This NOVA multiplatform media initiative consisted of a 2-hour nationally broadcast PBS documentary, Polar Extremes; a 10-part original digital series, Antarctic Extremes; an interactive game, Polar Lab; accompanying polar-themed digital shorts, radio stories, text reporting, and social media content; a collection of educational resources on PBS LearningMedia; and community screening events and virtual field trips for science classrooms. Across multiple media platforms the project’s video content had nearly 13 million views.
The research explored the potential for informal STEM learning
The Brains On! exploratory research study was guided by three overarching research questions:
Who is the audience for Brains On! and what are their motivations for listening to children’s science podcasts?
How are Brains On! listeners using the podcast and engaging with its content?
What kinds of impacts does Brains On! have on its audiences?
These questions were answered through a three-phase mixed-methods research design. Each phase informed the next, providing additional insights into answering the research questions. Phase 1 was a review of a sample of secondary data in the
Previous research has identified parental involvement—the ways parents and other caring adults interact with children in and outside of the home, and the kinds of learning materials with which parents surround children—as key to helping children develop knowledge and skills in literacy and math (Bassok, Finch, Lee, Reardon, & Waldfogel, 2016; Burgess, Hecht, & Lonigan, 2002; Niklas, Nguyen, Cloney, Tayler, & Adams, 2016; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Skwarchuk, Sowinski, & LeFevre, 2014). Parental support may be critical to children’s developing knowledge and understanding in science as well.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Megan SilanderTodd GrindalNaomi HupertElisa GarciaKea AndersonPhilip VaheyShelley Pasnik
InformalScience.org is an online collection of resources designed to serve a broad community of professionals whose work relates to informal education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Funded by the National Science Foundation and managed by the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE), InformalScience hosts a variety of usercontributed resources, including a wiki of evidence-based information on the impacts of informal STEM and a database of over 7,000 reports, articles, project descriptions, and other items uploaded by CAISE and website members.
The
The purpose of the summative evaluation is to two-fold: 1) provide documentation to NSF about the extent to which the project met its goals and objectives, and 2) give the Lab of Ornithology information about how well the Web application and the ecosystem within which it resides is engaging the intended audiences. The main evaluation questions the study needed to answer related to who is participating in YardMap, how much participation affects participants’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors around birding, gardening, and citizen science.
A true experimental design was used, where