A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world continues to struggle with the many ways our lives have changed and the uncertainty that remains about the future. Vaccines are being widely administered, but how and when life will return to “normal” remains unknown. During this time, caregivers continue to seek out information to address the questions, worries, and information needs their children have about this unique moment in their lives. Our NSF-funded RAPID research project has helped to uncover some of these questions, worries, and needs by talking to caregivers of listeners of the children
For nearly 20 years, the UAB Center for Community OutReach Development (CORD) has conducted SEPA funded research that has greatly enhanced the number of minority students entering the pipeline to college and biomedical careers, e.g., nearly all of CORD’s Summer Research Interns since 1998 (>300) have completed/are completing college and most of them are continuing on to graduate biomedical research and/or clinical training and careers. CORD’s programs that focused on high and middle school students have drawn many minority students into biomedical careers, but a low percentage of minority students benefit from these programs because far too many are already left behind academically in grades 4-6, due, at least in part, to a significant drop in science grades between grades 4 and 6, a drop from which most students never recover. A major contributor to this effect is that most grade 4-6 teachers in predominantly minority schools lack significant formal training in science and often are not fully aware of the great opportunities offered by biomedical careers.
In SEEC II, CORD will deliver intensive inquiry-based science training to grade 4-6 teachers, providing them with science content and hands-on science experiences that will afford their student both content and skills that will make them excited about, and competitive for, the advanced courses needed to move into biomedical research careers. SEEC II will also link teachers together across the elementary/middle school divide and bring the teachers together with administrators and parents, who will experience firsthand the excitement that inquiry learning brings and the significant advancement it provides in science and in reading and math. At monthly meetings and large annual celebrations, the parents, teachers and administrators will learn about the opportunities that biomedical careers can provide for the student who is well prepared. They will also consider the financial and educational steps required to ensure that students have the ability to reach these professions.
SEEC II will also expand CORD’s middle school LabWorks and Summer Science Camps to include grade 4-5 students and provide the teachers with professional learning in informal settings. During summer training, in small groups, the teachers will expand one of the inquiry-based science activities that they complete in the training, and they will use these in their classrooms and communicate with the others in their group to perfect these experiences in the school year. Finally, the teachers and grade 4-5 students will develop science and engineering fair-type research projects with which they will compete both on the school level and at the annual meeting. Thus, the students will share with their parents the excitement that science brings. The Intellectual Merit of SEEC II will be to test a model to enhance grade 4-6 teacher development and vertical alignment, providing science content, exposure to biomedical scientists and training in participatory science experiments, thus positioning teachers to succeed. The Broader Impacts will include the translation and testing of a science education model to assist minority students to avoid the middle school plunge and reach biomedical careers.
This project will incorporate lessons learned from our previously funded SEPA, based in five Title I elementary schools in the District of Columbia and Prince George’s County Maryland. In this proposal, “SCIENCE” will engage a new audience of learners in their out of school time in the setting of community libraries. We will provide programming that uses hands- on, inquiry-based learning based on our established art and science curriculum designed to improve the physical, cognitive and social development of children and their families.
SCIENCE will include instructional units, web based activities and ‘hands on/brains on’ manipulation utilizing our compact, portable and unique “art and science in a box”, which consolidates all materials needed to bring excitement to STEM learning. We will focus on preventative health areas of concern to our community, including asthma, stress, cardio-metabolic risk, sleep and behavioral issues, including bullying, genetic diseases like sickle cell disease and, injury prevention at home, in school and with sports.
We will also provide professional development training for informal educators. Specifically, we will adapt our previously successful in-school curriculum for a broader group of children from grades K–5 who utilize the District of Columbia Public Libraries (DCPL) and Enoch Pratt Free Library (EPFL). The curriculum is aligned to both Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, and will be expanded with the addition of bioengineering/imaging/computing, and mindfulness.
With our integrated-art focused STEM and preventative health educational program, we will empower children by encouraging curiosity and discovery as well as providing tools to incorporate health and science messaging to improve school readiness. Over the course of the five years, we will implement the program progressively in 10 DCPL branches and 2 Baltimore branches. Programming will take place during winter and spring breaks, professional development days, special holidays and weekends.
We will continue our successful one week hospital summer program, Dr. Bear’s Summer Science Experience, an interactive STEAM experience which takes place in the hospital and its research laboratories. In addition to student focused programming, we will also create Family Learning Events—entertaining and collaborative programs for families—to be held in DCPL and EPFL branches with a focus on disease prevention which adversely affects our community. Take home materials will include handouts, web resources, apps and links in in both English and Spanish, and will focus on reading readiness and mastery of STEM concepts.
The New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) will develop, test, market, and disseminate an interactive graphic novel iBook that will use the interests of young people (ages 10–14) in animals and comics to engage them in learning about health and clinical research. Provisionally called “Transmission: Astonishing Tales of Human-Animal Diseases,” the project represents a new approach to engaging young people in biomedical science learning.
