RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
This project will teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts to preschoolers by creating a mobile app to guide families through sequenced sets of videos and hands-on activities, building on the popular PBS KIDS series Work It Out Wombats!
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marisa WolskyJanna KookJessica Andrews
Early childhood is a critical time for developing foundational knowledge, skills, and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). For that reason, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) places a great priority on developing early childhood STEM content, especially through its television shows that are watched by over 60% of young children in the United States. Research suggests that adding in-the-moment interaction to television watching promotes learning and engagement. Toward this end, researchers from the University of California, Irvine and PBS KIDS have prototyped interactive versions of science shows that children view on internet-connected devices while they communicate with the main character powered by an AI conversational agent. Pilot studies show that when children watch these new interactive videos with the main character pausing periodically to ask probing questions about the learning goals of the episode and following up with appropriate responses, they are more engaged and learn more about science, with heightened benefits for children who speak languages other than English at home. Based on these early results, in this Innovations in Development project the research team will develop, test and produce publicly available conversational episodes for two PBS KIDS television shows, one focused on science and the other on computational thinking.
The project will iteratively study and develop six conversational videos with novel forms of support for children, including extended back-and-forth conversation that builds upon a child's responses, visual scaffolding that facilitates verbal communication, and bilingual language processing so that children can answer in English or Spanish. The conversational videos will be evaluated in both lab-based and home settings. The lab-based study will involve 600 children ages 3-7 in a predominantly low-income Latino community in Southern California, in which researchers compare children’s learning and engagement when watching the conversational videos with three other formats: (1) watching the non-interactive broadcast version of the video; (2) watching the video with pseudo-interaction, in which the main character asks questions and gives a generic response after a fixed amount of time but can’t understand what the child says; or (3) watching the broadcast version of the video with a human co-viewer who pauses the video and asks questions. The home-based study will involve 80 families assigned to watch either the non-interactive or interactive videos as many times as they want over a month at home. In both the lab-based and home studies, pre- and post-tests will be used to examine the impact of video watching on science and language learning, and log data will be used to assess children’s verbalization and engagement while watching. Following the home study, the six videos will be further refined and made available for free to the public through the PBS KIDS apps and website, which are visited by more than 13 million users a month. Beyond providing engaging science learning opportunities to children throughout the country, this study will yield important insights into the design, usability, feasibility, and effectiveness of incorporating conversational agents into children’s STEM-oriented video content, with implications for extending this innovation to other educational media such as e-books, games, apps, and toys.
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mark WarschauerSilvia LovatoAndres BustamanteAbby JenkinsYing Xu
Cyberchase: Mobile Adventures in STEM is designed to advance the STEM learning of children ages 6-8 and engage low-income families in informal STEM interactions. Based on a successful NSF-funded pilot, the project combines the appeal of the PBS KIDS series Cyberchase and the potential of mobile texting to deliver informal learning. WNET and Education Development Center will produce: three Cyberchase videos that blend math and environmental content; a bilingual family engagement campaign in 15 communities across the U.S. that combines this media with weekly text-based engagement; and research into use and impact of the model among low-income Latinx families. Mobile Adventures addresses the need to better engage underserved families in informal science practices that are foundational for future STEM learning. While the materials target low-income communities broadly, research will focus on low-income Latinx families with children ages 6-8, an age group overlooked in previous research on educational uses of texting. A needs assessment and formative testing will ensure that the project design meets the needs and interests of diverse Latinx and other families.
The goal of Mobile Adventures is to build knowledge about how innovative, culturally responsive tools can help Latinx and low-income families engage in fun STEM learning at home. A three-tiered research study will address the question: how and to what extent does a mobile text-and-media approach to delivering informal STEM learning materials foster joint media engagement between children and parents, building new repertoires for learning together? The study will combine analysis of observation in homes and community settings, backend data, and pre/post surveys. Research will deepen understanding of effective family engagement models that make media a central component, the potential of text messaging as a stimulus to parent/child STEM learning, and maximal design of media and community engagement to serve low-income Latinx families. Findings will be disseminated through national conferences and journals. The Cyberchase videos, distributed free on broadcast and digital platforms, will build the STEM literacy of millions of diverse children, while the family engagement campaign will involve a projected 3,750 families in 15 locations. Evaluation will assess how well the project has met its goals.
