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.
Reflecting on the practice of storytelling, this practice insight explores how collaborations between scholars and practitioners can improve storytelling for science communication outcomes with publics. The case studies presented demonstrate the benefits of collaborative storytelling for inspiring publics, promoting understanding of science, and engaging publics more deliberatively in science. The projects show how collaboration between scholars and practitioners [in storytelling] can happen across a continuum of scholarship from evaluation and action research to more critical thinking
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Michelle RiedlingerJenni MetcalfeAyelet Baram-TsabariMarta EntradasMarina JoubertLuisa Massarani
During the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, we initiated a collaboration between astrophysicists in Western Australia working toward building the largest telescope on Earth, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), and Indigenous artists living in the region where the SKA is to be built. We came together to explore deep traditions in Indigenous culture, including perspectives of the night sky, and the modern astrophysical understanding of the Universe. Over the course of the year, we travelled as a group and camped at the SKA site, we sat under the stars and shared stories about the
"Knowledge and information are essential for people to respond successfully to the opportunities and challenges of social, economic and technological changes (...). But to be useful, knowledge and information must be effectively communicated to people", says the Food and Agricultural Organization. India is home to a number of ICT-enabled development initiatives, and we will look at one of them to learn how an effective communication strategy is used.
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, in collaboration with the Institute for Learning Innovation, will implement "Sharing the Universe." This research and implementation project is designed to include both a comprehensive, two-phased research component, as well as a large-scale national dissemination. The intended impacts are to improve the quality and effectiveness of informal science education activities provided by amateur astronomers; increase the frequency of public engagements in astronomy; and broaden the variety of events and diversity of the outreach to include underserved and underrepresented audiences. The project will create a community of practice using club leaders to improve astronomy clubs nationwide through research tools, training and outreach skills. Project deliverables include Phase I research which is designed to gain an understanding of how outreach-orientated clubs function and identify strategies that make successful clubs effective. Phase II will examine a core group of 20 clubs in detail to further understand the outreach culture while using interventions developed from the Phase I results such as a training DVD, Online Resource Library, Outreach Toolkit and a robust community of practice. The final deliverable will be the dissemination of proven strategies and best practices revealed by the research to 200 diverse astronomy clubs across the country. Strategic impact will be realized in increased outreach capacity among amateur astronomers and a strong model for astronomy clubs with proven best practices and resources. It is anticipated this project will reach more than 4,400 amateur astronomers and indirectly impact more than one million Americans in astronomy clubs in four years. Inverness Research will conduct the summative evaluation of the project.
"From Earth to the Universe" (FETTU) is a collection of astronomical images that showcase some of the most popular, current views of our Universe. The images, representing the wide variety of astronomical objects known to exist, have so far been exhibited in about 500 locations throughout the world as part of the International Year of Astronomy. In the United States, over 40 FETTU exhibits have occurred in 25 states in such locations as libraries, airports, nature centers, parks and college campuses. Based on preliminary evaluations currently underway, this project – a large-scale, worldwide
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting. It describes the radio and stage storytelling programs undertaken by the Center for Chemical Evolution, a CCI jointly funded by NSF and NASA.
NASA Science and Technology on the Family Calendar investigated the possibility of using local public and charter schools to recruit groups of families with middle-school-age children who would meet regularly to create NASA-themed programs for presentation to the general public at the Rochester Museum & Science Center (RMSC). The lead institution was the Rochester Museum & Science Center, in partnership with the Insight Lab at the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science of the Rochester Institute of Technology, with evaluation services provided by the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester.
The original project concept was to work through the Rochester City School District, the Genesee Community Charter School (GCCS), the Rush-Henrietta Central Schoool District, and the West Irondequoit Central School District to recruit a cohort of twelve families from each district and GCCS. Each cohort would meet regularly over a period of months to develop a program of activities with support from RMSC educators and RIT students and STEM faculty.
Experience over three years indicated that recruiting family groups through RMSC's and RIT's own channels of communication could be as effective or more effective than working through school districts. Although some cohorts started with as many as twelve families, completion of each project was actually accomplished by smaller core groups of two to five families. Because of other stresses on students, parents and the school, one of our Rochester City School District partners was unable to produce a cohort of families that could meet regularly. For this school we arranged special all-school visits to the RMSC's Strasenburgh Planetarium. We also recruited a new cohort from the general public to create a sixth event as envisioned in our proposal.
