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 research brief highlights findings from the proof of concept pilot year of the Child Trends News Service project. It explores what we have learned regarding best practices for communicating with and engaging Latino parents through short messages on research-informed parenting practices. The findings are grounded in research that substantiates the need to amplify access to child development research, particularly among low-income Latino families; and in communication science research that demonstrates the value of the news media as an information source for child development research.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alicia TorresSelma CaalLuz GuerraAngela Rojas
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.
People of color who live in low income, urban communities experience lower levels of educational attainment than whites and continue to be underrepresented in science at all educational and professional levels. It is widely accepted that this underrepresentation in science is related, not only to processes of historical exclusion and racism, but to how science is commonly taught and that investigating authentic, relevant science questions can improve engagement and learning of underrepresented students. Approaching science in these ways, however, requires new teaching practices, including ways of relating cross-culturally. In addition to inequity in science and broader educational outcomes, people of color from low income, urban communities experience high rates of certain health problems that can be directly or indirectly linked to mosquitoes. Recognizing that undertaking public health research and preventative outreach efforts in these communities is challenging, there is a critical need for an innovative approach that leverages local youth resources for epidemiological inquiry and education. Such an approach would motivate the pursuit of science among historically-excluded youth while, additionally, involving pre-service, in-service, and informal educators in joint participatory inquiry structured around opportunities to learn and practice authentic, ambitious science teaching and learning.
Our long-term goal is to interrupt the reproduction of educational and health disparities in a low-income, urban context and to support historically-excluded youth in their trajectories toward science. This will be accomplished through the overall objective of this project to promote authentic science, ambitious teaching, and an orientation to science pursuits among elementary students participating in a university-school-community partnership promise program, through inquiry focused on mosquitoes and human health. The following specific aims will be pursued in support of the objective:
1. Historically-excluded youth will develop authentic science knowledge, skills, and dispositions, as well as curiosity, interest, and positive identification with science, and motivation for continued science study by participating in a scientific community and engaging in the activities and discourses of the discipline. Teams of students and educators will engage in community-based participatory research aimed at assessing and responding to health and well-being issues that are linked to mosquitoes in urban, low-income communities. In addition, the study of mosquitoes will engage student curiosity and interest, enhance their positive identification with science, and motivate their continued study.
2. Informal and formal science educators will demonstrate competence in authentic and ambitious science teaching and model an affirming orientation toward cultural diversity in science. Pre-service, in-service, and informal educators will participate in courses and summer institutes where they will be exposed to ambitious teaching practices and gain proficiency, through reflective processes such as video study, in adapting traditional science curricula to authentic science goals that meet the needs of historically excluded youth.
3. Residents in the community will display more accurate understandings and transformed practices with respect to mosquitoes in the urban ecosystem in service of enhanced health and well-being. Residents will learn from an array of youth-produced, culturally responsive educational materials that will be part of an ongoing outreach and prevention campaign to raise community awareness of the interplay between humans and mosquitoes.
These outcomes are expected to have an important positive impact because they have potential for improving both immediate and long-term educational and health outcomes of youth and other residents in a low-income, urban community.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katherine Richardson BrunaLyric Colleen Bartholomay
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) explores the Earth, the Sun, our solar system, the galaxy and beyond through four SMD divisions: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Planetary Science and Astrophysics. Alongside NASA scientists, teams of education and public outreach (EPO) specialists develop and implement programs and resources that are designed to inspire and educate students, teachers, and the public about NASA science.
The nature of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning is changing as individuals have unprecedented, 24/7 access to science-related information and experiences from cradle to grave. Today’s science-education opportunities include not only traditional schooling, but also libraries, museums, zoos, aquaria, science centers, and parks and preserves; diverse broadcast media such as television, podcasts, and film; organized youth programs such as 4-H, after-school or summer camps, and special-interest clubs and hobby groups; and an ever-increasing array of digital media
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. This project engages members of racially and economically diverse communities in identifying and carrying out environmental projects that are meaningful to their lives, and adapts technology known as NatureNet to assist them. NatureNet, encompassing a cell phone app, a multi-user, touch-based tabletop display and a web-based community, was developed with prior NSF support.
