The goal of this evaluation was to determine how museum visitors responded to the museum's existing live animal exhibits and identify recommendations for their new Live Animal Garden exhibit.
This report summarizes findings from the learning event and includes the two instruments developed as part of this project: The STEM Advocacy Survey which is a 36-item measure that includes four subscales that measure components of STEM Advocacy, including Value of STEM for Society, Knowledge of STEM Advocacy, STEM Advocacy Efficacy, and STEM Advocacy Identification; and the STEM Engagement Survey for Older Adults, a ten-item scale adapted for older populations from a previously developed instrument designed for youth (ActivationLab.org) measuring behavioral, cognitive, and affective
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jennifer MangoldSarah OlsenCheryl BrewsterMatthew Cannady
resourceresearchMuseum and Science Center Exhibits
This is an overview of research to measure STEM Engagement and Advocacy of Older Adults (50+). This work explored findings from Design Challenges hosted for older adult learners and also resulted in survey instruments to be used for this population. It also outlines constructs that were developed to inform the research.
This project provides opportunities for Indigenous youth to transform and be transformed by opportunities for STEAM innovation and knowledge building. This project will create opportunities outside of the classroom to invest in youths’ engagement, and interest, and self-efficacy in STEAM by supporting explorations in community settings that value multiple languages and ways of knowing. Through this project, youth can engage in pressing community needs—such as climate change impacts, food and water security, chronic health crises, and out-migration— with community experts, elders, and knowledge holders. The project will expand the picture of what Informal STEAM learning and meaningful engagement in STEAM looks like in Pacific Island contexts. It will employ a collaborative research framework to investigate how Informal STEAM learning activities that foster intergenerational learning—particularly the exploration of traditional stories and the creation of prototypes, storytelling packages, and hands-on models that illustrate Indigenous STEAM practices—impact youths’ engagement and interest in STEAM and self-efficacy over time. By building the capacity of participants—particularly Pacific Islander youth—to become co-researchers, -evaluators and -designers, the project will cultivate spaces for participants to advocate for their interests, perspectives, and needs. This research within the Pacific region is important for fostering science literacy and broadening participation in STEAM fields since early interest in science is a potential indicator of future STEAM interest and career choices.
The goal of the project is to investigate how youth’s inductive exploration of local technologies featured in Indigenous stories impact their engagement and interest in STEAM, Informal STEAM learning, and future decision making that affect youth participation in STEAM pathways. The project will be implemented in Guam, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia (comprising the four states of Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap) and will address the core research question: To what extent does youths’ participation in STEAM-based storytelling and story exploration lead to increases in youths’ engagement and interest in STEAM and self-efficacy over time? The project approaches story exploration as a cultural and metalinguistic process to investigate a story not solely as an artifact or a process, but as a doorway to investigations of history, Indigenous STEAM, and local innovation. Two cohorts of youth participants will engage in summer and spring out-of-school programs led by elders, partner organizations, and project staff through which youth investigate storytelling, design, research practice, and service learning. Each cohort will also create digital storytelling packages and/or model kits to share with audiences through participant-designed community-level and cross-region sharing events. The project is expected to reach 140 youth and 30 elders. To measure learning outcomes, the project builds upon extant tools to gauge Informal STEAM learning engagement. Lessons about the application of these tools will contribute to the Informal STEAM learning knowledge base—especially regarding underrepresented communities in STEAM. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is the overarching theoretical and methodological framework for the project and will engage participants as co-researchers through multiple methods of observation, data gathering, and analysis. The project will also create community-driven research opportunities that advances the generation of knowledge on topics that are often left unexplored because: (1) Micronesians as underrepresented minorities are not usually at the table during research design; (2) non-Micronesian/Indigenous epistemologies are usually privileged throughout the research; and (3) there is a lack of trust when any outsider asks to look in, especially when racialized colonial histories still leave daily impacts. This project encourages all participants to consider and develop answers to this question: Stewards of whose knowledge? Research findings and educational materials and resources will be disseminated to researchers, program developers, informal science institutions, partner organizations, formal and informal educators, and communities.