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
Families play a vital role in supporting children’s informal science learning. Yet multiple studies have shown that Latinx families, particularly in neighborhoods with a high poverty rate, face many barriers to accessing informal science experiences and environments. Telenovelas, a type of television serial drama watched by Spanish-speaking audiences around the world, may provide an entryway to reaching these families. Prior research has shown that telenovelas can be an effective means of changing adults’ behavior, with potential cascading impacts on children. Education Development Center, Literacy Partners, and Univision will use a culturally responsive approach to broaden participation of Latinx families in informal science learning using La Fuerza de Creer, a popular Spanish-language telenovela that reaches 7 million U.S. viewers. The five-episode telenovela series will model positive informal science interactions between caregivers and their children and provide positive role models of Latinx scientists. The project team will then use the telenovela as the foundation for a five-session workshop series for caregivers to further explore how to engage in these informal science learning opportunities with their children. The La Fuerza-STEM project will build on families’ strengths and interests and tap their power—la fuerza—to engage children in exploring science. This research will examine the relationship between the telenovela/workshops and caregivers’ practices and attitudes towards science. La Fuerza-STEM seeks to expand informal science learning using a culturally grounded strategy to engage an under-served population that is historically under-represented in STEM.
The project will use an iterative research and design process that is guided by the input of both parent and scientific advisory boards. Front-end formative research with approximately 30 Latinx caregivers from under-resourced communities will explore their informal science practices. These experiences will then inform script development for the telenovela. A pre-post comparison group study with 200 caregivers will investigate how caregivers’ attitudes toward science might change as a result of viewing the telenovela. The project will then build a 5-session workshop series around the telenovela and these research findings. Finally, 300 caregivers will participate in a randomized controlled trial to examine the efficacy of the La Fuerza-STEM workshops on changing caregivers’ informal science attitudes and practices. Throughout, the project will address the overarching research question, How can a culturally relevant telenovela be used to improve Latinx caregivers’ science self-efficacy, career awareness, and informal science practices? Project findings and products will be publicly disseminated through publications, conference presentations, and local partner organizations, with an eye toward open access and data sharing. The project will generate knowledge about the effectiveness of embedding informal science content in a culturally-grounded medium—the telenovela—in improving caregivers’ confidence and competence to engage in informal science learning experiences with their children. With an anticipated audience of 7 million, the potential impact of the telenovela on caregivers’ informal science attitudes and practices is enormous. By implementing workshops with local organizations, the project aims to be self-sustaining, building the capacity of community partners to provide families with services targeting informal science knowledge and skills long after the grant has ended.
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joy KennedyJessica YoungAlexia RaynalAnthony Tassi
Black girls display high interest, confidence and ability in STEM but face multiple barriers including racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes, low exposure to STEM role models, low awareness of diverse STEM fields and financial obstacles to STEM education. It is critical to infuse STEM education with specific and intentional culturally responsive and anti-racist strategies to attract and retain Black girls in STEM. Through this combination of media, role modeling and outreach, Black SciGirls will help increase access to STEM education for Black girls, preparing them for future workforce participation. This project will study the impacts on elementary/middle school Black girls’ exposure to early career Black female STEM professionals as role models. Deliverables include 1) professional development for STEM educators and Black STEM professional women to prepare them to lead STEM programs for girls 2) a PBS series of role model videos of early-career Black STEM professionals and 3) a research study that examines how/if in person and media-based STEM role models increase Black girls’ interest and confidence in STEM, motivation to pursue future STEM studies, and STEM identity. While women make up 47% of the U.S. workforce, they are underrepresented in STEM and only 1.6% are Black women.
