As an emerging field of theory, research, and practice, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) has received attention for its efforts to incorporate the arts into the rubric of STEM learning. In particular, many informal educators have embraced it as an inclusive and authentic approach to engaging young people with STEM. Yet, as with many nascent fields, the conceptualization and usage of STEAM is somewhat ambivalent and weakly theorized. On the one hand, STEAM offers significant promise through its focus on multiple ways of knowing and new pathways to equitable
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.
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.
In 2015, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (Fairchild), located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, entered into partnership with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to help advance NASA’s plant research through classroom-based STEM citizen science with a project entitled, Growing Beyond Earth (GBE). The project, initially launched with 3,600 students at 97 middle and high schools primarily in Miami-Dade County, has expanded to include 10,639 students at 210 schools in 26 states and Puerto Rico. GBE is designed to:
a) Increase middle and high school students’ interest and skills in science by
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Catherine RaymondMarion LitzingerYang WenAmy PadolfCarl Lewis
Engaging with Tinkering is a highly stimulating and complex experience and invites rich reflections from museum practitioners and teachers. "Tinkering as an inclusive approach for building STEM identity and supporting students facing disadvantage or with low science capital” presents the reflective practice process and tools designed by the "Tinkering EU: Building Science Capital for All" project aiming to understand in more depth the potential impact of using a Tinkering approach with students facing disadvantage. Using tools specifically designed to help teachers observe their students
This dissertation study investigates late-elementary and early-middle school field trips to a mathematics exhibition called Math Moves!. Developed by and currently installed at four science museums across the United States, Math Moves! is a suite of interactive technologies designed to engage visitors in open-ended explorations of ratio and proportion. Math Moves! exhibits emphasize embodied interaction and movement, through kinesthetic, multi-sensory, multi-party, and whole-body immersive experiences.
Many science museums and other informal-learning institutions offer exhibits and public
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
The Vertically Integrated Science Learning Opportunity (VISLO) program builds upon an existing three-way partnership between (i) faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students form the University Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), (ii) the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CLC) in Lincoln, NE, and (iii) The University of Nebraska State Museum.
VISLO uniquely incorporates vertically-integrated peer instruction across educational levels, including: graduate, undergraduate, middle school, and elementary school. Throughout the program, participants of all identified educational levels had
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 RAPID was submitted in response to the NSF Dear Colleague letter related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award is made by the AISL program in the Division of Research on Learning, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The project will develop and research an integrated package of high-quality, widely accessible media and other outreach materials designed to engage middle school youth, educators, and libraries in learning about viruses in relation to COVID-19. There is an immediate need to provide youth with accurate, engaging, and accessible materials to help them understand the basic biology underlying the COVID-19 pandemic, including the routes of COVID-19 transmission and mechanisms to prevent its spread. This is particularly important for those without science backgrounds or interests so that the rumors, hearsay, and gossip circulating among youth can be replaced with research-based information. Since 2007, the project team and partners have focused on developing and studying new ways of educating youth and the public about biology, virology, and infectious disease. The project will develop a web-accessible package of customizable graphics, illustrated stories, and essays--all of which can be easily incorporated into free-choice and directed on-line learning as well standards-based lesson plans for Grades 6-8. These resources will be disseminated broadly and at no cost to youth and educators of all kinds, including schools, libraries, museums, and other established networks for formal and informal science education. The project web package will be linked to multiple websites that serve as important educational resources on science and virology for youth, the general public, and educators. A prominent university press will publish and promote the illustrated stories and support distribution of 7,000 free copies.
The project will conduct research examining how richly-illustrated science narratives impact youth understanding of and curiosity about science. The research will help develop the foundation for better understanding how to educate youth about COVID-19 (and future pandemics) while generating new knowledge about effective methods for public science outreach during a major unanticipated natural event. For formative evaluation, the project will use an innovative rapid response feedback method. Youth will be invited to provide timely, specific comments on the serialized stories through a curated portal. As new excerpts are related online, different questions will be posed to youth who are selected because of specific characteristics (e.g., low or high initial science interest). These data will guide story development in real time and provide a mechanism to gauge the story appeal, comprehensibility, and initial impacts. The project will address two research questions: (1) How effective are illustrated stories in having positive impacts among participants on COVID-19 knowledge, science identity, attitudes, and interest in science careers?; and (2) How do story lines and characters have differential impacts on virus knowledge, epidemiology, and youth attitudes towards science and science careers? To conduct this research, the project will conduct online surveys using adapted items from prior research conducted by the project team. Additional items will assess COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes, personal experiences with the virus, well-being, and exposure to public health messaging about the virus. Research findings will be shared widely to inform the field about new ways delivering science education content during the advent of rapidly evolving global and educational challenges.
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:
Judy DiamondJulia McQuillanPatricia Wonch HillElizabeth VanWormer
In this article I critically examine the historical context of science education in a natural history museum and its relevance to using museum resources to teach science today. I begin with a discussion of the historical display of race and its relevance to my practice of using the Museum’s resources to teach science. I continue with a critical review of the history of the education department in a natural history museum to demonstrate the historical constitution of current practices of the education department. Using sociocultural constructs around identity formation and transformation, I
The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of Maine’s capability to promote 5th-12th graders’ engagement and achievement in STEM during out-of-school hours. The paper will provide a background for the design conference task of constructing “STEM intensives” that make optimal use of Maine’s resources and connect these resources with students in ways that make sense.
The purpose of this study is to develop an instrument to assess civic scientific literacy measurement (SLiM), based on media coverage. A total of 50 multiple-choice items were developed based on the most common scientific terms appearing in media within Taiwan. These questions covered the subjects of biology (45.26%, 22 items), earth science (37.90%, 19 items), physics (11.58%, 6 items) and chemistry (5.26%, 3 items). A total of 1034 students from three distinct groups (7th graders, 10th graders, and undergraduates) were invited to participate in this study. The reliability of this instrument
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Carl-Johan RundgrenShu-Nu Chang RundgrenYuen-Hsien TsengPei-Ling LinChun-Yen Chang