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.
The primary objective of this study is to document how people learn the science of the COVID-19 pandemic in real time, how they activate this scientific knowledge towards informed decision making, and how these processes change over time. This study is intended to produce additional insights on how such learning is shaped by equity concerns and contextual factors. For example, researchers will document how the ways in which people learn the science of COVID-19 are mediated by the sources of information they have access to and leverage, as well as what supports them in doing so. The research will further document how people leverage their understandings of COVID-19, alongside other forms of knowledge and concerns in their decision-making. This study may serve a crucial role in aiding the public understanding of where structural points of informational failure might occur. It may also reveal where and how the public engages or resists community action strategies to mitigate spread and suffering through when, how and why they gather, share, and make sense of scientific data. This RAPID was submitted in response to the NSF Dear Colleague letter related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award is made by the AISL and ECR programs in the Division of Research on Learning, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
This research will draw upon a conceptual framework of consequential learning and a methodological framework of narrative inquiry. Sixty participants in Lansing, Michigan and Seattle, Washington will participate over the course of one year in cyclical interviews, focus group conversations and experience sampling approaches. Documents and resources named and used by the participants in their learning will be collected and analyzed. Attention will be paid to science learning in the following areas as the primary focus: a) the science of SARS-CoV-2 and the relationship between virus and disease, b) viral transmission, and c) origination, replication and spread. A key focus will also be how people use scientific data and evidence-based explanations when developing understandings and making decisions with respect to the pandemic. This research is urgent and timely because the COVID-19 pandemic is projected to occur in multiple waves over approximately 18 months. Insights may produce basic understanding about rapid science learning, policy strategies, school-based practices and resources for use within current and future waves. Socioscientific crises differentially impact people, with effects felt more significantly by vulnerable people. Thus, this study will address the urgent call for investigation into factors and experiences of low-income individuals and families who are trying to educate themselves on continually changing data during an international health crisis.
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.
This NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot will improve math achievement among elementary school students of color in public schools in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Recognizing the need to coordinate efforts related to students' math and science achievement, key stakeholders formed the NM STEM Ecosystem, a dynamic network of cross-sector partners committed to making real impact on STEM education and degree attainment in Albuquerque. The NM STEM Ecosystem identified the math achievement gap between low-income students of color and their more economically-advantaged peers as the Broadening Participation (BP) Challenge it would address first. While math achievement gaps between students of color and Caucasian students appear nationally, the situation is particularly dire in New Mexico. In order to keep doors open to future STEM careers, it is crucial that learning pathways for math are articulated early and that these pathways honor families' cultural ways of knowing. The innovative strategy of Math Families & Communities Empowering Student Success (Math FACESS) is to use a collective impact approach to close the math achievement gap by connecting formal and informal STEM educators around a coherent, multi-faceted program of early mathematics teaching and learning that empowers parents and teachers to support children's mathematical development. Implementation of Math FACESS includes four major components: 1) Teachers at two pilot schools will participate in professional development related to Math Talk and Listening; 2) Parents at the pilot schools will participate in parent workshops and community-based activities focused on supporting their children's math achievement; 3) Project partners will implement community-based family activities organized around a theme of Twelve Months of Math; and 4) Ecosystem partners will study what worked and what didn't, in order to identify best practices that can be shared with system leaders to scale effective practices and increase impact.
The near-term objectives for Math FACESS are: 1) improve students' attitudes, practices, and achievement in math; 2) improve parents' attitudes, practices, and confidence in math and increase their utilization of family math resources; 3) improve data-sharing among partners related to math participation and achievement; and 4) create pathways within the Ecosystem for family math learning. The effectiveness of the collective impact model and impacts on partner organizations also will be assessed. Through the math FACESS Launch Pilot, the NM STEM Ecosystem plans to: 1) demonstrate the power of a collective impact social innovation framework to address a systemic community condition -- in this case, the math achievement gap; 2) contribute to theory-of-change research that demonstrates student achievement can be affected by working with parents and teachers; and 3) provide a model that values different ways of knowing and uses cultural context in the design of STEM learning opportunities for students, families, and schools.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joe HastingsArmelle CasauObenshain KorenKersti TysonAngelo Gonzales
resourceresearchWebsites, Mobile Apps, and Online Media
This brief discusses the PLUM LANDING Explore Outdoors Toolkit, a new set of free, public media resources designed to help informal educators and parents infuse science learning into outdoor recreation. Developed by trusted media producer WGBH in partnership with researchers at Education Development Center (EDC), the Toolkit aims to get children (ages 6–9) from low-income, urban communities outside so they can explore the environment around them while debunking the myth that nature is something that only exists beyond city limits.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marion GoldsteinElizabeth PiersonJamie KynnLisa Famularo
In this case study, we highlight the work of the Bay Area STEM Ecosystem, which aims to increase equity and access to STEM learning opportunities in underserved communities. First, we lay out the problems they are trying to solve and give a high level overview of the Bay Area STEM Ecosystem’s approach to addressing them. Then, based on field observations and interviews, we highlight both the successes and some missed opportunities from the first collaborative program of this Ecosystem. Both the successes of The Bay Area STEM Ecosystem--as well as the partners’ willingness to share and examine
The achievement gap begins well before children enter kindergarten. Research has shown that children who start school having missed critical early learning opportunities are already at risk for academic failure. This project seeks to narrow this gap by finding new avenues for bringing early science experiences to preschool children (ages 3-5), particularly those living in communities with few resources. Bringing together media specialists, learning researchers, and two proven home visiting organizations to collaboratively develop and investigate a new model that engages families in science exploration through joint media engagement and home visiting programs. The project will leverage the popularity and success of the NSF-funded PEEP and the Big Wide World/El Mundo Divertido de PEEP to engage both parents and preschool children with science.