Graphic novels are one of the fastest growing categories in publishing and bookselling, and today, they are significantly more sophisticated than the comics that came before them. They are also enormously popular among young people. The proposed graphic novel iBook will focus on the diseases that humans and animals share and pass between them (sometimes to devastating consequences), from Ebola, bird flu, and West Nile disease to influenza, measles, and pneumonia. Moreover, like many other contemporary graphic novels, it will address a pressing issue of the day—amely, the growth of zoonotic and anthropozoonotic diseases.
The iBook will be developed in a digital, interactive format (a growing trend within the genre) and, like many graphic novel titles, will take a mystery and forensic crime approach to exploring its content. Ultimately, Transmission will become a national model for conveying biomedical understanding through the use of up-to-the-minute interactive iBook technologies and an engaging graphic novel format.
For public health to improve, all sectors of society much have access to the highest quality health science news and information possible. How that information is translated, packaged and disseminated is important: the stories matter. Our journalism and mentoring program will grow the health science literacy of the nation by building the next generation of science communicators, ensuring that cadre of youth from historically disadvantaged groups have the discipline, creativity and critical thinking skills needed to be successful health science-literate citizens and advocates within their own communities.
Using a combination of youth-generated videos, broadcast reporting and online curriculum resources, PBS NewsHour will engineer successful educational experiences to engage students from all backgrounds, and particularly underserved populations, to explore clinical, biomedical, and behavioral research. The PBS NewsHour’s Student Reporting Labs program, currently in 41 states, will create 10 health science reporting labs to produce unique news stories that view health and science topics from a youth perspective. We will incorporate these videos into lesson plans and learning tools disseminated to the general public, educators and youth media organizations. Students will be supported along the way with curricula and mentorship on both fundamental research and the critical thinking skills necessary for responsible journalism. This process will ensure the next generation includes citizens who are effective science communicators and self-motivated learners with a deep connection to science beyond the textbook and classroom.
PBS NewsHour will develop a STEM-reporting curriculum to teach students important research skills. The program will include activities that expose students to careers in research, highlight a diverse assortment of pioneering scientists as role models and promote internship opportunities. The resources will be posted on the PBS NewsHour Extra site which has 170,000 views per month and our partner sites on PBS Learning Media and Share My Lesson—the two biggest free education resource sites on the web—thus greatly expanding the potential scope of our outreach and impact.
NewsHour broadcast topics will be finalized through our advisory panel and the researchers interviewed for the stories will be selected for their expertise and skills as effective science communicators, as well as their diversity and ability to connect with youth. Finally, we will launch an outreach and community awareness campaign through strategic partnerships and coordinated cross promotion of stories through social media platforms.
Museums in the US receive approximately 55 million visits each year from students in school groups. Field trip visits to an art museum have been found to positively impact critical thinking skills, empathy and tolerance - an increase that can be even more significant for youth from rural or high-poverty regions. While field trips are popular, especially at science museums, there have been no experimental studies about their impact on STEM career choices and interests, much less any which used a culturally sensitive and responsive approach. Given the resources put into field trips, this study investigates if causal links can be drawn between museum experiences and impact on youth. The Museum of Science & Industry uses a Learning Labs approach for engaging its visitors. These "Learning Labs" are facilitated experiences that run roughly an hour. Currently there are 12 lab topics. This study focuses on MedLab--one of the learning labs--as the setting for the research. MedLab is designed for on-site and online experience using ultra-sophisticated and highly versatile technology in challenges taken from research on the top healthcare issues that face adolescents in their communities.
This study is informed by research and theory on Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) and Racial and Ethnic Identity. The former describes a process many follow when thinking about career options, broadly. The latter describes how people see themselves in the world through their membership with a racial and/or ethnic group. Both processes can collectively influence STEM career choices. This study follows an embedded mixed-method design. The quantitative portion includes an experimental, pre/post/delayed post-test design of both educators and their students using multiple measures taken mostly from previously published instruments. The qualitative portion includes observation rubrics of MedLab sessions along with interviews and focus groups with staff, educators, students and families that take place both within and outside of the museum. This is an experimental study of moderate size of both heterogeneous teacher and student populations in real world settings. It involves comparing youth and educators that participate in MedLab with those who do not. By conducting research that looks at each community through the lens of their unique experiences, the research will measure their impact more sensitively and authentically, addressing a gap in current literature on informal science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) career education with diverse students.
This study is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program and the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
This project is a Design and Development Launch Pilot (DDLP) of the NSF INCLUDES program. The goal of the project is to enhance the knowledge and applicability of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for a broad cross-section of people living in the U.S,-Affiliated Pacific Islands. The focus will be on water resources, which is an extremely important topic for this region and equally relevant nationally. The project will engage local community groups and schools in water monitoring, sampling, and analysis, in order to promote the benefits of science education and careers among a population that is underrepresented in these areas. Moreover, the project will improve the capabilities of the island residents for making decisions about sustainable use and protection of these scarce resources. A functioning network will be established among the islands that will have a positive impact on the health and well-being of the residents.
