The overall goal of the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) Equity Audit has been to assess CAISE as an organization, and its operations and products through a racial equity lens. In this report, CAISE provides insights on how to better serve our audiences, identify potential resource gaps, and to expand the reach and value of our work to other communities and individuals.
The executive summary of the Formative Research Report for the project: Fostering Joint Parent/Child Engagement in Preschool Computational Thinking by Leveraging Digital Media, Mobile Technology, and Library Settings in Rural Communities.
This is the formative research report for the project: Fostering Joint Parent/Child Engagement in Preschool Computational Thinking by Leveraging Digital Media, Mobile Technology, and Library Settings in Rural Communities
How can we begin to chart a course toward a future for science museums in which we maintain our status as sources of trusted information, while also fulfilling our potential as sites of genuine participation and social interaction? In 2019, with funding from the National Science Foundation, the New York Hall of Science hosted a three day conference to discuss new and equitable approaches to exhibit design. With leading exhibit designers, educators, researchers, and community engagement specialists, we began to rethink the exhibit design process, toward a goal of helping our museums become more
Although virtual conferences have become commonplace in the age of COVID-19, this format poses both challenges and opportunities for organizers to design, implement, and engage participants in productive and connected ways. We created this brief to share an example of the process and lessons learned as we designed and hosted a virtual NSF-funded conference called: Mapping Connections Between STEM and Social-Emotional Development (SED) in Out-of-School Time (OST) Programs. This conference focused on identifying outcomes at the interface of STEM and SED in OST research and practice (e.g
In December of 2019, TERC and the University of Notre Dame convened a group of 21 early childhood reading, family learning, and informal STEM education experts to explore the role of children’s fiction books as a tool for supporting STEM learning with young children and their families. Participants included educators and researchers from across the country representing a broad range of learning contexts, professional roles, audience focus areas, and STEM discipline expertise. Through the discussions, the group developed a series of recommendations for future work, with a particular focus on
Tinkering creates a bridging point between a learner’s personal interests and experiences and a broad range of possible learning outcomes. It offers valuable opportunities to engage all students in STEM and fosters a more inclusive STEM education. In this way, it is very much aligned with a Science Capital Teaching Approach: fundamentally, it is a highly personalised pedagogy, which allows the learner to follow their own interests and set their own goals.
This resource has been designed to help teachers integrate the Tinkering approach and the Science Capital framework in their practice
The Rural Informal STEM Conference (RISC), sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and held at its headquarters on September 13–14, 2018, was the first of its kind to bring together key innovators and experts in rural STEM learning outside of school. People who live in rural settings are a frequently overlooked and significantly under-represented STEM audience, who number roughly 60 million Americans.
The conference addressed questions about the overall status of informal (out of school) STEM learning in rural places, including the following: How do we define rural places? What
This workshop series, convened by the Kavli, Rita Allen, Packard and Moore Foundations, was intended to view the entire system of people who support scientists’ engagement and communication efforts in order to explore how this system can be most effective and sustainable. The discussions examined where this system is thriving, the limits people within the system face and what can be done to ensure their efforts are commensurate with the demand for quality communication and engagement support.
Conducted over four closely scheduled workshops in late 2017 and early 2018, the convenings brought
Supported by the National Science Foundation, the Global Soundscapes! Big Data, Big Screens, Open Ears project employs a variety of informal learning experiences to present the physics of sound and the new science of soundscape ecology. The interdisciplinary science of soundscape ecology analyzes sounds over time in different ecosystems around the world. The major components of the Global Soundscapes project are an educator-led interactive giant-screen theater show, group activities, and websites. All components are designed with both sighted and visually impaired students in mind. Multimedia
In this paper, we summarize the results of the two-year, National Science Foundation-funded Head Start on Engineering (HSE) project, designed to study and support engineering-related interest development for preschool children and their families from low-income backgrounds participating in Head Start. Low-income communities face ongoing barriers to accessing STEM learning resources and pursuing STEM-related careers. Quality family interventions in early childhood are a critical approach to addressing these barriers and have been shown to have long-term, positive impacts on families well beyond
In this literature review, we seek to understand in what ways aspects of computer science education and making and makerspaces may support the ambitious vision for science education put forth in A Framework for K-12 Science as carried forward in the Next Generation Science Standards. Specifically, we examine how computer science and making and makerspace approaches may inform a project-based learning approach for supporting three-dimensional science learning at the elementary level. We reviewed the methods and findings of both recently published articles by influential scholars in computer
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Samuel SeveranceSusan CodereEmily MillerDeborah Peek-BrownJoseph Krajcik