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.
Scientists are increasingly motivated to engage the public, particularly those who do not or cannot access traditional science education opportunities. Communication researchers have identified shortcomings of the deficit model approach, which assumes that skepticism toward science is based on a lack of information or scientific literacy, and encourage scientists to facilitate open-minded exchange with the public. We describe an ambassador approach, to develop a scientist's impact identity, which integrates his or her research, personal interests and experiences to achieve societal impacts
How does focusing on “community science literacy” change the role of an informal science learning center?
This poster was presented at the 2019 NSF AISL Principal Investigators meeting.
Public engagement with science (PES) is about dialogue between scientific and technological experts and public audiences about societal questions that science can inform but not answer. In making decisions about these kinds of societal questions, social values and personal experience play roles equal to or greater than the one played by science. Rather than focusing exclusively on science itself, PES focuses on discussing problems that communities view as worth solving; the information society needs and wants from scientists; the potential risks, benefits, and consequences of new technologies
The University of Guam (UOG) NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project, GROWING STEM, addresses the grand challenge of increasing Native Pacific Islander representation in the nation's STEM enterprise, particularly in environmental sciences. The project addresses culturally-relevant and place-based research as the framework to attract, engage, and retain Native Pacific Islander students in STEM disciplines. The full science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) pathway will be addressed from K-12 to graduate studies with partnerships that include the Guam Department of Education, Humatak Community Foundation, Pacific Post-Secondary Education Council, the Guam Science and Discovery Society, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the University of Alaska-Fairbaanks. As the project progresses, the project anticipates further partnerships with the current NSF INCLUDES Launch Pilot project at the University of the Virgin Islands.
Pilot activities include summer internships for high school students, undergraduate and graduate research opportunities through UOG's Plant Nursery and the Humatak Community Foundation Heritage House. STEM professional development activities will be offered through conference participation and student research presentations in venues such as the Guam Science and Discovery Society's Guam Island-wide Science Fair and SACNAS. Faculty will be recruited to develop a mentoring protocol for the project participants. Community outreach and extension services will expand public understanding in environmental sciences from the GROW STEM project. Project metrics will include monitoring the diversity of partners, increases in community engagement, Native Pacific Islander participation in STEM activities, the number of students who desire to attain terminal STEM degrees and the number of community members reached by pilot STEM extension and outreach activities. Dissemination of the GROWING STEM pilot project results will occur through the NSF INCLUDES National Network, partner annual conferences, and local, regional and national STEM conferences.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John PetersonCheryl SanguezaElse DemeulenaereAustin Shelton
This report presents the findings from the summative evaluation of the Multi-Site Public Engagement with Science project (MSPES), funded by an NSF AISL award. MSPES aimed to bring together public audiences and professional scientists through “Building with Biology” programming - public events and forums centered on the topic of synthetic biology. The goal was to promote meaningful, two-way dialogs around this area of science, which is rapidly advancing and raising interesting social and ethical questions. The project team sought to move beyond a traditional "public understanding of science"
This article discusses the Youth in Science Action Club (SAC), which uses citizen science to investigate nature, document their discoveries, share data with the scientific community, and design strategies to protect the planet. Through collaborations with regional and national partners, SAC expands access to environmental science curriculum and training resources.
