Explora Science Center and Children's Museum of Albuquerque will conduct “Roots: supporting Black scholars in STEAM,” a project to increase Explora’s relationships with and relevance to Albuquerque’s Black communities and increase opportunities for Black students in Albuquerque to pursue STEAM. The project is designed to foster a holistic, place-based approach to K–16 STEAM learning that incorporates a growth mindset and highlights the contributions of community members, particularly Black STEAM professionals. The museum will collaborate on project activities with the Mexico Black Leadership Council, the Greater Albuquerque Housing Partnership/Casa Feliz, the Community School at Emerson Elementary, and Sandia National Laboratories’ Black Leadership Committee.
American Indian and Alaska Native communities continue to disproportionately face significant environmental challenges and concerns as a predominately place-based people whose health, culture, community, and livelihood are often directly linked to the state of their local environment. With increasing threats to Native lands and traditions, there is an urgent need to promote ecological sustainability awareness and opportunities among all stakeholders within and beyond the impacted areas. This is especially true among the dozens of tribes and over 50,000 members of the Coast Salish Nations in the Pacific Northwest United States. The youth within these communities are particularly vulnerable. This Innovations in Development project endeavors to address this serious concern by implementing a multidimensional, multigenerational model aimed at intersecting traditional ecological knowledge with contemporary knowledge to promote: (a) environmental sustainability awareness, (b) increased STEM knowledge and skills across various scientific domains, and (c) STEM fields and workforce opportunities within Coast Salish communities. Building on results from a prior pilot study, the project will be grounded on eight guiding principles. These principles will be reflected in all aspects of the project including an innovative, culturally responsive toolkit, curriculum, museum exhibit and programming, workshops, and a newly established community of practice. If successful, this project could provide new insights on effective mechanisms for not only promoting STEM knowledge and skills within informal contexts among Coast Salish communities but also awareness and social change around issues of environmental sustainability in the Pacific Northwest.
Over a five-year period, the project will build upon an extant curriculum and findings codified in a pilot study. Each aspect of the pilot work will be refined to ensure that the model established in this Innovations and Development project is coherent, comprehensive, and replicable. Workshops and internships will prepare up to 200 Coast Salish Nation informal community educators to implement the model within their communities. Over 2,500 Coast Salish Nation and Swinomish youth, adults, educators, and elders are expected to be directly impacted by the workshops, internships, curriculum and online toolkit. Another 300 learners of diverse ages are expected to benefit from portable teaching collections developed by the project. Through a partnership with the Washington State Burke Natural History Museum, an exhibit and museum programming based on the model will be developed and accessible in the Museum, potentially reaching another 35,000 people each year. The project evaluation will assess the extent to which the following expected outcomes are achieved: (a) increased awareness and understanding of Indigenous environmental sustainability challenges; (b) increased skills in developing and implementing education programs through an Indigenous lens; (c) increased interest in and awareness of the environmental sciences and other STEM disciplines and fields; and (d) sustainable relationships among the Coast Salish Nations. A process evaluation will be conducted to formatively monitor and assess the work. A cross cultural team, including a recognized Coast Salish Indigenous evaluator, will lead the summative evaluation. The project team is experienced and led by representatives from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Oregon State University, Garden Raised Bounty, the Center for Lifelong STEM Learning, the Urban Indian Research Institute, Feed Seven Generations, and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
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.
In April 2018, FHI 360, under the leadership of Maryann Stimmer and Merle Froschl, convened a meeting of thought leaders in Washington, D.C. to capture a “snapshot” of STEM education. They subsequently conducted additional interviews with more than 50 local and national policy leaders; public and private funders; researchers; PreK-12 and post-secondary educators; parents, and leaders of afterschool programs, science centers and youth-serving organizations. The purpose of this summary report is to identify current trends and gaps to inform research, policy, and practice in order to reinforce
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 understandings of deeper learning by participants. This Innovations in Development project will develop a collaborative program to connect and prepare researchers from divergent disciplines to communicate science to publics of all ages in three distinct informal environments: pop-ups at community events, experiential learning with problem solving events for youth, and presentations at a science museum. It will study the effects of this program on the identity and motivations of STEM researchers and evaluate the short and medium-term outcomes for public audiences. Project partners include, The STEAM Factory, OHI/O Informal Learning in Tech Program, and the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) all located in Columbus, Ohio.
The primary goals of this project are as follows. 1) Develop a collaborative program that connects and prepares researchers from divergent disciplines to creatively and effectively communicate science to people of all ages. 2) Evaluate the short and medium-term learning outcomes across different informal learning settings. 3) Study the effect of this collaborative program on the motivations and identify of the researchers. The specific research question is: In what ways do researchers motivations and identities further develop because of these collaborative experiences with divergent perspectives? A mixed method approach will be used. Data will be collected and analyzed from 3 cohorts of researchers who implement programs in different informal learning settings. A series of pre- and post interviews with scientists will be designed to answer the research question above. Interviews will be grounded in self-determination theory. Later reflective surveys will serve as triangulation for the data.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sathya GopalakrishnanJustin MeyerRachel KajfezArnab Nandi
Informal science learning (ISL) organizations that are successful at providing meaningful science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) experiences for Latino children, youth, and their families share some common traits. They have leaders and staff who believe in the importance of developing culturally relevant models and frameworks that meet the needs and acknowledge the legacy of STEAM in Latino communities. Such organizations are willing to take risks to create experiences that are culturally meaningful, garner funding and implement programs by working closely with their
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Cheryl JuarezVerónika NúñezExploratorium
Designing Our World (DOW) was a four-year NSF-funded initiative in which the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) sought to promote girls’ pursuit of engineering careers through community-based programming, exhibition development, and identity research. The overarching aim of DOW was to engage girls ages 9–14 with experiences that illuminate the social, personally relevant, and altruistic nature of engineering. In addition to programming for girls, the project also included workshops for parents/caregivers, professional development for staff from community partners; and an exhibition
Designing Our World (DOW) was a four-year NSF-funded initiative in which the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) sought to promote girls’ pursuit of engineering careers through community-based programming, exhibition development, and identity research. The overarching aim of DOW was to engage girls ages 9–14 with experiences that illuminate the social, personally relevant, and altruistic nature of engineering. In addition to programming for girls, the project also included workshops for parents/caregivers, professional development for staff from community partners; and an exhibition
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 landscape for out-of-school STEM learning in Hong Kong is evolving. In 2017, to capture this change, the Croucher Foundation conducted a mapping exercise. This is the second annual mapping exercise conducted by the Croucher Foundation.
The study reveals a rich and vibrant ecosystem for out-of-school STEM in Hong Kong with almost 2,000 discrete activities covering a very wide range of science disciplines. This second report indicates extremely rapid growth in available out-of-school STEM activities compared to 2016 and an even larger increase in the number of organisations offering out
The Croucher Foundation recently embarked on a research study to explore informal science learning in Hong Kong. This is the first study to focus on the out-of-school ecosystem for science learning in Hong Kong. This exploratory and investigative study identified over a thousand out-of-school STEM activities that happened between June 2015 and May 2016, including courses, workshops and exhibitions available to Hong Kong school students over this twelve-month period. The study excluded tutorials and exam-orientated courses and focused instead on activities designed to encourage an interest in