Over the course of six years (2016–2022), History Colorado, three Ute Tribes, and archaeology and ethnobotany partners undertook an ambitious, highly collaborative project, called Ute STEM, to explore new ways of looking at the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) learning. This final report goes into details about the project and lessons learned.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth CookSheila GoffKate LivingstonShannon Voirol
The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will leverage its partnership with NASA Kennedy Space Center to design, equip, and operate an inclusive and interactive scientific research workspace. The new makerspace will provide visitors of all ages an opportunity to contribute to identifying solutions to food production issues. Preparation of the Growing Beyond Earth Innovation Studio will involve equipping the space with state-of-the-art tools and materials for designing and monitoring growing experiments, installing plant growing equipment, and furnishing the space to maximize experimentation, collaboration, and learning. The garden will invite K-12 students, families and casual visitors to collaborate on plant science experiments, allowing them to address questions relevant to current NASA research on food production aboard spacecraft, and within habitats on the surface of Mars.
As new technologies continue to dominate the world, access to and participation in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and computing has become a critical focus of education research, practice, and policy. This issue is exceptionally relevant for American Indians, who remain underrepresented as only 0.2% of the STEM workforce, even though they make up 2% of the U.S. population. In response to this need, this Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) project takes a community-driven design approach, a collaborative design process in which Indigenous partners maintain sovereignty as designers, to collaboratively create three place-based storytelling experiences, stories told in historical and cultural places through location-based media. The place-based storytelling experiences will be digital installations at three culturally, politically, and historically significant sites in the local community where the public can engage with Indigenous science. The work is being done in partnership with the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation (NWBSN).
The principal investigator and the NWBSN will investigate: (a) what are effective strategies and processes to conduct community-driven design with Indigenous partners?; (b) how does designing place-based storytelling experiences develop tribal members' design, technical, and computational skills?; (c) how does designing these experiences impact tribal members' scientific, technological, and cultural identities? The goals are to establish a process of community-driven design, build infrastructure to support this process, and understand how this methodological approach can result in culturally-appropriate ways to engage with science through technology. The principal investigator will work with the tribe to complete three intergenerational design cycles (a design cycle is made up of multiple design iterations). Each design cycle will result in one place-based storytelling experience. The goal is to include roughly 15 youth (ages 6-18), 10 Elders, and 10 other community members (i.e. members ages 18-50, likely parents) in each design cycle (35 tribal members total). Some designers are likely to participate in multiple design cycles. The tribe currently has 48 youth ages 6-18 and the project aims to engage at least 30 across all three design cycles. Over four years of designing three different experiences, the NWBSN aims to recruit at least 100 tribal members (just under 20% of the tribe) to make contributions (as designers, storytellers, or to provide cultural artifacts or design feedback).
This CAREER award 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 includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Brooklyn NY
Audience Research for a New Garden, 2016
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A), to conduct a study of visitors to the Discovery Garden. The goal of this study was to assess the successes and challenges of the exhibition and accompanying interactive elements to support the BBG in improving the Discovery Garden.
How did we approach this study?
RK&A used three methodologies to address the study objectives, based on specific outcomes developed by BBG for the Discovery Garden. Data were collected through
Mathematics is a notoriously disliked subject; there is so little stigma associated with being "bad at math", that educated adults openly describe themselves in this way. There are many reasons for math's unpopularity; chief among them is that school mathematics seldom offers opportunities to engage with the richness of this potentially fascinating subject. As a result, the mathematics education pipeline in the United States is more often a filter than a pump, siphoning students out rather than bringing them along. Children have libraries to help them fall in love with literature: where do they get a chance to fall in love with math? This project presents a unique opportunity to study children engaged with mathematics in an informal setting, the Minnesota State Fair, facilitated by mathematically knowledgeable volunteers. The Math On-a-Stick mathematical playground provides a place for children to engage with mathematics by exploring patters, asking quantitative questions, and investigating shape and space to mathematize their play. The project will observe and videotape this engagement to inform the design of mathematical learning environments in a variety of outside of school time settings, such as after school programs and summer camps, that are accessible to a wider range of the population. This project is co-funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) and Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) programs. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in three thematic areas: STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation, and STEM workforce development. The AISL program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.