The research study will examine how educators’ use of role models addresses a critical barrier for Black girls, seeing women in STEM who look like them. The research study questions are: How and in what ways do Black STEM women role models influence Black girls’ interest in STEM? How and to what extent do role models report changes in their confidence and ability to engage girls in STEM as a result of training in best practices in role modelling? and, How and to what extent are parents engaged in supporting girls’ involvement in STEM, as a result of the participation of role models? The research team will visit participating local SciGirls programs to collect qualitative data, including observations of program activities, interviews, and focus groups. To ensure reliable outcomes and utilize robust theoretical underpinnings, the research will combine pre/post survey data and an in-depth cross-case studies employing qualitative and quantitative data collection. This mixed-methods approach will enable gathering data that comprehensively offers insight into Black girls’ STEM experiences and those of the Black STEM professional women role models and parents who support them. Qualitative data that centers girls’, role models’, and parents’ perspectives will contribute to this identity-centered study. A culturally responsive evaluation will determine the extent to which the project builds educators’ ability to integrate equitable and anti-racist practices to build Black girls’ interest and confidence in STEM studies.
This Research in Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Rita KarlAngel Miles NashRonda BullockAdrienne StephensonLataisia Jones
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
Increasing greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in science not only presents a social justice goal, but is also vital to the financial and social success of the nation. The stereotype of the older white male scientist has obscured the contributions of women and people of color. This project seeks to remedy these perceptions which are barriers to entry into STEM fields. The project will create a large-scale hub for STEM themed video content on YouTube and other social media platforms, featuring 100+ original STEM videos produced by PBS partners. This hub and accompanying research seeks to identify the characteristics of online STEM content that attract (or fail to attract) underrepresented groups, specifically Black and Hispanic communities as well as women of all races. The objectives of this project are to 1) provide a unified online science-themed hub, PBS Terra, on YouTube and other platforms for hosting, sharing, and distributing digital STEM series from diverse producers from across the PBS system; 2) conduct surveys and focus groups to examine and understand the needs and expectations of women, Black and Hispanic communities and their consumption of STEM video content online and 3) test hypotheses about the communicative strategies of STEM videos that feature Black and Hispanic female scientists. Project collaborators include PBS, researchers at the University of Utah and the University of Georgia, and consultants and advisors with expertise in broadening participation and inclusion in STEM.
Little is known about how or why adult Americans seek science content on YouTube, especially the motivations of adults from underrepresented minorities and females. The key research questions in this project are: 1) Why do Black and Hispanic audiences and women of all races seek science video content online? 2) How does showing Black and Hispanic female scientists in science video content on YouTube impact viewers’ identification with and sense of belonging in STEM? 3) How does the use of humor by Black and Hispanic scientists in YouTube science content affect viewers’ perceptions of the communicator and their engagement with STEM content? 4) How does the appearance and manner of dress of Black and Hispanic scientists in YouTube science content affect viewers’ perceptions in the aforementioned areas? A nationally representative baseline survey will be conducted. A probability sample of 2000 respondents will be obtained including oversampling of Black and Hispanic audiences. To complement findings from the survey, focus groups will be conducted in eight different regions of the country to learn why these targeted audiences do or do not seek science content on YouTube and what motivates them to share the content with their social media network. In addition, an experiment embedded in an online survey will test the hypothesis that greater on-screen representation of women and scientists of color will broaden existing perceptions about scientists. The experiment will consist of a 3 (scientist’s race: Black/Hispanic/White) × 2 (science issue: controversial/non-controversial) × 2 (style: casual/professional) between-subjects design. Survey participants will be randomly assigned to the experimental conditions. These factors (science issue and host appearance) can be altered by content producers to better reach and engage the targeted audiences. The project not only investigates theoretical questions at the intersection of STEM stereotypes and race, but findings related to these experimental conditions will offer practical insight into strategies that can be used by science communication practitioners.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Adam DylewskiSara YeoMichael Cacciatore
Wireless radio communications, such as Wi-Fi, transmit public and private data from one device to another, including cell phones, computers, medical equipment, satellites, space rockets, and air traffic control. Despite their critical role and prevalence, many people are unfamiliar with radio waves, how they are generated and interact with their surroundings, and why they are the basis of modern communication and navigation. This topic is not only increasingly relevant to the technological lives of today’s youth and public, it is critical to the National Science Foundation’s Industries of the Future activities, particularly in advancing wireless education and workforce development. In this project, STEM professionals from academia, industry and informal education will join forces to design, evaluate, and launch digital apps, a craft-based toolkit, activity guides, and mobile online professional learning, all of which will be easily accessed and flexibly adapted by informal educators to engage youth and the public about radio frequency communications. Experiences will include embodied activities, such as physically linking arms to create and explore longitudinal and transverse waves; mobile experiences, such as augmented reality explorations of Wi-Fi signals or collaborative signal jamming simulations; and technological exploration, such as sending and receiving encrypted messages.