To address the key goal of engaging families in science exploration through joint media engagement and home visiting programs, the team will use a Design Based Implementation Research (DBIR) approach to address the research questions by iteratively studying the intervention model (the materials and implementation process) and assessing the impact of the intervention model on parents/caregivers. The intervention model will include the PEEP Family Engagement Toolkit that will support 20 weeks of family science investigations using new digital and hands-on science learning resources. It will also include new professional development resources for home educators as well as and the implementation process and strategies for developing and implementing the Toolkit with families.
The proposed research focuses first on refining and improving program design and implementation, and second, on investigating whether the intervention improves the capacity of parent/caregivers to support young children's learning in science. Ultimately this research will accomplish two important aims: it will inform the design of the PEEP family engagement intervention model, and, more broadly, it will build practical and theoretical understanding of: 1) effective family engagement models in science learning; 2) the types of supports that families and home educators need to implement these models; and 3) how to implement these models across different home visiting programs. Given the reach of the home visiting programs and the increasing interest in supporting early science learning the potential for broad impact is significant. This 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.
Our goal is to demonstrate an educational model fully commensurate with the demands of the 21st Century workforce, and more specifically, with the emerging “green-tech” economy. We recognize a pressing need creating more sustainable solutions for the (human) built-environment and of stabilizing economic patterns that uphold sustainable systems. to prepare citizens for the challenges of The ASCEND model is designed to encourage these societal shifts, but at the same time, it is an attempt to put theory into practice - activating educational practices aligned with research on human development and cognition. For some time now strong recommendations for apprenticeship learning have emphasized the function of legitimate peripheral participation – the possibility of which becomes more prevalent in robust communities of practice. As compared to top-down approaches (typical of formal education settings) these "learning communities" are seen as being more closely aligned with our natural propensities for learning and cognition. ASCEND represents a design-experiment -an attempt to learn how we can create and sustain opportunities for apprenticeship learning in an interdisciplinary arena at the leading edge of technical innovation. In addition, the ASCEND model introduces and examines the efficacy of “digital storytelling” as an alternative to more traditional forms of apprenticeship learning and as a means to engage and advance this and future generations in STEM. A further goal is to develop innovative measures of assessment commensurate with this new model of apprenticeship learning. Finally ASCEND explore how informal learning organizations (museums, libraries, preserves etc.) can use digital storytelling to develop community-driven programs inclusive of at-risk youth and other hard to reach audiences.
In Spring 2009, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (Museum) contracted with JVA Consulting, LLC (JVA) to conduct a comprehensive process and outcome evaluation of the Passport to Health Program (P2H). The Museum designed P2H, a three-year program funded by the Colorado Health Foundation, to improve health outcomes for fifth-grade students as well as their families and teachers throughout the Denver metro area. This evaluation report offers the findings of the baseline process evaluation and climate assessment, which will serve as a foundation for future evaluation efforts. Using various
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TEAM MEMBERS:
JVA Consulting, LLCDenver Museum of Nature & Science
In the Community Science Learning through Youth Astronomy Apprenticeships (YAA) project, underrepresented urban high school youths, working with recent college grads, conducted astronomy investigations, then translated their personal learning and enthusiasm into outreach programs for younger children, families and community members in an astronomy and space science program. Science education centers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Boston community-based after school centers and the Institute for Learning Innovation collaborated.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Irene PorroMary DussaultSusan O'ConnorJohn Belcher
This proposal calls for development, over five years, of a national, interactive, telecommunications-supported Network of 85 or more affiliated neighborhood technology learning centers in inner cities and other impoverished areas, for the purpose of attracting, and then nurturing underserved peoples' active involvement with math, science, and technology. Network affiliates will provide informal opportunities for disadvantaged minority young people and their families and friends to get access to, and learn to use, the most powerful tool for personal empowerment yet known, to engage in explorations designed to increase awareness of their ability to do math and science and of the potential for careers in these areas, and, through telecommunications, to involve themselves with distant peer groups in collaborative investigations. Such opportunities present attractive and cost-effective alternatives to the dead ends that street life, drugs, incarceration, and/or welfare offer. Success in achieving these goals depends, however, on the availability of continuing programmatic and staff development assistance, and on the ability of Network members to engage, not as disparate entities, but as a mutually supportive community, in this momentous task. Proposed Network services include (in addition to telecommunications linkages) the identification, development, and dissemination of technology-mediated math and science activities appropriate to community education, consultative planning and technical assistance, staff development workshops, the development of a resource database, and an annual all-affiliates meeting -- all these to be accompanied by systematized self-assessment procedures. Also included is the development of a Network infrastructure to support continued existence of the Network beyond the grant period.