As a part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds research and innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This Innovations in Development project will develop new knowledge about joint parent-child participation in science talk and practices using a 2nd screen app synced with a television program. "Splash! Ask-Me Adventures" is an app designed to work in conjunction with a marine science-focused television program for children 2-8 years old that will premier nationally on PBS Kids (Fall 2016). This free app will include a variety of "Conversation Catalysts" tied to the television episodes to help parents support children's science learning at home and in other venues such as aquariums and science centers. The project aims to support children's conceptual understanding of science concepts and practices, empower parents and caregivers to facilitate learning during media engagement, and contribute to the research literature on joint engagement with media. Collaborating project partners include The Jim Henson Company, Curious Media, SRI Education, and The Concord Consortium. Innovation in new methodology and instrumentation resulting from this project includes the creation of two new research tools to measure (1) families' discourse while engaging with media and (2)the impact of "Splash! Ask-Me Adventures" on children's science learning. Potential contributions to society-at-large are: (1)young learners will be better prepared to meet STEM curriculum milestones in school and scientific/technical challenges as adults; (2) parents will use new dialogic questioning skills to become more confident and active learning facilitators during media and non-media experiences with their children; (3) Conversation Catalysts, a new sub-genre of educational apps will emerge, based on proven theories of beneficial adult-child interaction and the impact of designed joint engagement with media on informal learning; and (4)a new generation will embrace marine stewardship.
Currently, many young people - especially girls and youth of color - lose confidence and interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) pathways due to a perceived disconnect between their own identity and STEM fields. To address this challenge, Twin Cities PBS (TPT) is implementing SciGirls CONNECT2. This three-year Research in Service to Practice award examines how gender equitable and culturally responsive teaching strategies influence middle school girls' confidence, interest and motivation around STEM studies, and their choices around STEM careers. A set of research-based strategies, called the SciGirls Seven, are currently employed in SciGirls, an NSF-funded informal STEM educational outreach program serving 125+ educational partner organizations nationwide. The goal is to update and enrich the SciGirls Seven, providing educators with a critical, current, and more effective resource to motivate girls in STEM studies and careers. 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.
Florida State University will conduct a formal research study investigating the hypothesis that STEM programs that use gender equitable and culturally responsive strategies contribute to girls' positive STEM identity development, including their sense of self-efficacy, persistence and aspirations around future STEM careers. This research will include a literature review and a study of girls' STEM identity creation. The mixed methods study will include quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis measuring changes in students' STEM identity and teachers' confidence in STEM teaching. The quantitative data will come from the student, parent and teacher pre/post surveys. The qualitative research will be conducted via case studies at four sites and the qualitative data will include observations, focus groups and interviews. Girls at all partner sites will create videos that will allow the research team to gather additional insight. The independent firm Knight Williams, Inc. will conduct the project's external evaluation.
The project will work with a subset of 16 current SciGirls partners. These geographically diverse partners will reach youth in all-girls and co-ed informal STEM education programs in a variety of settings. More than half serve Hispanic or other minority populations. The updated strategies will be disseminated to the 2,500 educators within the SciGirls partner network and the 18,800 STEM education organizations of the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) network. Dissemination of the strategies and literature review will focus on the informal STEM education field through publications and presentations, posts at PBS LearningMedia, a free online space reaching 1.5 million teachers and educators.
The National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN), in association with the Hispanic Communications Network (HCN), proposes to address the shortage of bilingual professionals in all health fields by recruiting and interviewing bilingual role models and arranging to broadcast those interviews nationwide. Leveraging HCN’s nationally broadcast health education radio shows, whose cumulative audiences are larger than
NPR’s “All Things Considered,” this project has the potential to reach one out of every three US Hispanics during its first five years. This media campaign is intended to inspire Hispanic parents to encourage their children to study science and aspire to careers in the biomedical professions. It is also intended to inspire and empower Spanish-speaking adults from all walks of life to consider careers in the health professions. All broadcasts will tie to NAHN’s interactive website so that students and adults interested in changing careers can find mentors and educational resources. NAHN will also use Youtube, Facebook, mobile phone applications, and other new and popular social media technologies to reach a broad cross-section of English speaking youth and young adults. In addition to the national media outputs, attendees at NAHN’s annual conferences will have the opportunity to receive training in public speaking and media relations so they can more effectively use local media in their own communities to address health disparities and promote careers in the biomedical and health professions. NAHN will develop a standardized, bilingual Toolkit for public presentations. The Toolkit will include a PowerPoint presentation embedded with video containing gender and other- stereotype-busting role model interviews with Hispanic nurses; links to an online database of volunteer mentors; and a bilingual terminology packet that will aid nurses in creating linguistic and cognitive bridges between audience and professional knowledge bases. We expect that the refined Toolkit will empower nurses and other health professionals to become more effective public health educators and career role models during their presentations at community health events, career fairs, achievement clubs, and school assemblies. An Advisory Committee of other health organizations, professionals, and advocates will recommend Role Models and provide periodic feedback. Bilingual independent evaluators associated with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health will conduct qualitative and quantitative formative, iterative, and summative evaluations throughout the project. Their recommendations and findings will be incorporated into the project design and deliverables and shared with relevant fields.
