The ChemAttitudes project recieved supplemental funding to create materials for train-the-trainer workshops in order to inoculate the chemistry outreach community with members who have the knowledge and resources to train others on strategies for stimulating interest, sense of relevance, and feelings of self-efficacy that were tested in the earlier work of the project. The project team recruited participants from minority serving professional organizations as a strategy for broadening participation. Can it work? Did it work?
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
To advance justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in science, we must first understand and improve the dominant-culture frameworks that impede progress and, second, we must intentionally create more equitable models. The present authors call ourselves the ICBOs and Allies Workgroup (ICBOs stands for independent community-based organizations), and we represent communities historically excluded from the sciences. Together with institutional allies and advisors, we began our research because we wanted our voices to be heard, and we hoped to bring a different perspective to doing science with
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TEAM MEMBERS:
María Cecilia Alvarez RicaldeJuan Flores ValadezCatherine CrumJohn AnnoniRick BonneyMateo Luna CastelliMarilú López FrettsBrigid LuceyKaren PurcellJ. Marcelo BontaPatricia CampbellMakeda CheatomBerenice RodriguezYao Augustine FoliJosé GonzálezJosé Miguel Hernández HurtadoSister Sharon HoraceKaren KitchenPepe Marcos-IgaTanya SchuhPhyllis Edwards TurnerBobby WilsonFanny Villarreal
With support from rural communities and their libraries in the Four Corners Region in the Southwestern U.S., We are Water creates a place to meet and share stories about water, and explore and learn about water together. Designed for rural, Indigenous, and Latinx communities, stories, community voices and multiple ways of knowing are highlighted and woven throughout the exhibit and programs.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
The archaeology after-school program, geared towards rural middle school students, explores the ability to teach STEM through archaeology. The multidisciplinary nature of archaeology makes it a useful vehicle for teaching a variety of STEM disciplines (e.g., biology, geology, ecology, zoology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc.). Its compatibility with hands-on activities, deep thinking skills, and scientific reasoning matches STEM learning goals.
ChemAttitudes: Using Design-Based Research to Develop and Disseminate Strategies and Materials to Support Chemistry Interest, Relevance, and Self-Efficacy (ChemAttitudes, NSF DRL-1612482) is a collaborative project between the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS), the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) among others. As a part of this project, researchers and educators from MOS and the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) used design-based research to create chemistry hands-on activities meant to positively impact visitors’ attitudes towards
Three-dimensional digital models are increasingly prevalent in preserving tangible and intangible aspects of Indigenous material heritage. Yet, there are no comprehensive, clearly laid-out best practices that can guide researchers, Indigenous communities, and museum personnel in designing ethically sound and socially engaged 3D heritage preservation projects. The use of 3D technologies for heritage preservation and providing public access to digital 3D collections is well-established in the European context. While there have been several robust efforts on digitizing European national heritage, in the U.S. context, the focus often involves work with Indigenous heritage, instantly placing 3D projects into a post-colonial research paradigm with a complex set of ethical ramifications. This research examines emerging thoughts from the European context and connects them with best practices in digital Indigenous data management to identify practices that contribute to cultures of academic integrity that are inclusive of all stakeholder voices. This work fosters ethical cultures of STEM through the development of a comprehensive Responsible Conduct of Research guiding document that can be adapted to address culture-specific Indigenous perspectives as well as project-specific challenges in future 3D heritage preservation endeavors.