BSCS Science Learning, Georgia Tech, and the Children’s Creativity Museum (CCM) with National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net) museum partners will create pedagogical activity designs, digital apps, and a mobile online professional learning platform. The project features a rigorous and multipronged research and development approach that builds on prior learning sciences studies to advance a learning design framework for nimble, mobile informal education, while incorporating the best aspects of hands-on learning. This project is testing two related hypotheses: 1) a mobile strategy can be effective for supporting just-in-time informal education of a highly technical, scientific topic, and 2) a mobile suite of resources, including professional learning, can be used to teach informal educators, youth, and the general public about radio frequency communications. Data sources include pre- and post- surveys, interviews, and focus groups with a wide array of educators and learners.
A front-end study will identify gaps in public understanding and perceptions specific to radio frequency communications, and serve as a baseline for components of the summative research. Iterative formative evaluation will incorporate participatory co-design processes with youth and informal educators. These processes will support materials that are age-appropriate and culturally responsive to not only youth, with an emphasis on Latinx youth, but also informal educators and the broader public. Summative evaluation will examine the impact of the mobile suite of resources on informal educators’ learning, facilitation confidence and intentions to continue to incorporate the project resources into their practice. The preparation of educators in supporting public understanding of highly technological STEM topics can be an effective way for supporting just-in-time public engagement and interests in related careers. Data from youth and museum visitors will examine changes to interest, science self-efficacy, content knowledge, and STEM-related career interest. If successful, this design approach may influence how mobile resources are designed and organized effectively to impact future informal education on similarly important technology-rich topics. All materials will be released under Creative Commons licenses allowing for widespread sharing and remixing; research and design findings will be published in academic, industry, and practitioner journals.
This project is co-funded by two NSF programs: The Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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. The Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.
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.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This Innovations in Development project addresses the need to broaden girls' participation in STEM studies and career pathways. While women make up 47% of the U.S. workforce, they hold only 28.3% of STEM jobs and only 1 in 10 employed engineers and scientists are minority women. Girls of low socioeconomic status start losing interest and confidence in STEM during middle school, and this decline often continues as girls get older. Multiple sociocultural barriers contribute to girl's loss of confidence including gender and ethnic stereotypes; lack of culturally responsive programming; limited exposure to women role models; and few or no hands-on STEM experiences. This project builds upon the success of SciGirls, the PBS television show and national outreach program, which provides professional development on research-based gender equitable and culturally responsive teaching strategies designed to engage girls in STEM. It is a collaboration between Twin Cities Public Television, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the National Park Service. The project's goal is to create media-rich citizen science experiences for girls, particularly girls of color and/or from rural areas, which broaden their STEM participation, build positive STEM identities and increase girls' understanding of scientific concepts, while leveraging citizen science engagement at national parks. Project deliverables include 1) creating five new PBS SciGirls episodes that feature real girls working with women mentors in 16 National Parks, 2) producing five new role model videos of women National Park Service STEM professionals, nationally disseminated on multiple PBS platforms, 3) providing professional development for educators and role models. This project will increase access to STEM education for girls of color and/or from rural areas, inspiring and preparing them for future STEM workforce participation. It will build the capacity of educators and National Park Service women role models to create educational and professional programs that are welcoming to girls of varying racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds. SciGirls' massive reach to diverse audiences via PBS broadcast and multiple PBS digital platforms will amplify public scientific literacy, particularly for 21st- century audiences that connect, learn and live online.
The research study conducted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology will address these questions: 1) To what extent does the use of culturally responsive and gender equitable multimedia in citizen science programming affect girls' learning outcomes, and contribute to the development of positive STEM identity' 2) how will their experiencing citizen science in the parks influence girls' connection to nature? At the beginning of the project all participating girls (n=160) will complete a survey on their interest in science, efficacy for doing science, and knowledge of citizen science and project-specific subject matter. Researchers will use the suite of DEVISE instruments most of which have been validated for youth to measure these constructs. To measure connection to nature, researchers will use the Connection to Nature Index, a scale developed for children. Interviews with the girls will be used to obtain qualitative data to supplement the survey data. Pre-post data will be analyzed to determine the influence of the culturally responsive media and experiences on girls' STEM identities. Researchers will share findings with the project evaluator to triangulate data between educators' implementation of the strategies and girls' learning outcome providing a more holistic picture of the overall program.
