In November 2020, President-elect Joe Biden identified four priority areas for the incoming administration: COVID-19; climate change, economic recovery, and racial equity. These crucial areas of national interest will be the focus of media attention, policy debates, funding initiatives, and community discussions over the next four years. Will museums be part of these important conversations and initiatives? Are there opportunities for museums to affirm or to reposition their roles within the difficult public deliberations ahead? Addressing Societal Challenges through STEM (ASCs) is a research
There is an increasing recognition globally of the role to be played by community science –scientific research and monitoring driven and controlled by local communities, and characterized by place-based knowledge, social learning, collective action and empowerment. In particular, community science can support social-ecological system transformation, and help in achieving better ‘fit’ between ecological systems and governance, at local and higher levels of decision making. This paper draws on three examples of communities as central actors in the process of knowledge co-production to present a
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Anthony CharlesLaura LoucksFikret BerkesDerek Armitage
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. The goal of this RAPID project is to better understand how an informal science education organization and its STEM resources can partner with community groups and their expertise to support people's ability to understand, process, and work toward dismantling systemic racism. The project will draw from exhibition and programming resources that have been developed and refined over almost two decades of engagement with the topics of STEM, race, and racism in a science museum context. Examples of STEM programming include data and data visualization, how biology and environment shape behavior and perception, and the use of technology to communicate. This project will build on previously developed relationships in three regions to design and facilitate virtual STEM-informed activities and conversations about race in each regional site. These activities and training will support participants to better understand, process, and work toward dismantling systemic racism.
This RAPID project is timely given the Covid-19 pandemic and the increased awareness of the ongoing impact of systemic racism. The project will address the following questions:
What kinds of virtual STEM-informed activities allow for community members to explore, understand, or act upon the impacts of systemic racism? What are key features of those activities, from the perspective of participants? What are promising changes that community members report as a result of these activities? How are science-based resources perceived, and how do participants perceive they are learning STEM?
What supports allow the regional project group members and museum staff to collaborate successfully, and what obstacles slow that work down?
How do local collaboratives define long-term success of their work, and how can they track their progress over time? The project team and the regional project group members bring a range of experience in community engagement, science education programming, and informal science learning research.
The project will develop this new knowledge for the informal science education field and other local stakeholders through qualitative and participatory research and virtual STEM-informed activities that are responsive to the changing needs of community members. The project will begin in August 2020 as the ability to understand the research questions requires immediate collection of data. Because of the essential nature of this type of research for the informal STEM learning field, the team plans to analyze data and start initial dissemination by the fall of 2020 with additional data collection, analysis, and dissemination continuing as the project progresses.
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.
Museums, science centers, zoos and other informal science education (ISE) institutions often focus on the idea of "authenticity" to engage the public. Authenticity includes providing something real, original, or even awe-inspiring to the visitor or learner--be it an object, a context, or an experience. While those educators, exhibit designers, and program developers who work in ISE settings often recognize authenticity as an important part of many informal learning experiences, this may be simply be an assumption driven by tradition in practice versus a strategy supported by evidence. This project seeks to better understand how and/or why "the real thing" may (or may not be) important for supporting informal science learning. By examining what is already known about authenticity and learning, the project will inform best practices in ISE as well as point to gaps in knowledge that might need further research. 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 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 research synthesis takes a systematic approach to identify and compile both theoretical and empirical literature to better understand the role authenticity may play in supporting informal science learning. This project will gather ISE literature related to the effects of "authenticity" on learner outcomes, and will look to neighboring disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, media studies, linguistics, marketing and others to seek relevant theoretical perspectives and empirical work that might further understanding of the potential role of authenticity in ISE. The initial phase of the project will focus on gathering theoretical perspectives and positions that help explain the value or importance (or perhaps non-importance) of "realness" as it relates to learning, interest, and experience. A panel of experts from multiple disciplines will convene to help identify key perspectives and frameworks that may clarify the role or impacts of authenticity. A second phase focuses on gathering and assessing empirical studies that support (or refute) the relevant perspectives and theories identified from the initial multi-disciplinary foray into authenticity. To ensure breadth and depth of review, the PIs, research librarians, graduate students, and special topics classes will engage in identifying, evaluating, summarizing, and synthesizing the relevant research (including gray literature) to produce an initial synthesis report that will be reviewed by select experts from the earlier panel. A second convening of practitioners (exhibit developers, educators, program designers, etc.) will be used to further contextualize the findings in ways that may better inform current practices in providing effective ISE. The resulting products include a peer-reviewed research synthesis and a practitioner handbook.
The proposed project's Broader Impacts lie in the potential to inform ISE practice in exhibit and program design and in the delivery of ISE-related experiences. Although the importance of the authenticity of an object or experience may ultimately be determined by the individual, this study will be able to provide guidance to help practitioners and scholars in making sometimes difficult design choices. Such insights may also inform other learning environments (e.g. the classroom) as well as other disciplinary areas (e.g. history, anthropology, art).
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.