The Massachusetts Audubon Society will develop, pilot, and implement an evaluation framework for nature-based STEM programming that serves K-12 students visiting its network of nature centers and museums. Working with an external consultant, the society will develop the framework comprised of a logic model and theory of change for fieldtrips, and develop a toolkit of evaluation data collection methodology suitable to various child development stages. The project team will design and conduct three professional development training seminars to help Massachusetts Audubon school educators develop a working understanding of the new evaluation framework for school programs and gain the skills necessary to support protocol implementation. This project will result in the development and adoption of a universal protocol to guide the collection, management, and reporting of education program evaluation data across the 19 nature centers and museums in the Massachusetts Audubon system.
This is the final evaluation report from RMC Research Corp. for the PES@LTERs project. Appendix includes instruments.
RMC Research designed evaluation activities to provide formative and summative feedback to Harvard Forest and the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (Hubbard Brook) on their plan to embed public engagement with science (PES) into the cultures and practices of Long-Term Ecological Research Sites (LTERs) in the northeastern US. The purpose of this project was to build PES mechanisms into long-term ecosystem studies that create on-going, open exchanges between scientists and
The University of Guam (UOG) NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project, GROWING STEM, addresses the grand challenge of increasing Native Pacific Islander representation in the nation's STEM enterprise, particularly in environmental sciences. The project addresses culturally-relevant and place-based research as the framework to attract, engage, and retain Native Pacific Islander students in STEM disciplines. The full science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) pathway will be addressed from K-12 to graduate studies with partnerships that include the Guam Department of Education, Humatak Community Foundation, Pacific Post-Secondary Education Council, the Guam Science and Discovery Society, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the University of Alaska-Fairbaanks. As the project progresses, the project anticipates further partnerships with the current NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project at the University of the Virgin Islands.
Pilot activities include summer internships for high school students, undergraduate and graduate research opportunities through UOG's Plant Nursery and the Humatak Community Foundation Heritage House. STEM professional development activities will be offered through conference participation and student research presentations in venues such as the Guam Science and Discovery Society's Guam Island-wide Science Fair and SACNAS. Faculty will be recruited to develop a mentoring protocol for the project participants. Community outreach and extension services will expand public understanding in environmental sciences from the GROW STEM project. Project metrics will include monitoring the diversity of partners, increases in community engagement, Native Pacific Islander participation in STEM activities, the number of students who desire to attain terminal STEM degrees and the number of community members reached by pilot STEM extension and outreach activities. Dissemination of the GROWING STEM pilot project results will occur through the NSF INCLUDES National Network, partner annual conferences, and local, regional and national STEM conferences.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
John PetersonCheryl SanguezaElse DemeulenaereAustin Shelton
Worldwide, four million people participate in geocaching--a game of discovering hidden treasures with GPS-enabled devices (including smart phones). Geocachers span all ages and tend to be interested in technology and the outdoors. To share information about the Montana Climate Assessment (MCA), an NSF-funded scientific report, Montana State University created a custom trackable geocaching coin featuring the MCA Website and logo. We then recruited volunteers to hide one coin in each of Montana’s 56 counties. Volunteer geocachers enthusiastically adopted all 56 counties, wrote blogs and social media posts about the coins, and engaged local Scout troops and schools. Other geocachers then found and circulated the coins while learning about Montana’s climate. One coin has traveled nearly 4,000 miles; several have visited other states and Canada. 95% of the volunteers said the project made them feel more connected to university research, and they told an average of seven other people about the project. Nearly all of the participants were unfamiliar with the Montana Climate Assessment prior to participating. The geocaching educational outreach project included several partnerships, including with Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle (a.k.a. “Groundspeak”); Cache Advance, Inc., an environmentally friendly outdoor gear company; and Gallatin Valley Geocachers. An advisory board of geocachers helped launch the project.
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Suzi TaylorRay CallawayM.J. NehasilCathy Whitlock
resourceresearchMuseum and Science Center Programs
The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is one of the world's single largest employers of science communicators, with over 350,000 students and 40,000 staff. Its science communication activities include five museums (Universum, Museo de la Luz, the Geology Museum, Museo de la Medicina Mexicana and Musem of Geophysics), botanical gardens, as well as a wide range of cultural and outreach activities. It has several programmes for training professional science communicators. The science communication staff are spread across the campuses in Mexico City and four other cities, including
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Ana Claudia NepoteElaine Reynoso-Haynes
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 understandings of deeper learning by participants. This project will embed public engagement with science (PES) into the cultures and practices of two Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites: the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire and the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts. The goals are 1) to build knowledge about the mutual learning between scientists and adult stakeholders in face-to-face engagement setting and 2) to develop evidence-based practices in the content of place-based ecosystem research. This is a collaborative project of 3 universities (Michigan State University, Harvard, and CUNY) and the two LTERs. Two primary research questions guide this work. First, how willing are participating scientists to take part in PES? What are their attitudes and beliefs about whether engagement can be effective and whether they have the necessary skills? Second, how willing are participating scientists to build relationships with stakeholders using normed tactics? Both qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to collect evidence including semi-structured interviews and surveys. A general set of hypothesis include that there will be positive changes in LTER scientists willingness to participate in PES, attitudes, and efficacy beliefs.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
John BesleySarah GarlickPeter GroffmanPamela TemplerKathleen Lambert
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal Science Learning program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. This Exploratory Pathways project brings together scientists and science curriculum experts with field station leaders to study informal science learning at biological field stations. The objective is to understand and evaluate the unique qualities of field stations as centers of informal and enduring science learning for the non-science community. There are over 400 field stations and represent a science communication mechanism that if available to most US citizens. This project is a collaboration between Texas A&M University and Colorado State University.