The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that will help in envisioning the next generation of learning technologies and advancing what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Development and Implementation (DIP) Projects build on proof-of-concept work that showed the possibilities of the proposed new type of learning technology, and project teams build and refine a minimally-viable example of their proposed innovation that allows them to understand how such technology should be designed and used in the future and answer questions about how people learn with technology. Although for years researchers have believed technology could afford anytime-anywhere learning, we still don't understand how learners behave differently across contexts, such as home, school, and in the community, and how to get youth to identify as learners across those contexts. This proposal aims to use mobile devices and strategically placed shared kiosks to 'scientize' youth in two low-income communities. Through strategic partnerships with community organizations, educators, and families, the innovation is to get primary and middle-school students engaging in scientific inquiry in the context of their neighborhoods. Research will help determine how the technology can best be deployed, but also answer important questions about how communities can provide support to help kids think like scientists and identify with science. This project will design and implement ubiquitous technology tools that include mobile social media and tangible, community displays (collectively called ScienceKit) that are deeply embedded into two urban neighborhoods, and demonstrate how such ubiquitous technologies and related cyberlearning strategies are vital to improve information flow and coordination across a neighborhood ecosystem, in order to create environments where children can connect their science learning across contexts and time (e.g. scientizing). A program called ScienceEverywhere comprised of partnerships between tightly connected neighborhood organizations with mentors, teachers, parents, and researchers will help learners develop scientifically literate practices both in and out of school, and will demonstrate students' learning to their communities. Research will consist of mixed methods studies of use of the tools, including iterative design-based research, ethnography, and the use of participant observers from the community; these will be triangulated with usage logs of the technologies and content analysis of microblogs by the learners on their identities and interests. Discourse analysis of interviews with focal learners will orient the qualitative work on identity development, and analysis using activity theory will inform the influences of the social practices and sociotechnical systems on learner trajectories. Formative evaluation will help shed light on if and how the sociotechnical system promotes STEM literacy and STEM identity development.
This full-scale project addresses the need for more youth, especially girls, to pursue an interest in engineering and eventually fill a critical workforce need. The project leverages museum-based exhibits, girls' activity groups, and social media to enhance participants' engineering-related interests and identities. The project includes the following bilingual deliverables: (1) Creative Solutions programming will engage girls in group oriented engineering activities at partner community-based organizations, where the activities highlight altruistic, personally relevant, and social aspects of engineering. Existing community groups will use the activities in their regular meeting structure. Visits to the museum exhibits, titled Design Your World will reinforce messages; (2) Design Your World Exhibits will serve as a community hub at two ISE institutions (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and the Hatfield Marine Science Center). They will leverage existing NSF-funded Engineer It! (DRL-9803989) exhibits redesigned to attract, engage, and mobilize a more diverse population by showcasing altruistic, personally relevant, and social aspects of engineering; (3) Digital engagement through targeted use of social media will complement program and exhibit content and be an online portal for groups engaged in the project; (4) A community action group (CAG) will provide professional development opportunities to stakeholders interested in girls' STEM identity (e.g. parents, STEM-based business professionals) to promote effective engineering messaging throughout the community and engage them in supporting project participants; and (5) Longitudinal research will explore how girls construct and negotiate engineering-related identities through discourse across the project activities and over time.
The objective of this youth media project is to provide 14-24 year olds with training and hands-on experience in engineering, and the physical and biological sciences. The project is designed around core practices that engage youth in original research and inquiry through experimentation, development, and creative use of new technologies and tools to communicate STEM to the public. Youth Radio project participants in Oakland, CA, Atlanta, GA and Washington, DC include 540 youth, 80% of whom are low-income and/or youth of color, plus another 400 youth via off-site outreach in schools and community centers. Core deliverables include: (1) "Brains and Beakers," eight live events per year where a visiting STEM researcher brings his/her work out of the lab and onto the stage at Youth Radio facilities, demonstrating key principles and discoveries and interacting with youth participants; (2) "Youth Radio Investigates," an annual 6-part multimedia series, where youth partner with university and industry-based researchers to explore the veracity of scientific claims applied to products and services and they use every day; (3) The "Application Development Lab," where youth develop, create and disseminate online embeddable and downloadable applications (12 annually) that serve real needs in youth communities. The digital media produced by the youth will be broadcast by National Public Radio and distributed online through various sites including iTunes and BoingBoing.net, one of the most frequently visited technology-focused sites on the web. Project advisors include STEM researchers in universities as well as highly experienced and successful new media technology developers. Project partners include National Public Radio, KQED, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Oakland Unified School District. This project builds on the successful prior work (NSF #0610272) that initiated a Science and Technology program within the Youth Radio organization. The summative evaluation by Rockman et al will measure how the program affects students' science and technology knowledge, skills, and attitudes. It will build on the evaluation from the prior NSF funded project (#0610272) that highlighted the organizational and staff growth processes as Youth Radio discovered how to design and implement successful, sustainable STEM programs. Rockman will evaluate the new programs (Youth Investigates, Brains and Beakers, and the Application Lab), measuring the following STEM-related student outcomes/impacts: perceptions of selves as producers/creators of science or technology; attitudes toward science and perceptions of scientists; understanding the process of scientific inquiry and research and/or technology skills development; and understanding or interest in careers in science or technology (based on National Research Council report, 2009). Data will be collected from the youth at the Oakland site and from the other Youth Radio bureaus to determine which aspects of the program transfer to multiple sites and which ones are unique to a specific location or set of circumstances. Methods include surveys of student attitudes, participant focus groups, interim assessments, objective skills assessments, and interviews. This project provides an innovative new model for collaborations between STEM researchers and under-represented youth resulting in digital media that impacts the youth as well as the public's understanding and engagement in science.