This summary brief captures highlights from the second year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project. The technical evaluation report for this same project period can be found on the main project page. The purpose of this document is to communicate key updates (as observed by the evaluation team) in a less technical way with the many different audiences who have an interest in keeping up with WaterMarks.
This is the evaluation report for the second year of the NSF-funded WaterMarks project. It reflects a current summary of available evidence about the intended outcomes of program activities to date, as well as commentary on how the project is using (or could use) this information moving forward.
The summative evaluation report for Project TRUE focuses on program implementation, participant experiences, organizational capacity outcomes and project scale-up over the five-year project.
Appendix includes logic model and instruments.
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
Learning to design and deliver research information customized for particular audiences is one major goal of the Museum of Science’s Research Communication Laboratory (RCL). Judging of short research presentations by an independent judge revealed that graduate students from MIT’s Center for Excitonics who participated in RCL demonstrated significantly better spoken and graphic communication skills compared with graduate students who did not experience RCL instruction. The judge rated RCL students as significantly better than non-RCL students with respect to three criteria: 1) presentation
The Museum of Science partnered with the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing to create a sequence of professional development experiences in science communication and hands-on learning for graduate students and post-docs. The Sharing Science Workshops were intended to help graduate students who work with the CHN program to improve their abilities to present their research to a variety of scientific and nonscientific audiences. The sequence included a half-day "Sharing Science" workshop, a half-day guided "Practicum" with museum visitors, and optional participation in NanoDays events at MOS
One objective of the Center for High-rate Manufacturing is to increase knowledge of and interest in nanotechology among secondary and postsecondary students, educators, and the general public. The Center partners with the Museum of Science, Boston, to help carry out these goals. The Museum's CHN sub-award PI and her team provides training to graduate students to help them learn how to engage in education and outreach activities with these groups. To better understand graduate student education and outreach activities, and student participation in the Museum of Science outreach activities and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
UMass Donahue Institute Research and Evaluation GroupCarol Lynn AlpertCarol Barry
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This guide provides effective practices for anyone — university faculty member, K–12 teacher, or administrator — who wants to create a project that partners science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduate students (Fellows) with K–12 teachers on a sustained basis. These recommendations come from the community of faculty members, graduate students, K–12 teachers, program managers, and evaluators who participated in the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate STEM Fellows in K–12 Education (GK–12) Program from its start in 1999 through 2012. The guide was written to
The EDC Center for Children and Technology (CCT), a nonprofit international research organization, conducted the formative evaluation of the first year's implementation of the Be A Scientist! (BAS) project. The goal of this five-year afterschool family science program project is to provide quality science and engineering courses to underserved families in New York City and Los Angeles. It targeted underserved first graders and their families in the Spring 2010. Guiding by formative research questions (e.g., X) and using multi-method research approach (e.g., X), CCT researchers uncovered
The following three case studies are descriptive and evaluative in nature, and are designed to describe, explain, and portray in some detail three examples of COSIA partnerships. These cases are context bound; the place-based aspect of these cases is critical to the phenomenon being explored. Consistent with the goal for employing a case study approach for COSIA (Communicating Ocean Sciences to Informal Audiences) is the approach if investigating a phenomenon within the context of the places and partners involved. While each of these COSIA partnership sites are involved in other important and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mark St. JohnUniversity of California, Berkeley
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Museum of Science partnered with the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing to create a sequence of professional development experiences in science communication and hands-on learning for graduate students and post-docs. The Sharing Science Workshops were intended to help graduate students who work with the CHN program to improve their abilities to present their research to a variety of scientific and nonscientific audiences. The sequence included a half-day "Sharing Science" workshop, a half-day guided "Practicum" with museum visitors, and optional participation in NanoDays events at MOS
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Donahue Institute Research and Evaluation Group
As interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education grows (Olson & Riordan, 2012), the need for professionals to clearly communicate sophisticated concepts associated with these areas also increases (Fischoff & Scheufele, 2013). This evaluation focuses on a 3 credit university course “Training in Science Education Outreach” which utilizes a novel course structure. The course’s main aim is to teach graduate and undergraduate students how to speak to the public about science, focusing specifically on language science. The structure of the course is non-traditional