Field stations typically engage in informal science learning. While there are great examples of informal learning through outreach activities at field stations, little is known about what is happening in the aggregate at these establishments. This project documents the outreach work of field stations and explores the connections between how the outreach activities engage learners, incorporate science topics, and address science learning. By creating an Outreach Ontology, a multidimensional framework around the outreach activities, this work provides a valuable resource and reference to informal science researchers who seek to understand what informal learning projects are undertaken at field stations, and how these activities fit into the broader context of informal science learning. This project will help field stations collaborate on improving informal STEM learning activities by bringing them together to discuss their efforts and by developing a publicly available, searchable database detailing their activities. A particular benefit to advancing informal STEM learning by investigating field stations is the broad range of people and communities that are involved with and affected by field station outreach activities.
The project will advance efforts by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Institute for Learning Innovation to bring together young adults from communities historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to collaboratively conduct scientifically driven challenges embedded in a mobile learning tool based upon the AAAS Active Explorer platform. The project will be conducted at the Washington National Mall, San Francisco National Golden Gate Park, and the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, and will study how a mobile technology used in these settings can facilitate learner engagement in science content; how it can affect young adults' engagement in science-learning processes; and whether interest in learning science and technology has been furthered. The project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments, including pathways for broadening access to STEM learning experiences and advancing research STEM learning. Research questions will investigate science learning inequalities by addressing how place-based augmented reality games can connect young adults to scientific practices, including observing science phenomena, analyzing data, and communicating findings; how young adults develop science skills related to their science self-efficacy through participation in augmented reality science exploration; and how mobile technologies and gaming can serve as mediators that enable young adults to improve their science identity. In addition to engaging young adults in science activities at the National Parks and increasing their science skills, the project will provide valuable information to National Park staff and scientists to assist them in designing effective tools, resources and experiences to better engage young adults. Research teams will collect data in the form of digital ethnography, focus groups, activity reports, artifacts, and surveys. The project will document learning and engagement through mobile technology in three urban national parks that will involve 60 young adults at each location, and will create innovative measurement tools to monitor how informal settings can leverage the intersections of the arts and sciences to support student engagement and learning.
Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR), often referred to as crowdsourcing or citizen science, engages participants in authentic research, which both advances science discovery as well as increases the potential for participants' understanding and use of science in their lives and careers. This four year research project examines youth participation in PPSR projects that are facilitated by Natural History Museums (NHMs). NHMs, like PPSR, have a dual focus on scientific research and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The NHMs in this project have established in-person and online PPSR programs and have close ties with local urban community-based organizations. Together, these traits make NHMs appropriate informal learning settings to study how young people participate in PPSR and what they learn. This study focuses on three types of PPSR experiences: short-term outdoor events like bioblitzes, long-term outdoor environmental monitoring projects, and online PPSR projects such as crowdsourcing the ID of field observations. The findings of this study will be shared through PPSR networks as well as throughout the field in informal STEM learning in order to strength youth programming in STEM, such that youth are empowered to engage in STEM research and activities in their communities. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments and to broaden access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences.
The study employs observations, surveys, interviews, and learning analytics to explore three overarching questions about youth learning: 1) What is the nature of the learning environments and what activities do youth engage in when participating in NHM-led PPSR? 2) To what extent do youth develop three science learning outcomes, through participation in NHM-led citizen science programs? The three are: a) An understanding of the science content, b) identification of roles for themselves in the practice of science, and c) a sense of agency for taking actions using science? 3) What program features and settings in NHM-led PPSR foster these three science learning outcomes among youth? Based on studies occurring at multiple NHMs in the US and the UK, the broader impact of this study includes providing research-based recommendations for NHM practitioners that will help make PPSR projects and learning science more accessible and productive for youth. This project is collaboration between education researchers at University of California, Davis and Open University (UK), and Oxford University (UK) and citizen science practitioners, educators, and environmental scientists at three NHMs in the US and UK: NHM London, California Academy of Sciences, and NHM Los Angeles.
Learn how to create opportunities for young people from low-income, ethnically diverse communities to learn about growing food, doing science, and how science can help them contribute to their community in positive ways. The authors developed a program that integrates hydroponics (a method of growing plants indoors without soil) into both in-school and out-of-school educational settings.