This Innovations in Development 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.
Familiarity with statistical and data literacy is important in many areas of modern life, but there is little research on how adults continue to build mathematical literacy beyond formal schooling. Mass media science news stories contain much data, assuming that adults will understand the content.This 4-year project will first map the landscape of adult statistical literacy in the US, particularly as it relates to news consumption. The second phase will build on results from the first phase through a longitudinal study. In the third phase, the project will develop a range of experiments to manipulate mathematical explainers embedded in STEM news stories and test techniques with adult audiences, with the goal of identifying the attributes and affordances that best improve confidence and competence in the underlying math principles and their meaning to news stories. in addition to the research, project components include 12 broadcast video and social media pieces each year that will form the basis for testing with audiences, a one-day symposium for professional science journalists, and a written best practice guide that summarizes key findings and implications for practitioners.
Critical research questions are: How do mathematical competence and confidence differ among different segments of the adult population? How can STEM journalists improve adult mathematical competence and confidence through their reporting techniques? Phase 1 of the research will be a landscape review of mathematical content in the news including a baseline study of adult statistical literacy. Phase 2 will be a longitudinal study with news audiences recruited to participate in a panel study. Phase 3 will be iterative testing of the digital content based on the findings from Phases 1 and 2 and will use both focus groups and online testing. External evaluation will be conducted by TERC including an evaluation of the symposium for professional journalists.
The broader impacts of this project are twofold: the science videos created will be broadcast and made available free to a national audience including those in rural areas; and the training of science journalists has the potential for multiple, long term impact by increasing their ability to communicate statistics meaningfully to their readers/viewers.
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.
This four-year research study will investigate families' joint media engagement (JME) and informal STEM learning while listening to the child-focused STEM podcast, Brains On! Prior research has shown that the setting where families most often listen to this podcast together is the family automobile as children are being driven to school, on road trips, or other activities. Brains On! is rooted in the mission-driven principle of public radio to educate and inspire. The target audience is children 5-12 years old and their parents or caregivers. Each episode ranges from 20-45 minutes in length and presents ideas from a variety of STEM disciplines such as physics, chemistry, biology and engineering featuring sound-rich explanations of concepts through fun skits, original songs and interviews with scientists. The episodes use a light-hearted, humorous approach to share oftentimes complex STEM information. To provide an interactive experience, hosts encourage the audience to participate with the show by sending in drawings, emailing photos of plants and animals, or posing questions to be answered in future episodes. Every episode is co-hosted by a different child who interviews top scientists about their work. The scientists are selected to be representative of the range of topics presented and are meant to serve as role models for the listeners and demonstrating a wide range of career options in the STEM field.
The research adds to the social learning theory of joint media engagement (JME) which has shown that interactions between people sharing a media experience can result in learning together. Recent work on Joint Media Engagement has focused on parent/child interactions with television/video in the home. But little is known about how families engage with children's STEM podcasts together and what learning interactions occur as a result. Even less is known about this engagement within an automobile setting. This research project will build new knowledge filling a gap in the informal STEM learning field. It will use a mixed-methods research design with three phases of research to answer these questions: 1) How does the Brains On! podcast mediate STEM-based joint media engagement and family learning in an automobile setting? 2) What does STEM based joint media engagement and family learning look and sound like in this setting? 3) How do "in-automobile" factors foster or impede STEM-based joint media engagement and family learning? Phase 1 is a listener experience video study of 30 families listening to the Brains On! episodes. Phase 2 is video-based case studies of the natural automobile-based listening behaviors of eight Phase 1 families. Phase 3 is an online survey of Brains On! listeners to understand how representative the findings from Phases 1 and 2 are to the larger Brains On! Research. Results will be shared widely with key audiences that can use the findings (media developers, ISE practitioners, ISE evaluators and researchers, and families). It will also make an important contribution to the Joint Media Engagement literature and the ISE field.
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.