This project is expanding an effective mobile making program to achieve sustainable, widespread impact among underserved youth. Making is a design-based, participant-driven endeavor that is based on a learning by doing pedagogy. For nearly a decade, California State University San Marcos has operated out-of-school making programs for bringing both equipment and university student facilitators to the sites in under-served communities. In collaboration with four other CSU campuses, this project will expand along four dimensions: (a) adding community sites in addition to school sites (b) adding rural contexts in addition to urban/suburban, (c) adding hybrid and online options in addition to in-person), and (d) including future teachers as facilitators in addition to STEM undergraduates. The program uses design thinking as a framework to engage participants in addressing real-world problems that are personally and socially meaningful. Participants will use low- and high-tech tools, such as circuity, coding, and robotics to engage in activities that respond to design challenges. A diverse group of university students will lead weekly, 90-minute activities and serve as near-peer mentors, providing a connection to the university for the youth participants, many of whom will be first-generation college students. The project will significantly expand the Mobile Making program from 12 sites in North San Diego County to 48 sites across California, with nearly 2,000 university facilitators providing 12 hours of programming each year to over 10,000 underserved youth (grades 4th through 8th) during the five-year timeline.
The project research will examine whether the additional sites and program variations result in positive youth and university student outcomes. For youth in grades 4 through 8, the project will evaluate impacts including sustained interest in making and STEM, increased self-efficacy in making and STEM, and a greater sense that making and STEM are relevant to their lives. For university student facilitators, the project will investigate impacts including broadened technical skills, increased leadership and 21st century skills, and increased lifelong interest in STEM outreach/informal science education. Multiple sources of data will be used to research the expanded Mobile Making program's impact on youth and undergraduate participants, compare implementation sites, and understand the program's efficacy when across different communities with diverse learner populations. A mixed methods approach that leverages extant data (attendance numbers, student artifacts), surveys, focus groups, making session feedback forms, observations, and field notes will together be used to assess youth and university student participant outcomes. The project will disaggregate data based on gender, race/ethnicity, grade level, and site to understand the Mobile Making program's impact on youth participants at multiple levels across contexts. The project will further compare findings from different types of implementation sites (e.g., school vs. library), learner groups, (e.g., middle vs. upper elementary students), and facilitator groups (e.g., STEM majors vs. future teachers). This will enable the project to conduct cross-case comparisons between CSU campuses. Project research will also compare findings from urban and rural school sites as well as based on the modality of teaching and learning (e.g., in-person vs. online). The mobile making program activities, project research, and a toolkit for implementing a Mobile maker program will be widely disseminated to researchers, educators, and out-of-school programs.
The Children’s Museum will collaborate with six Hartford Public Library branches, three Hartford Family Centers, and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center to provide hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) - based programs to over 1,000 local 3 to 14-year old children and their care givers. Program design and development will include planning for field trips to the museum. All participants will be given age-specific, supplemental STEAM materials to continue their learning activities at home, and families can attend more than one week of library programs, or more than three Saturdays of family center programs. The goal will be to help urban Hartford youths find new pathways toward responsible citizenry and fiscal stability.
The Whaling Museum & Education Center will expand its educational programming to benefit underserved and high-risk students in grades 2 to 5, as well as their teachers and families. The museum will develop, implement, market, and evaluate core components of its programming to reach nearly 3,000 students and 50 teachers. Museum educators will present hands-on activities in nearby schools, using real and replica artifacts and other learning materials. They will also deliver workshops for teachers at the museum to help them incorporate primary resources from the museum's collection into their curricula. A family day event will showcase what students learned from the in-class visit through displays of art projects and science posters. Other project activities will include free afterschool library programs exploring STEAM and history topics and an increase in the number of scholarships to the museum's summer camp program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brenna McCormick-Thompson
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Iteration is a central practice in art and science; however, it has yet to be deeply explored in STEAM learning environments. This study adopts a sociomaterial orientation (Fenwick and Edwards, 2013) to characterize the nature of iteration in one STEAM activity, an Optics Design Challenge, with informal educators. We found that iteration emerged as “microcycles” of interactions, specifically as adjustments, additions, and negotiations in both material artifacts and the narrative.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Many informal learning institutions use STEAM approaches to engage diverse learners. Our project aims to support educators in libraries, museums, and after school programs through a STEAM professional development (PD) series. Our PD approach is centered around a set of core STEAM practices that prioritize STEAM mindset and identity work. Participants engage in exemplar activities and design new experiences for their specific teaching and learning contexts. The series involves in- person sessions, online training, and team
Children and their families are practicing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) skills through a library program. Hand-crank generators and LED bulbs are set out on each of the tables, along with two types of dough—conductive play dough and insulating modeling clay.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brooks MitchellClaire RatcliffeKeliann LaConte
This project will incorporate lessons learned from our previously funded SEPA, based in five Title I elementary schools in the District of Columbia and Prince George’s County Maryland. In this proposal, “SCIENCE” will engage a new audience of learners in their out of school time in the setting of community libraries. We will provide programming that uses hands- on, inquiry-based learning based on our established art and science curriculum designed to improve the physical, cognitive and social development of children and their families.