Each of our six successful cohorts produced its own public event running from one to ten days at RMSC: "Planet Next: Where Are We Going and How Will We Get There?", "Space Odyssey: Colonization of Space," "Lasers," "Aliens: Friend or Foe?", "Evolution of Electronics" and "Our Home Planet." These events were created during 105 family meetings attended by 269 unique individuals (including children of all ages and adults) and seen by an estimated 5910 RMSC visitors.
The NASA Saturday in the Pee Dee, an underserved region of South Carolina, is a three year project led by ScienceSouth, partnering with The Dooley Planetarium at Francis Marion University, to deliver hands on programming, astronomical viewing sessions, and planetarium programs to increase public awareness of NASA and its on-going missions, and to generate an interest in the areas of STEM education and the pursuit of careers in these fields. The audience is the residents in a ten-county region of South Carolina known as the Pee Dee, with Florence, South Carolina as the economic hub of the region. The Pee Dee has a very high percentage of minority residents, people living at or below the poverty level, and poor performance on standardized test especially in the STEM related topics. There will be a total of ten hands-on programs directly related to on-going NASA missions, including astrobiology, near earth objects, robotics, rocketry, geocaching, deep space, weather systems on Earth, the sun and distant stars, telescopes, and planetary objects. These programs will be held at the ScienceSouth Pavilion or Dooley Planetarium. The programs will be complemented initially with eight observation sessions the first year, with the number expanding in the following years to include more rural areas in the Pee Dee. The Florence County Library system and Florence School District One have agreed to assist in increasing public awareness of programs and provide additional resources for further information about related topics.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Stephen WelchJeannette MyersNathan FlowersAnthony Martinez
Journey into Space (JIS) is designed to improve student, educator, and general public understanding of earth/space science and its relationship to NASA goals and objectives through the use of a traveling GeoDome (inflatable planetarium) and engaging supporting programming at The Journey Museum. The Museum collaborates with area colleges, school districts, K-12 educators, youth serving organizations, astronomical affiliations, and others. The overall goal of JIS is to improve student, educator, and general public understanding of STEM and its relationship to NASA goals and objectives. JIS objectives are: 1) To increase student and public interest and awareness in STEM areas; 2) To increase student interest in pursuing STEM careers; 3) To improve teacher knowledge of NASA related science; 4) To increase teacher comfort level and confidence in teaching NASA related science in their classrooms; 5) To increase collaboration between informal and formal science educators; 6) To increase student and public understanding of Plains Indians ethno astronomy; and 7) To increase museum visitors’ interest and understanding of NASA related science. The Museum produced 2 films (“Cradle of Life”, “Looney Moons”) that are offered daily, 4 recurring monthly programs (Final Frontier Friday, Amazing Science, SciGirls that became Science Explorer’s Club, and Black Hills Astronomical Society meetings), summer robotics classes and teachers’ workshops, annual Earth Science Day, in addition to the GeoDome programming that has toured the region including presentations in the three poorest counties in the United States. The ethno-astronomy is underway in partnership with Oglala Lakota College and South Dakota Space Grant Consortium.
CREATE (Creating Relevant Education in Astronomy Through Experience) will immerse and teach astronomy to underserved high school students in Milwaukee who will then become planetarium producers and astronomy mentors to younger students. The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) is the lead this effort in conjunction with the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee (BGCGM). MPM will also work with NASA and local astronomy institutions (Adler Planetarium & Yerkes Observatory) for educational materials and speakers. CREATE’s goal is to increase participation of high school youth from central-city neighborhoods in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. The objectives are to: Engage these students who have shown an interest in STEM and leverage NASA resources to produce relevant astronomy education. Have the students become mentors for peers and younger students—thus inspiring themselves as well as their mentees to continue their educational paths in science. Build interest in NASA programs and in STEM careers with the creation of their planetarium shows and educational programs for their mentees. Expand CREATE’s impact by making these programs available nationwide and distribution of the planetarium show. The CREATE project will span three years. The first year will be spent on further development and planning of the program. During years two and three, CREATE staff will work with the students in an intensive 40-week program. Twenty students will be chosen to participate in CREATE each year.
Amateur astronomers play a critical role engaging the general public in astronomy. The role of individual and club-related factors is explored using data from two surveys (Survey 1 N=1142; Survey 2 N=1242) of amateur astronomers. Analysis suggests that formal or informal training in astronomy, age, club membership, length of club membership, and participation in club service are factors that contribute to the likelihood of an amateur engaging in education and public outreach. Sex (male or female) and club service were found to influence the level of outreach amateurs engage in. Interventions