Centering Native Traditional Knowledge within informal STEM education programs is critical for learning for Native youth. In co-created, place-based learning experiences for Native youth, interweaving cultural traditions, arts, language, and community partnerships is vital for authentic, meaningful learning. Standardized STEM curricula and Western-based pedagogies within the mainstream and formal education systems do not reflect the nature of Native STEM knowledge, nor do they make deep connections to it. The absence of this knowledge base can reinforce a deficit-based STEM identity, which can directly impact Native youths’ participation and engagement in STEM. Reframing STEM education for Native youth to prioritize the vitality of community and sustainability requires active consideration of what counts as science learning and who serves as holders and conduits of STEM knowledge. As highly regarded holders of traditional and western STEM knowledge, Native educators and cultural practitioners are critical for facilitating Native youths’ curiosity and engagement with STEM. This Innovations in Development project is Native-led and centers Native knowledge, voice, and contributions in STEM through a culturally based, dual-learning approach that emphasizes traditional and western STEM knowledge. Through this lens, a network of over a dozen tribal nations across 20 U.S. states will be established to support and facilitate the learning of Traditional and Western STEM knowledge in a culturally sustaining manner. The network will build on existing programs and develop a set of unique, interconnected, and synchronized placed-based informal STEM programs for Native youth reflecting the distinctive cultural aspects of Native American and Alaska Native Tribes. The network will also involve a Natives-In-STEM Role Models innovation, in which Native STEM professionals will provide inspiration to Native youth through conversations about their journeys in STEM within cultural contexts. In addition, the network will cultivate a professional network of STEM educators, practitioners, and tribal leaders. Network efforts and the formative evaluation will culminate in the development and dissemination of a community-based, co-created Framework for Informal STEM Education with Native Communities.
Together with Elders and other contributors of each community, local leads within the STEM for Youth in Native Communities (SYNC) Network team will identify and guide the STEM content topics, as well as co-create and implement the program within their sovereign lands with their youth. The content, practitioners, and programming in each community will be distinct, but the community-based, dual learning contextual framework will be consistent. Each community includes several partner organizations poised to contribute to the programming efforts, including tribal government departments, tribal and public K-12 schools, tribal colleges, museums and cultural centers, non-profits, local non-tribal government support agencies, colleges and universities, and various grassroots organizations. Programmatic designs will vary and may include field excursions, summer and after school STEM experiences, and workshops. In addition, the Natives-In-STEM innovation will be implemented across the programs, providing youth with access to Native STEM professionals and career pathways across the country. To understand the impacts of SYNC’s efforts, an external evaluator will explore a broad range of questions through formative and summative evaluations. The evaluation questions seek to explore: (a) the extent to which the culturally based, dual learning methods implemented in SYNC informal STEM programs affect Native youths’ self-efficacy in STEM and (b) how the components of SYNC’s overall theoretical context and network (e.g., partnerships, community contributors such as Elders, STEM practitioners and professionals) impact community attitudes and behaviors regarding youth STEM learning. Data and knowledge gained from these programs will inform the primary deliverable, a Framework for Native Informal STEM Education, which aims to support the informal STEM education community as it expands and deepens its service to Native youth and communities. Future enhanced professional development opportunities for teachers and educators to learn more about the findings and practices highlighted in the Framework are envisioned to maximize its strategic impact.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Juan ChavezDaniella ScaliceWendy Todd
The Louisiana Art & Science Museum (LASM) will conduct a three-year program, “Healthy Aging with LASM,” which will serve senior adults in the 11-parish capital region. The museum will implement the program in partnership with the Capital Area Agency on Aging, the East Baton Rouge Parish Council on Aging, the Baton Rouge General Arts in Medicine Program, and Dr. Rebecca Bartlett. Senior adults have faced unprecedented levels of isolation, stress, and health risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum will present virtual and in-person art and science programming designed to combat isolation, foster meaningful connections, and promote healthy aging. Programming will include virtual field trips, distribution of arts and science virtual reality headsets, and a series of hands-on arts workshops.
