto: “see for yourself–know for yourself.” Although this strain of idealism has remained constant throughout the history of science museums, it has been interpreted differently in different eras, responding (in part) to the social upheavals of the day. In the late 1960s, for example, a new generation of self-described
Science learning occurs throughout people's lives, inside and outside of school, in formal, informal, and nonformal settings. While museums have long played a role in science education, learning in this and other informal settings has not been studied nor understood as deeply as in formal settings (i.e., schools and classrooms). This position paper, written by learning researchers in a science museum engaged in equity and access work, notes that while the researchers consider the ethics of their work regularly and deeply, little formal guidance exists for the ethical challenges they routinely
Implementation of a permanent exhibit and supporting programs exploring themes of labor, immigration, and the changing nature of work and community in New Bedford’s commercial fishing industry.
To produce "More Than a Job: Work and Community in New Bedford’s Commercial Fishing Industry," a permanent exhibit, digital exhibits, K-12 curriculum materials, and significant public programming exploring themes of labor and immigration, and the changing nature of work and community in New Bedford's commercial fishing industry.
For thousands of years, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (NHPI) seafarers have successfully utilized systemic observation of their environment to traverse vast expanses of open ocean and thrive on the most remote islands on earth. Developing NHPI trust in the scientific enterprise requires building connections that bridge the values and concepts of 'ike kupuna (traditional knowledge) with scientific knowledge systems and contemporary technology. This project will develop and research a pop-up science exhibit that connects indigenous Hawaiian knowledge with contemporary Western science concepts. The exhibit will show how community knowledge (that is consistent with underlying scientific principles and natural laws) has informed innovation by indigenous peoples. This community-initiated and developed project will begin with a single pop-up exhibit designed to incorporate several hands-on culture-based STEM activities that integrate traditional and modern technologies. For example, the exhibit may cover indigenous systems of star navigation for ocean voyaging, systems of netting for food and water containers, or systems of home design with local and natural materials. This project seeks to develop preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of such an approach for supporting rural Hawaiian youths' STEM engagement, understanding, and personal connections to Native Hawaiian STEM knowledge. Findings from this pilot and feasibility study will inform the development of a larger pop-up science center grounded in indigenous Hawaiian STEM knowledge, and advance intellectual knowledge around culturally sustaining pedagogy by helping informal STEM education practitioners understand community initiated and developed STEM exhibits.
This pop-up science center pilot will be led by a local Hawaiian community organization, INPEACE, in collaboration with several local community members and other community-based organizations. The preliminary research will iteratively explore whether and how an existing Hawaiian culture-based framework can be used to design hands-on STEM exhibits to enhance rural learner engagement, depth of STEM knowledge, and connection to Native Hawaiian STEM knowledge. Research efforts led by Kamehameha Schools, which has a long history of conducting research from an indigenous worldview, will engage 120 learners from various rural communities across Hawaii, from which 40 will be pre-selected middle-school youth, and 80 individuals will be from public audiences of learners ages 12 and up. Through a series of observations, interviews, pre and post surveys with validated instruments, and focus groups, the research will probe: (1) The learners' thoughts on the science practice and its relevance to old and new Hawaii and modern society. (2) The level at which related STEM topics have been understood, and (3) The learners' perceptions about their connection to Native Hawaiian STEM knowledge. Results from this pilot study will inform a future pop-up science center development project, and add to the scarce literature on community-driven, culturally sustaining exhibition development.
This Pilots and Feasibility Studies project is funded by the NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
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.