Co-led by the University of Washington and Science Gallery Dublin, this project aims to drive and transform the next generation of broadening participation efforts targeting teen-aged youth from communities historically underrepresented in STEM fields. This project investigates how out-of-school time (OST) programs that integrate epistemic practices of the arts, sciences, computer science, and other disciplines, in the context of consequential activities (such as creating radio segments, designing museum exhibitions, or building online games), can more broadly appeal to and engage youth who do not already identify as STEM learners. STEM-related skills and capacities (such as computational thinking, design, data visualizations, and digital storytelling) are key to productive and creative participation in many future civic and workplace activities, and are driving the 30 fastest-growing occupations in the US. But many new jobs will entail a hybrid blend of skills, such as programming and design skills that many students who have disengaged with academic STEM pathways may already have and would be eager to develop further. There is not currently a strong foundation of research-based evidence to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation transdisciplinary programs - in which STEM skills are embedded as tools for meaningful participation - or how such approaches relate to long-term outcomes. Hypothesizing that OST programs which effectively engage youth during their high-leverage teenage years can significantly impact youths' longer-term STEM learning trajectories, this project will involve: 1) Five 3-year studies documenting learning in different technology-rich contexts: Making Afterschool, Media Production, Museum Exhibition Design, Digital Arts Programs, and Pop-Up/Street Science Programs; 2) A 4-year longitudinal study, involving 100 youth from the above programs; 3) The creation of a number of practical measurement tools that can be used to monitor how programs are leveraging the intersections of the arts and sciences to support student engagement and learning; and 4) A Professional Development program conducted at informal science education conferences in the EU and US to engage the informal STEM field with emerging findings. This project is funded through Science Learning+, which is an international partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellcome Trust with the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The goal of this joint funding effort is to make transformational steps toward improving the knowledge base and practices of informal STEM experiences to better understand, strengthen, and coordinate STEM engagement and learning. Within NSF, Science Learning+ is part of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program that seeks to enhance learning in informal environments.
Transdisciplinary, equity-oriented OST programs can provide supportive social contexts in which STEM concepts and practices are taken up as the means for meaningful participation in valued activities, building students' STEM skills in ways that can propel their future academic, career, and lifelong learning choices. This project will build the knowledge base about these emerging 21st century transdisciplinary approaches to broadening participation investigating: 1) The epistemic intersections across a range of disciplines (art, science, computation, design) that operate to broaden appeal and meaningful participation for underrepresented youth; 2) How transdisciplinary activities undertaken in the context of consequential learning (e.g., producing a radio segment, designing an exhibition for the general public) can illuminate the relevance of STEM to young people's lives, concerns, and futures; and 3) How participation in such programs can propel students' longer-term life choices and STEM learning trajectories. The project is a collaboration of the University of Washington, Science Gallery Dublin, Indiana University, Youth Radio in Oakland California, Guerilla Science in New York and London, and the London School of Economics.
Youth environmental education (EE) programs often serve as gateway experiences in which diverse audiences engage in informal science learning. While there is evidence that these programs can have positive impacts on participants, little empirical research has been conducted to determine what makes one program more successful than another. To be able to conduct such research, this Exploratory Pathways study will (1) develop and statistically validate ways to measure meaningful outcomes for participants across a variety of programs and (2) test observational methods that will enable research that can determine which elements of program delivery most powerfully influence participant engagement and learning outcomes in different contexts. These efforts will include consultations with diverse subject matter experts from the National Park Service, nature centers, and academia; survey research with participants in afterschool and free-choice EE programs; and observations of EE programs designed to fine tune the measurement of program delivery elements and student engagement. Developing valid and reliable outcomes measures and observational protocols will enable a larger investigation that will specifically address the following research question: What program characteristics lead to the best learning outcomes for program participants in different contexts? This research will result in empirically tested guidelines that will enable educators to design and deliver more effective programs for a wide range of audiences in a wide range of contexts. It is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This effort will refine methods necessary to undertake an unprecedented study (and future AISL Research in Service to Practice proposal) to examine the linkages between pedagogical approaches, participant engagement, and learning outcomes in informal STEM-focused youth EE programs. The larger study will involve systematically observing a large number of programs to assess the use of different approaches and to link those approaches to engagement and learning outcomes through both observation and survey research. In this current study the team will develop and refine crosscutting outcome measures to ensure validity, reliability, and sensitivity by drawing upon the literature and consultation with key stakeholders to develop suites of indicators for subsequent psychometric testing and revision. They will also refine observational techniques for assessing pedagogical approaches through extensive testing of inter-rater reliability. Finally, techniques for measuring participant engagement, incorporating both observational techniques and retrospective participant surveys will be refined. The work will be conducted by researchers at Clemson University and Virginia Tech, in partnership with the U.S. National Park Service, the North American Association for Environmental Education, and the American Association of Nature Center Administrators. This work represents the first step in a longer research process to determine the "best practices" most responsible for achieving outcomes in a wide range of contexts.