Project goals are accomplished through workshops and virtual collaborations that bring together researchers, Indigenous community members, and heritage preservation professionals with previous experience in the responsible management, protection, and sharing of Indigenous digital data and the use of 3D technology for heritage preservation. The collaboratively produced guidelines outline ethical considerations that can be used in developing: 1) partnerships with origin/descendant communities, 2) institution- and collection-specific museum policies on using 3D technology, 3) Tribal policies for culturally appropriate use of 3D technologies, and 4) training material and curriculum that integrates with other research compliance regulations pertaining to heritage preservation. The project explores the questions that have emerged through previous experiences using 3D technologies to preserve Indigenous ancestral heritage. These questions include the factors contributing to developing ethically sound 3D heritage preservation projects; the practices useful in 3D projects to foster a culture of integrity that equally engages academic and Indigenous perspectives; consideration for what constitutes Responsible Conduct of Research in using 3D technologies to preserve Indigenous cultural heritage; and addressing practice-based questions that contribute to understanding ethical challenges in digitally preserving and presenting Indigenous heritage. The project situates 3D modeling and heritage representation as part of the larger discourse on decolonizing core methodologies in museum management and anthropological collection practices. Results from this work can be adapted to training future researchers and digital heritage management professionals and creating meaningful partnerships in heritage documentation. This research cultivates cultures of academic integrity by informing heritage management policy on the critical importance of heritage ethics for the creation and management of 3D digitization projects involving Indigenous collections. This award is funded by the Directorate of Geosciences and the Directorate of Education and Human Resources.
Communities with the highest risk of climate change impacts may also be least able to respond and adapt to climate change, which highlights a specific need for inclusive Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) strategies. This Pilot and Feasibility project builds on the success of US Cooperative Extension Service programs that empower volunteers to conduct outreach in their own communities. It focuses on climate change, and seeks to co-design an informal STEM climate science curriculum, called Climate Stewards, in collaboration with community members from groups often underrepresented in STEM, including indigenous and Latinx communities, as well as rural women. The project is designed to strengthen community awareness as well as prioritize community voices in climate change conversations. The knowledge and skills obtained by Climate Stewards and their communities will allow for more involvement in decisions related to climate adaptation and mitigation in their communities and beyond. After establishing a proof of concept, the project seeks to expand this work to more rural and urban communities, other communities of color, and additional socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.
Grounded in the theory of diffusion of innovation as a means for volunteers to communicate information to members of a social system, this project seeks co-create a retooled Climate Stewards curriculum using inclusive and adaptive strategies. Community collaboration and involvement through new and existing partnerships, focus groups, and meetings will determine what each community needs. During the program design phase, community members can share their concerns regarding climate change as well as the unique characteristics and cultural perspectives that should be addressed. The collaboration between extension and education leverage resources that are important for developing a robust implementation and evaluation process. This project is expected to have a significant influence on local and national programs that are looking to incorporate climate change topics into their programming and/or broaden their reach to underrepresented communities. The hypotheses tested in this project describe how inclusion-based approaches may influence competencies in STEM topics and their impact on communities, specifically willingness to take action. Hypothesis 1: STEM competencies in climate issues increase with interactive and peer learning approaches. Hypothesis 2: Community participation in the co-creation of knowledge about climate change, by integrating their values and objectives into the climate change education program, increases people's motivation to become engaged in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
This Pilot and Feasibility project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Patricia TownsendRoslynn McCannMelissa KreyeArthur Nash
This project will draft a framework to guide citizen science projects in addressing issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Citizen science, sometimes called community science, involves volunteers who use science research procedures to collect valid scientific data for research projects and who often learn much about science in the process. These projects contribute directly to scientific research and often collect data of direct relevance to many communities. Although there are millions of citizen science volunteers, only a small proportion come from marginalized communities. The project will host a series of six, half-day virtual (online) workshops with scholars and practitioners with deep understanding of the participatory sciences and issues related to EDI. Workshop participants will discuss topics relevant to preparing a framework to provide guidance for integrating support EDI practices in citizen science. The project will disseminate the framework and workshop recommendations through publications for researchers and practitioners, a new website that will serve as a hub for relevant resources and EDI professional development, blogposts, and webinars.
This project will focus on EDI issues in institution-led, large-scale, citizen science projects. The project will organize workshops addressing issues relating to: (1) designing multipurpose projects that can be useful for empowering communities with data addressing community needs, providing researchers a large and robust data set, and providing learners with opportunities to develop a deeper understanding of research; (2) developing diverse leadership and engaging marginalized communities in framing research priorities; and (3) supporting strategies across citizen science projects to address barriers to participation, identity professional development needs, and create inclusive models that foster trust, create supportive networks, and build capacity for EDI in citizen science. The workshop will include approximately 20 participants, including researchers, project leaders and practitioners, with a majority of workshop participants belonging to groups underrepresented in science, such as Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous people.