The project will investigate three research questions: (1) How does the design of various parts of the exhibit differently support rich mathematical interactions between children and mathematicians? (2) How do children engage different parts of the exhibit? How do differences in engagement relate to (a) exhibit design and (b) prior mathematical experience? (3) How do exhibit volunteers, mathematicians, and caregivers interact to support (or undermine) students' mathematical play? The project will use participant observation and videography to capture visitors' activities through the exhibit, analyzing them as qualitative case studies.
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.
The purpose of the Lenses on the Sky project is to create diverse skywatching-related experiences for youth across Oregon with a special focus on underserved Hispanic, African American, Native American, and rural communities. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) will create and implement the project in collaboration with Portland’s Rose City Astronomers amateur astronomy club, Rosa Parks Elementary School in Portland, the Libraries of Eastern Oregon (LEO), and ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum in southern Oregon. The goals of the project are for participants to 1) understand the “big idea” that “humans have used observational tools and techniques across culture and time to understand space phenomena”, 2) recognize the relevance, value, and scientific achievements of NASA missions, and 3) be inspired to learn more about topics related to space science, STEM careers, and NASA. Audiences will explore these topics through three main “lenses” or frames: a NASA lens, a tools lens, and a cultural lens. The project will result in 1) a small, permanent, bilingual (Spanish/English) exhibition in OMSI’s free, public spaces adjacent to its planetarium, 2) three observational astronomy events held in Portland, Southern Oregon, and Eastern Oregon, 3) hands-on activities conducted at partner museums/libraries and shared with other educational institutions, 4) an Educator's Guide including lesson plans aligned with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and 5) over 150 email communications to hundreds of recipients featuring space news updates.
John J. Tyler Arboretum will develop visitor programming that will provide educational opportunities in its Edible Garden Center focused on the benefits of growing and eating fresh fruits and vegetables. The center will include a food gardening exhibit that addresses urban gardening issues such as raised beds, container gardens, rooftop gardening, holistic sustainable gardening practices and technologies, and traditional vegetable gardening techniques. Cooking demonstrations, healthy eating programs, and dedicated gardening activities will allow for hands-on learning about health and sustainability. The garden will also include a play space for children, art performances and art installations to create a visitor experience that is dynamic, educational and forward-thinking.
The Exploratorium, in collaboration with the Boys and Girls Club Columbia Park (BGC) in the Mission District of San Francisco, is implementing a two-year exploratory project designed to support informal education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) within underserved Latino communities. Building off of and expanding on non-STEM-related efforts in a few major U.S. cities and Europe, the Exploratorium, BGC, and residents of the District will engage in a STEM exhibit and program co-development process that will physically convert metered parking spaces in front of the Club into transformative public places called "parklets." The BGC parklet will feature interactive, bilingual science and technology exhibits, programs and events targeting audiences including youth ages 8 - 17 and intergenerational families and groups primarily in the Mission District and users of the BGC. Parklet exhibits and programs will focus on STEM content related to "Observing the Urban Environment," with a focus on community sustainability. The project explores one approach to working with and engaging the public in their everyday environment with relevant STEM learning experiences. The development and evaluation processes are being positioned as a model for possible expansion throughout the city and to other cities.
Free-choice learning and, derivatively, free-choice environmental learning emerges as a powerful vehicle for supporting diversity in learning styles (Falk & Dierking, 2002). In this article, I argue that free-choice environmental learning holds great potential for enabling us to understand what is at stake in environmental learning and thus help us build a sustainable future. I examine the different informal learning contexts for children, home (family and play), museums, zoos, nature parks and wilderness, among many others, and offer an explanation for how learning occurs in these settings