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Laura HerszenhornKatie LevedahlSuzi Taylor
In this article, science center and museum professionals from around the world share ways that they are engaging visitors in hands-on innovation. Work from the following organizations are discussed: Exploratorium, Discovery Center of Idaho, Lawrence Hall of Science, Iridescent, Conner Prairie Interactive History Park, Ideum, Discovery Place, Ontario Science Centre, Bootheel Youth Museum, Science Centre Singapore, Children's Museum of Phoenix, Discovery Museums (Acton, MA), Discovery Center of Springfield, Missouri, Museum of Science, Boston, Questacon--The National Science and Technology
The University of Alaska Fairbanks will partner with the National Optical and Astronomy Observatory, the University of Alaska Museum of the North, and the University of Washington-Bothell to bring biomaterials, optics, photonics, and nanotechnology content, art infused experiences, and career awareness to art-interested girls. This full scale development project, Project STEAM, will explore the intersections between biology, physics, and art using advanced technologies at the nano to macro scale levels. Middle school girls from predominately underrepresented Alaskan Native, Native American (Tohono O'odham, Pascula Yaqui) and Hispanic groups, their families, teachers, and Girl Scout Troop Leaders in two site locations- Anchorage, Alaska and Tucson, Arizona will participate in the project. Centered on the theme "Colors of Nature," Project STEAM will engage girls in science activities designed to enhance STEM learning and visual-spatial skills. Using advanced technologies, approximately 240 girls enrolled in the Summer Academy over the project duration will work with women scientist mentors, teachers, and Girl Scout Troop Leaders to create artistic representations of natural objects observed at the nano and macro scale levels. Forty girls will participate in the Summer Academy in year one (20 girls per site- Alaska and Arizona). In consequent years, approximately180 girls will participate in the Academy (30 girls per site). Another 1,500 girls are expected to be reached through their Girl Scout Troop Leaders (n=15) who will be trained to deliver a modified version of the program using specialized curriculum kits. In addition, over 6,000 girls and their families are expected to attend Project STEAM Science Cafe events held at local informal science education institutions at each site during the academic year. In conjunction with the programmatic activities, a research investigation will be conducted to study the impact of the program on girls' science identity. Participant discourse, pre and post assessments, and observed engagement with the scientific and artistic ideas and tools presented will be examined and analyzed. A mixed methods approach will also be employed for the formative and summative evaluations, which will be conducted by The Goldstream Group. Ultimately, the project endeavors to increase STEM learning and interest through art, build capacity through professional development, advance the research base on girls' science identity and inspire and interest girls in STEM careers.
Using data from interviews with 133 physicists and biologists working at elite research universities in the United States, we analyze narratives of outreach. We identify discipline-specific barriers to outreach and gender-specific rationales for commitment. Physicists view outreach as outside of the scientific role and a possible threat to reputation. Biologists assign greater value to outreach, but their perceptions of the public inhibit commitment. Finally, women are more likely than men to participate in outreach, a commitment that often results in peer-based informal sanctions. The study
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David JohnsonAnne EcklundAnne Lincoln
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington DC. It describes the CLUES project that provides STEM education opportunities to families.
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New Jersey Academy for Aquatic SciencesBarbara Kelly
The aim of this project is to create conversations in science museums among scientists, engineers, and public audiences about an emerging research field, synthetic biology. Synthetic biology applies science and engineering to create new biological systems, and re-design existing biological systems, for useful purposes. This is an important new area of research and development that raises societal questions about potential benefits, costs, and risks. Conversations between researchers and public audiences will focus not only on what synthetic biology is and how research in the field is carried out, but also on the potential products, outcomes, and implications for society of this work. Researchers and publics will explore personal and societal values and priorities as well as desired research outcomes so that both groups can learn from each other. Public participants will benefit from knowing about this field of research, and researchers will benefit from hearing public perspectives directly from the public participants. This project will be led by the Museum of Science with partners at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Ithaca Sciencenter, and several other universities and science museums. It 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. 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 project is aimed at pushing beyond traditional modes of communicating with public audiences rooted in "public understanding of science" modalities into the mechanisms and perspectives associated with "public engagement with science" (PES). The project will support informal educational institutions as facilitators of such PES activities through which mutual learning takes place among research experts and various publics. Formative evaluation will support the development of evaluation tools that practitioners can use themselves to measure impacts of public engagement activities on both scientist and public participants. Summative evaluation will measure the impacts of the project on informal science education practitioners and researchers participating in the development of the project. In the first year of the project, two kinds of engagement activities will be tested at eight pilot sites across the U.S. The first kind will be the focus of "showcase" events, in which researchers demonstrate and talk with museum visitors about the basics of synthetic biology and their research work. The second kind will be the focus of "forum" events in which the multi-directional conversations focus on societal implications and participants' priorities for maximizing the benefits of this new field while minimizing the risks. The work of the first year will inform development of a kit of public engagement materials that will support widespread public engagement with synthetic biology in the second year at up to 200 sites across the U.S. Successful practices and infrastructure developed by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network to support NanoDays events will be use for this broad dissemination of public engagement in synthetic biology in year 2. When the project is complete a set of tools and guides will be provided online for developing, implementing, and evaluating engagement events that bring scientists and publics together, specifically about synthetic biology, but adaptable to other emerging research topics. The informal science education field will have a better understanding of how to get scientists, engineers, and publics to engage together in discussions about the societal implications of emerging technologies, and how to evaluate the quality of that engagement for both the researchers and the publics involved. The project will also provide a sense of informed public views on societal issues related to synthetic biology that emerge through a variety of public engagement activities that take place in science museums.