This award is funded in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
This project will create the specification for a learner-controlled system to represent youth learning in Out-of-School-Time (OST) settings, to improve access to future Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities. For learners to pursue a STEM education, and STEM careers, they must be able to move through "gatekeeping" mechanisms that filter and sort students based on factors such as prior coursework and grades, teacher recommendations, and language proficiency assessments. Even though abundant evidence shows that such measures fail to capture all important aspects of STEM learning, they are traditionally relied upon in secondary and post-secondary STEM education contexts as indicators of preparation for future STEM learning. These systemic processes exclude certain minoritized groups, including Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), low income, immigrant and refugee youth, and youth learning English, from high-quality secondary and post-secondary STEM learning experiences because existing measures do not validate their prior knowledge and experiences. Yet, minoritized youth often engage in OST STEM learning opportunities, where their readiness for future learning opportunities is nurtured and valued. One challenge is to reliably document this readiness in a usable format so youth can access new STEM learning opportunities, especially in post-secondary contexts. This project builds strategically upon earlier work focusing on the democratization of STEM learning through vehicles such as digital micro-credentials or badges, and upon digital portfolios. Missing from these earlier efforts was integration of these platforms with an infrastructure that connected youth learners to OST STEM learning organizations and to future STEM learning opportunities. This Innovations in Development project brings together minoritized youth and their families, OST providers, and admissions officials from higher education institutions to explore the needed design features for OST "transcripts," and user stories that describe how software systems can support their creation and sharing. Grounded in the concept of mastery-based learning, where learning is demonstrated via action, learners will control what is included in the transcript so that they create their own narratives about their learning experiences. Recognizing that documentation is not the key focus of most STEM OST organizations, this project will provide direct support for identifying and codifying learning goals or outcomes that learners and their families find relevant and important within different STEM activities. 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.
The project will take a Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) approach and proceed by convening representatives from three main stakeholder groups (youth and their families, OST providers, and admissions staff) to engage in a series of discovery and design activities. Project partners, including the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MA), STEAMville (IL), STUDIO (WA), and Wolverine Pathways (MI), will work together with the PIs to design templates learners can use to characterize STEM learning from each provider, aligned with different STEM learning foci (e.g., computer science, computational thinking, cross-cutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and mathematics). Data collected from these sessions will be used to address the following research questions: (1) How and why do youth and families from minoritized communities understand and choose to participate in STEM OST learning opportunities?, (2) How do youth understand and interact with STEM OST learning opportunities?, (3) How do OST providers characterize the STEM learning goals in the activities they provide?, and (4) How do college admissions personnel view the role of informal STEM learning as part of a holistic admissions process? This work has the potential to further the understanding of how OST learning can be documented and shared as a part of the larger ecosystem of STEM learning trajectories. By deeply engaging the perspectives and voices of minoritized youth and families, this project seeks to develop a valid and trustworthy instrument that recognizes and serves their STEM learning, thus broadening the participation of minoritized youth in STEM education and careers. This work will also benefit OST providers, by translating the documentation of youth STEM learning into forms that may help communicate the efficacy of their programs in ways that further their missions, including communicating evidence of effectiveness to both future participants and funders.
The Ice Worlds media project will inspire millions of children and adults to gain new knowledge about polar environments, the planet’s climate, and humanity’s place within Earth’s complex systems—supporting an informed, STEM literate citizenry. Featuring the NSF-funded THOR expedition to Thwaites glacier, along with contributions of many NSF-supported researchers worldwide, Ice Worlds will share the importance of investments in STEM with audiences in giant screen theaters, on television, online, and in other informal settings. Primary project deliverables include a giant screen film, a filmmaking workshop for Native American middle school students that will result in a documentary, a climate storytelling professional development program for informal educators, and a knowledge-building summative evaluation. The project’s largest target audience is middle school learners (ages 11-14); specific activities are designed for Native American youth and informal science practitioners. Innovative outreach will engage youth underserved in science inspiring a new generation of scientists and investigative thinkers. The project’s professional development programs will build the capacity of informal educators to engage communities and communicate science. The Ice Worlds project is a collaboration among media producers Giant Screen Films, Natural History New Zealand, PBS, and Academy Award nominated film directors (Yes/No Productions). Additional collaborators include Northwestern University, The American Indian Science and Engineering Society, the Native American Journalism Association, a group of museum and science center partners, and a team of advisors including scientific and Indigenous experts associated with the NSF-funded Study of Environmental Arctic Change initiative.