This paper makes a case for museums to create programs that promote healthy cognitive aging, complementing those designed for visitors already afflicted with dementia. Surveys indicate that the exploding population of older adults is worried about maintaining cognitive health and reducing the risk of dementia. Museums have the opportunity to address this concern by developing programs based on a growing body of neuroscience research that supports the impact of cognitive engagement in maintaining or improving brain health among older adults. Serving this largely untapped audience offers a
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Programming includes
Neighborhood Walks led by teams of scientists/engineers and artists
Community Workshops, Local Artist Projects, and Youth Mentorship focused on neighborhood and citywide water issues
Intergenerational participation, from seniors and adult learners to young adults, teens, and middle schoolers
This innovations in development project will develop and study the Wéetespeme Stewardship Program (Wéetespeme: “I am of this land”). Tribal led, the project supports and studies climate science learning experiences grounded in traditional ecological knowledge, culturally relevant pedagogy, and land education pedagogy. Nez Perce high-school youth and college-age adults will choose specific species and places; work with tribal resource management offices to learn to monitor, assess, and mitigate climate impacts; and receive mentorship from tribal elders, as they co-develop climate-science adaptive management plans for local concerns. Adaptive management plans may include topics such as: drought and extreme weather impacts, shifts in animal populations and migration patterns, cultivating traditional foods, and managing important cultural sites. The Tribal research team will collaborate with curriculum developers and Indigenous graduate student(s) from the University of Idaho and Northwest Youth Corps to explore how a STEM curriculum centered on cultural identity and traditional knowledge can align with Indigenous youths’ identities, resource responsibilities, and understanding and interest in STEM career pathways within the Tribe and in the region. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program 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 understanding of deeper learning by participants. This project’s approach to curriculum development, and youths’ identity and career interest development, will contribute to the informal STEM learning field’s nascent understanding of Tribal-driven education efforts, and approaches to blending or bridging traditional ecological knowledge and Western ways of knowing. With co-funding from the Directorate of Geosciences’ (GEO), this project will further advance efforts related to the application of traditional ecological knowledge to the geosciences, including Indigenous workforce development opportunities and research experiences for Indigenous graduate students.
Over a two-year duration, the study will address two research questions. 1) How and in what ways does a culturally relevant out-of-school curriculum support Indigenous youths’ understanding of their own identity, resource responsibility, and possible career pathways, including those on Tribal land? 2) How and in what ways does a culturally relevant out-of-school curriculum develop Indigenous youths’ ability to monitor and address climate change impacts, to protect, preserve and recover land relationships that are central to their cultural identities and values? Thirty-two college-age young adults and high-school youth (sixteen of each age group) will participate in the Wéetespeme Stewardship Program and research study. Indigenous research methodologies will guide the approach to investigating and sharing Indigenous youths’ understanding of their own identity, resource responsibility, possible career pathways, and learning experiences within the Wéetespeme Stewardship Program activities. Two Indigenous graduate students will play a central role in conducting the research, supporting systemic impacts within, and beyond, the Tribe. Methods will be embedded in learners’ experiences and will include field journals, adaptive management plans, story maps, and talk circles. Youth will also participate as research partners: understanding the research questions, assisting with the analysis, contributing to interpretation of the findings, and co-authoring manuscripts that share their stories and this work. The informal STEM curriculum will be shared regionally, allowing for Tribes in the plateau region to benefit from culturally relevant approaches youth engagement to support climate resilience. The results of the research will also be shared more broadly, contributing to the emerging knowledge-base about the ways that cultural practices and values, guided by land education pedagogy and the mentorship of traditional ecological knowledge keepers, and embedded in informal STEM learning experiences, can contribute to Indigenous youths’ identities and understanding of, and investment in, local and meaningful environmental resources and STEM career pathways.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Nakia WilliamsonKarla Bradley EitelJeff ParkerJosiah Pinkham