This project will use water as a highly relevant topic in order to involve a wide range of individuals in both general STEM learning and the basic scientific principles as applied to water resources. Specific aspects include engaging K-12, higher education, informal educators and community members to manage water resources in a sustainable fashion that will reduce disaster risk. In addition, the project will empower local communities through water literacy to make better informed, evidence-based decisions that balance the needs of diverse stakeholder groups. The overarching goal is to further advance the inclusion of underrepresented learners in STEM fields. Benefits to society will accrue by: increasing STEM learning opportunities for ~6,500 students from underserved and underrepresented Indigenous Pacific Islanders that will enhance their eligibility for STEM careers; building community resiliency through a collective impact network to resolve emerging water crises; and fostering collaboration among different constituencies in remote communities to make better-informed decisions that reflect the needs and constraints of diverse interests.
By engaging diverse publics in immersive and deliberative learning forums, this three-year project will use NOAA data and expertise to strengthen community resilience and decision-making around a variety of climate and weather-related hazards across the United States. Led by Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes and the Museum of Science Boston, the project will develop citizen forums hosted by regional science centers to create a new, replicable model for learning and engagement. These forums, to be hosted initially in Boston and Phoenix and then expanded to an additional six sites around the U.S., will facilitate public deliberation on real-world issues of concern to local communities, including rising sea levels, extreme precipitation, heat waves, and drought. The forums will identify and clarify citizen values and perspectives while creating stakeholder networks in support of local resilience measures. The forum materials developed in collaboration with NOAA will foster better understanding of environmental changes and best practices for improving community resiliency, and will create a suite of materials and case studies adaptable for use by science centers, teachers, and students. With regional science centers bringing together the public, scientific experts, and local officials, the project will create resilience-centered partnerships and a framework for learning and engagement that can be replicated nationwide.
Students can present their classroom work in a number of ways. One popular approach is an open house at the school. Such events often feature booths where parents and students can participate in various learning activities. Because these open houses usually only cater to the students and families associated with that particular school, the impact is limited to those people, and the wider local community is not engaged in students’ learning. Additionally, in rural areas, these types of events are sometimes difficult for families to attend during weekdays or weeknights, due to distance and work
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robin CooperKim ZeidlerDiane JohnsonJennifer Wilson
As part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funding for the In Defense of Food project directed by Kikim Media, the independent evaluation firm Knight Williams Inc.1 conducted a summative evaluation of the project’s key deliverables, which included: a PBS television broadcast program, an outreach effort, and an educational curriculum. This report (Study 3 of 3) considers the In Defense of Food curriculum and, in particular, educators’ reactions to the curriculum in terms of perceived appeal, ease of implementation, and learning value. Feedback was gathered from educators who were surveyed
There is broad consensus in the international scientific community that the world is facing a biodiversity crisis — the accelerated loss of life on Earth brought about by human activity. Threats to biodiversity have been variously classified by different authors (Diamond 1989, Laverty and Sterling 2004, Brook et al. 2008), but typically include ecosystem loss and fragmentation, unsustainable use, invasive species, pollution, and climate change. Across the globe, traditional and indigenous cultures are affected by many of the same threats affecting biological diversity, including the
Science Club Summer Camp (SC2) is a practicum-based teacher professional development program for elementary school teachers, aligned to the recently released Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). It seeks to address well-described gaps in the scientific training of elementary teachers that threaten the effective implementation of NGSS and interrupt development of early youth science skills. We offer that the best way to prepare a future STEM and biomedical workforce is to help improve NGSS-aligned instruction at the K-5 level.
SC2 uses an integrated approach to train Chicago Public School teachers and youth in the nature of science. An interdisciplinary team of scientists, master science teachers, NGSS experts, and youth development staff will collaborate to incorporate the NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), Crosscutting Concepts, and science and engineering practices into both out-of-school time learning at a summer camp and academic year instruction. Program participants will also learn about NGSS connections to health and biomedicine through interactions with practicing scientists, visits to research labs, and inquiry into health phenomena.
Over the course of the program, we will train 64 teachers and more than 2000 youth in authentic science and health practices. A multi-faceted evaluation plan will assess the impact of our program on teacher beliefs, knowledge, and understanding of the NGSS, and the degree to which their training results in changes to their instructional practice. Additionally, we will help teachers design critical NGSS-aligned assessment tools as measures of student learning. These instruments will provide early evidence on the connections between NGSS-aligned instruction and deeper student learning.
In addition to addressing the acute need for NGSS-aligned teacher professional development strategies, and high quality summer learning opportunities for disadvantages youth, it is our expectation that this “dual use” approach will serve as a model for future teacher professional development programs that seek to bridge learning in formal and informal environments and strengthen academic-community partnerships.