SCIENCE will include instructional units, web based activities and ‘hands on/brains on’ manipulation utilizing our compact, portable and unique “art and science in a box”, which consolidates all materials needed to bring excitement to STEM learning. We will focus on preventative health areas of concern to our community, including asthma, stress, cardio-metabolic risk, sleep and behavioral issues, including bullying, genetic diseases like sickle cell disease and, injury prevention at home, in school and with sports.
We will also provide professional development training for informal educators. Specifically, we will adapt our previously successful in-school curriculum for a broader group of children from grades K–5 who utilize the District of Columbia Public Libraries (DCPL) and Enoch Pratt Free Library (EPFL). The curriculum is aligned to both Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, and will be expanded with the addition of bioengineering/imaging/computing, and mindfulness.
With our integrated-art focused STEM and preventative health educational program, we will empower children by encouraging curiosity and discovery as well as providing tools to incorporate health and science messaging to improve school readiness. Over the course of the five years, we will implement the program progressively in 10 DCPL branches and 2 Baltimore branches. Programming will take place during winter and spring breaks, professional development days, special holidays and weekends.
We will continue our successful one week hospital summer program, Dr. Bear’s Summer Science Experience, an interactive STEAM experience which takes place in the hospital and its research laboratories. In addition to student focused programming, we will also create Family Learning Events—entertaining and collaborative programs for families—to be held in DCPL and EPFL branches with a focus on disease prevention which adversely affects our community. Take home materials will include handouts, web resources, apps and links in in both English and Spanish, and will focus on reading readiness and mastery of STEM concepts.
This project will engage community members and youth in 13 rural, tribal, and Hispanic communities in the Four Corners Region of the south western U.S. with the science and cultural assets of water. Water is a significant and scarce resource in this geographic area. The Four Corners Region experiences low annual precipitation and high year-to-year fluctuations in water availability. Thus, water is a topic of great interest to community members, whose lives are shaped by water-related events such as drought, flood, and wildfires. Rural tribal, and Hispanic communities are often underserved with respect to science programming; their public libraries often function as the local science center. The project's inter-disciplinary team will develop, deploy, research, and evaluate an interactive traveling exhibit for small libraries, designed around regional water topics and complemented by interactive programming and community engagement events. Additionally, the team will build local capacity by fostering a community of practice among the host librarians, including participation through a support system--the STAR Library Network--to increase their science programming.
This project creates a traveling exhibit and complementary programming around water topics. Through an exhibit co-design model, communities will provide input in the exhibit development, identify water topics that are critical to them, and engage the multi-generational audiences. The exhibit merges the captivating attraction of water with the underlying science content and community context, giving patrons the opportunity to explore these topics through active learning stations, informational panels, citizen science-based activities, and an interactive regional watershed model. Artistic representations of water will be developed by community groups and incorporated into the exhibit as a dynamic display element.
Project goals are to:
Spark interest in and increase understanding of water as a critical resource and cultural asset across rural, tribal, and Hispanic communities in the Four Corners Region.
Increase availability of and access to engaging programming for underserved rural, tribal, and Hispanic communities focusing on the science and cultural aspects of water in the Four Corners Region.
Build capacity for libraries to implement water-focused science programs, and increase available science learning and science communication resources tailored to these informal learning settings.
Foster a Community of Practice (CoP) for participating librarians to support the development of their programming and content knowledge.
Advance the body of research on informal learning environments and their role in developing community members' science ecosystems and science identities, particularly in library settings.
The project team will rigorously assess the extent to which program approaches and components stimulate patrons' interest in science, increase science knowledge, and support building a personal science identity. The model is based on the STEM Learning Ecosystems Framework. Robust evaluation will guide the program development through a front-end needs assessment and iterative revision cycles of implementation strategies.
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.
This project will focus on addressing the challenges faced by rural youth with a particular emphasis on those youth who are English Language Learners. The project will provide informal education via libraries and librarians which can provide unique opportunities for rural youth and communities. Building on several years of research and experimentation, this project will augment the formal education sector, as well. The settings for the project are 12 rural school districts in largely Latinx communities. The project partners are the Space Science Institute, the American Library Association (ALA), the Institute for Learning Innovation and the Twin Cities Public Television. Expertise from the Latinx community will play a significant part in the project. The project will engage learners from diverse backgrounds, ages, and interests in science through a coordinated and tested strategy incorporating three Learning Pathways (i.e., Science Learning Spaces, Programs, and Science Kits) in a public library environment. The results should yield a model for Nationwide application.
The main goals are: 1) to establish learning pathways to engage rural communities through exhibit host libraries and (2) to increase art-rich STEM learning opportunities for rural communities through libraries and their support systems. Building on an established training model, the project will introduce library staff to the STEAM content of the exhibits and guide them in developing their own STEAM Learning Pathways. SciGirls digital media, hands-on activities, family resources, and a training network will expand the depth and reach of the project. The project draws on existing professional infrastructure to increase library staff capacity through ALA and the Institute's established community of practice. The researchers will study the efficacy of each pathway, alone and in tandem, on participant's interest development and persistence. The research will use a mixed-methods design-based approach that involves questionnaires, interviews and case studies.
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.