The goals of the project are: 1) to increase public understanding of the processes and consequences of environmental change in polar ecosystems, 2) to explore the effectiveness of the giant screen format to impart knowledge, inspire motivation and caring for nature, 3) to improve middle schoolers’ interest, confidence and engagement in STEM topics and pursuits—broadly and through a specific program for Native American youth, and 4) to build informal educators’ capacity to share stories of climate change in their communities. The main evaluation questions are 1) to what extent does the Ice World film affect learning, engagement, and motivation around STEM pursuits and environmental problem solving 2) what is the added value of companion media for youth’s giant screen learning over short and longer term, and 3) what are the impacts of the culturally based Native American youth workshops.
The evaluation work will involve a Native American youth advisory panel and a panel of science center practitioners in the giant screen film’s development and evaluation process. Formative evaluation of the film will involve recruiting youth from diverse backgrounds, including representation of Native youth, to see the film in the giant screen theater of a partner site. Post viewing surveys and group discussions will explore their experience of the film with respect to engagement, learning, evoking spatial presence, and motivational impact. A summative evaluation of the completed film will assess its immediate and longer term impacts. Statistical analyses will be conducted on all quantitative data generated from the evaluation, including a comparison of pre and post knowledge scores. An evaluation of the Tribal Youth Media program will include a significant period of formative evaluation and community engagement to align activities to the needs and interests of participating students. Culturally appropriate measures, qualitative methods and frameworks will be used to assess the learning impacts. Data will be analyzed to determine learning impacts of the workshop on youth participants as well as mentors and other stakeholder participants. Evaluation of the community climate storytelling professional development component will include lessons learned and recommendations for implementation.
This innovations in development project will develop and study the Wéetespeme Stewardship Program (Wéetespeme: “I am of this land”). Tribal led, the project supports and studies climate science learning experiences grounded in traditional ecological knowledge, culturally relevant pedagogy, and land education pedagogy. Nez Perce high-school youth and college-age adults will choose specific species and places; work with tribal resource management offices to learn to monitor, assess, and mitigate climate impacts; and receive mentorship from tribal elders, as they co-develop climate-science adaptive management plans for local concerns. Adaptive management plans may include topics such as: drought and extreme weather impacts, shifts in animal populations and migration patterns, cultivating traditional foods, and managing important cultural sites. The Tribal research team will collaborate with curriculum developers and Indigenous graduate student(s) from the University of Idaho and Northwest Youth Corps to explore how a STEM curriculum centered on cultural identity and traditional knowledge can align with Indigenous youths’ identities, resource responsibilities, and understanding and interest in STEM career pathways within the Tribe and in the region. 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 understanding of deeper learning by participants. This project’s approach to curriculum development, and youths’ identity and career interest development, will contribute to the informal STEM learning field’s nascent understanding of Tribal-driven education efforts, and approaches to blending or bridging traditional ecological knowledge and Western ways of knowing. With co-funding from the Directorate of Geosciences’ (GEO), this project will further advance efforts related to the application of traditional ecological knowledge to the geosciences, including Indigenous workforce development opportunities and research experiences for Indigenous graduate students.