A short outline of the evolution of communications at CERN since 1993 and the parallel growth of the need both for professional communications and, at the same time, the need for training in more and more complex competencies for the new profession.
Science and wildlife films are very common and widely viewed. Yet, most of the makers of these films have entered the profession because of their knowledge or interest in science and wildlife. Given the potential for a rather circuitous route to the profession many filmmakers benefit tremendously from engagement in professional development. We have detailed the professional development needs of novice and expert science and wildlife filmmakers ranging from keeping current with technology to consideration of engaging audiences beyond the viewing. We have also addressed gaps in the current
The ‘traditional’ media industry ― newspapers and magazines and the like ― have had a difficult time lately thanks to increasing competition online. This book's chapters consider ways the traditional media can reinvent themselves to secure their future. Two key themes that emerge from the chapters are the importance of building communities and the increasing role of credibility in today's highly-competitive media landscape. While this book does not focus on the science media, many of the conclusions are relevant to it, in fact some are cause for comfort for those involved with science
This article provides a first statistical analysis of the typologies and characteristics of popular science web videos on YouTube. An analysis of 190 videos from 95 online video channels was conducted. Several factors such as narrative strategies, video editing techniques, and design tendencies with regard to cinematography, the number of shots, the kind of montage used, and even the use of sound design and special FX point to a notable professionalism among science communicators independent of institutional or personal commitments. This analysis represents an important step in understanding
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Jesus Munoz MorcilloKlemens CzurdaCaroline Robertson-von Trotha
Science, research and emerging technologies often play a key role in many modern action movies. In this contribution we suggest to use genre analysis of folk narratives as an innovative and useful tool for understanding science and technology in action movies. In this contribution we outline our approach using illustrative examples and detail how understanding action movies as modern fairy tales can benefit the study of science, research and technology in popular culture.
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Anna Lydia SvalastogJoachim Allgaier
While the use of scientific visualisations (such as brain scans) in popular science communication has been extensively studied, we argue for the importance of popular images (as demonstrated in various talks at #POPSCI2015), including pictures of everyday scenes of social life or references to pictures widely circulating in popular cultural contexts. We suggest that these images can be characterised in terms of a rhetorical theory of argumentation as working towards the production of evidentiality on the one hand, and as aiming to link science to familiar visualities on the other; our example
The prevalent lack of research on the interrelations between science, research and popular culture led to the organization of the first International Conference on Science and Research in Popular Culture #POPSCI2015, which took place at Alpen-Adria-Universität in Klagenfurt, Austria, from 17--18 September 2015. The aim of the conference was to bring together not only science communication researchers with an interest in popular culture, but also other scholars, scientists and researchers, artists, media professionals and members from the general public. In this issue of JCOM we present four
Throughout the five year SciGirls CONNECT grant the independent evaluation firm Knight Williams assisted Twin Cities PBS (TPT) in a wide range of program evaluation activities. Given the project’s emphasis on a Train-the-Trainer model, the evaluation prioritized two goals: (i) assessing the various levels of CONNECT trainings from different vantage and time points, and (ii) capturing information on the implementation of SciGirls programs led by those who completed a training. This evaluation approach allowed the team to collect ongoing data over the course of the grant and share this
SciGirls Reflect: Leveraging Multiple Communities and Networks to Expand Understanding of Professional Development for Informal STEM Educators in Gender Equitable Teaching Strategies was a one-day event that brought together 25 SciGirls Trainers, Educators, and Partner Organization representatives to reflect on their experiences with SciGirls. Data was collected throughout the day via panel presentations, small group discussions, and partner interviews. Nineteen of these participants also conducted follow-up Broadening the Discussion interviews with SciGirls Trainers and Educators to gather