Over a two-year duration, the study will address two research questions. 1) How and in what ways does a culturally relevant out-of-school curriculum support Indigenous youths’ understanding of their own identity, resource responsibility, and possible career pathways, including those on Tribal land? 2) How and in what ways does a culturally relevant out-of-school curriculum develop Indigenous youths’ ability to monitor and address climate change impacts, to protect, preserve and recover land relationships that are central to their cultural identities and values? Thirty-two college-age young adults and high-school youth (sixteen of each age group) will participate in the Wéetespeme Stewardship Program and research study. Indigenous research methodologies will guide the approach to investigating and sharing Indigenous youths’ understanding of their own identity, resource responsibility, possible career pathways, and learning experiences within the Wéetespeme Stewardship Program activities. Two Indigenous graduate students will play a central role in conducting the research, supporting systemic impacts within, and beyond, the Tribe. Methods will be embedded in learners’ experiences and will include field journals, adaptive management plans, story maps, and talk circles. Youth will also participate as research partners: understanding the research questions, assisting with the analysis, contributing to interpretation of the findings, and co-authoring manuscripts that share their stories and this work. The informal STEM curriculum will be shared regionally, allowing for Tribes in the plateau region to benefit from culturally relevant approaches youth engagement to support climate resilience. The results of the research will also be shared more broadly, contributing to the emerging knowledge-base about the ways that cultural practices and values, guided by land education pedagogy and the mentorship of traditional ecological knowledge keepers, and embedded in informal STEM learning experiences, can contribute to Indigenous youths’ identities and understanding of, and investment in, local and meaningful environmental resources and STEM career pathways.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Nakia WilliamsonKarla Bradley EitelJeff ParkerJosiah Pinkham
This Innovations in Development project is funded by 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. Specifically, this project connects Native Hawaiian youth ages 12-17 and their family members to STEM by channeling their cultural relationship with ʻāina, the sustaining elements of the natural world including the land, sea, and air. This project seeks to: broaden participation of Native Hawaiian youth who have been historically underrepresented in STEM; actively uphold Native Hawaiian ways of knowing and traditional knowledge; articulate the science rooted in cultural wisdom; and bring STEM into the lives of participants as they connect to the ʻāina. In partnership with six ʻāina-based community organizations across Hawaiʻi, this project will develop, implement, and study ʻāina-centered environmental education activities that explore solutions to local environmental problems. For example, in one module youth and their families will explore of a section of a nearby stream; identify and discuss the native, non-native, and invasive species; remove invasive species from a small section of the stream and make observations leading to discussions of unintended consequences and systemic impacts; ultimately, learners will meet at additional local waterways to engage in similar explorations and discussions, transferring their knowledge to understanding the impacts of construction on local streams and coral reefs. To this effort, the community-based organizations bring their expertise in preserving Hawaiian culture and sustainable island lifestyle, including rural and urban systems such as farming and irrigation traditions and the restoration of cultural sites. University of Hawai’i faculty and staff bring expertise in Environmental Science, Biology, Hawaiian Studies and Problem-Based Learning Curriculum Development. This project further supports organizational learning and sharing among the six community-based organizations. Grounded in Hawaiian ʻAʻo, where learning and teaching are the same interaction, community-based organizations will create a Community of Practice that will co-learn Problem-Based Learning pedagogy; co-learn and engage in research and evaluation methods; and share experiential and traditional knowledge to co-develop the ʻāina-based environmental education activities.
This project is uniquely situated to study the impact of community-led culturally relevant pedagogy on Hawaiian learners’ interests and connections to environmental science, and to understand ʻāina-based learning through empirical research. Research methods draw on Community-Based Participatory Research and Indigenous Research Methods to develop a collaborative research design process incorporated into the project’s key components. Community members, researchers, and evaluators will work together to examine the following research questions: 1) How does environmental Problem-Based Learning situate within ʻāina-based informal contexts?; 2) What are the environmental education learning impacts of ʻāina-based activities on youth and family participants?; and 3) How does the ʻāina-centered Problem-Based Learning approach to informal STEM education support STEM knowledge, interest and awareness? The evaluation will employ a mixed-methods participatory design to explore program efficacy, fidelity, and implementation more broadly across community-based sites, as well as program sustainability within each community-based site. Anticipated project outcomes are a 15-week organizational learning and sharing program with six ʻāina-based community organizations and 72 staff; the design and implementation of 18 activities to reach 360 youth and at least one of their family members; and the launch of an ʻāina-based STEM Community of Practice. The project’s research and development process for ʻāina-centered environmental education activities will be shared broadly and provide a useful example for other organizations locally and nationally working in informal settings with Native or Indigenous populations.