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
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Michelle RiedlingerJenni MetcalfeAyelet Baram-TsabariMarta EntradasMarina JoubertLuisa Massarani
In partnership with the Digital NEST, students engage in near to peer learning with a technical tool for the benefit of a nonprofit that tackles issues the youth are passionate about. Youth build first from an 'internal’ Impactathon, to planning and developing an additional Impactathon for a local partner and then traveling to another partner elsewhere in the state. Participants range from 14 to 24 from UC Santa Cruz students to middle schoolers from Watsonville and Salinas.
This poster was presented at the 2019 AISL Principal Investigators Meeting.
This pilot study will examine the effectiveness of an innovative applied social change, community and technology based program on marginalized youths' access, interest, efficacy and motivation to learn and engage in digital technology applications. Using stratified near-peer and peer-to-peer mentoring approaches, the pilot builds on extant literature that indicates that peer-supported hands-on mentoring and experiences can alleviate some barriers to youth engagement in digital technologies, particularly among underrepresented groups. In this project, undergraduate students will mentor and work collaboratively with high school youth primarily of Hispanic descent and community-based organizations to develop creative technology-based solutions to address social issues and challenges within their local communities, culminating in events called Impactathons. These community-hosted local and state-wide events set this pilot project apart from similar work in the field. The Impactathons not only provide a space for intellectual discourse and problem-solving among the undergraduate-youth-community partners but the Impactathons will also codify expertise from scientists, social scientists, technologists, community leaders, and other stakeholders to develop technology-based solutions with real world application. If successful, a distal outcome will be increased youth interest in digital technologies and related fields. In the short term, favorable findings will provide preliminary evidence of success and lay the foundation for a more extensive study in the future.
This pilot project is a collaboration between the Everett Program, a student-led program for Technology and Social Change at the University of California Santa Cruz - a Hispanic Serving Institution - and the Digital NEST, a non-profit, high-tech youth career development and collaboration space for young people ages 14-24. Through this partnership and other recruitment efforts, an estimated 70-90 individuals will participate in the Impactathon pilot program over two years. Nearly two-thirds of the participants are expected to be undergraduate students. They will receive extensive training in near-peer and peer-to-peer mentoring and serve as mentors for and co-innovation developers with the high school youth participants. The undergraduates and youth will partner with local community organizations to identify a local social challenge that can be addressed through a technology-based solution. The emergent challenges will vary and could span the spectrum of STEM and applied social science topics of interest. Working in informal contexts (i.e., afterschool. weekend), the undergraduate-youth-community partner teams will work collaboratively to develop practical technology-based solutions to real world challenges. The teams will convene three times per year, locally and statewide, at student and community led Impactathons to share their work and glean insights from other teams to refine their innovations. In parallel, the research team will examine the effectiveness of the Impactathon model in increasing the undergraduate and youths' interest, motivation, excitement, engagement and learning of digital technologies. In addition to the research, the formative and summative evaluations should provide valuable insights on the effectiveness of the model and its potential for expansion and replication.
The project is co-funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Program and STEM +C. The AISL program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. STEM + C focuses on research and development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to the integration of computing within STEM teaching and learning for preK-12 students in both formal and informal settings.
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.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. The uses of technologies in emergency management and public safety are emerging rapidly, but it could take years for school STEM curricula to catch up with the technologies that are already being deployed in the field. Informal learning environments, such as Teen Science Cafés, provide a compelling venue for youth learning about rapidly-developing STEM fields such as technology. The floods and devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey provide a timely learning opportunity for them. This project, in addition to developing new materials for learning about technologies, will provide much-needed baseline research on teens' understanding of technology, technology careers, and emergency preparedness. Leveraging the robust platform of the NSF-funded Teen Science Café, the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance will build upon its existing partnership with Science Education Solutions to develop and implement a package of educational activities, tools, and resources for a Teen Science Café that is focused on community flood events and response, using Hurricane Harvey as a model and case study. The materials will focus on advances in sensor technology, data visualization, social media, and other mobile communication apps used to detect, monitor and respond to flooding and natural disasters. The package of materials will be embraced by 20 sites in Maine. The goal is to engage at least 600 youth in themed Cafés focusing on how technology was used to respond to Harvey and is being used to manage and respond to flooding more generally. An important related goal is to conduct baseline research on what teens currently know about the flood-related technologies, as well as what they learn about it from this experience derived from recent floods in Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean islands.
A research goal of our work was to collect baseline information on teens’ level of knowledge about the role of technology in responding to a variety of natural disasters. To our knowledge, the field has not developed measures of knowledge of this increasingly important domain. We developed a quick and easy-to-administer 10-item multiple-choice measure, which we presented as a “trivia game” to be done sometime during the 90-minute Café. We did not track pre- to post-café changes in knowledge, because the Cafés emphasized very different pieces of technology as well as different types of natural disasters. Rather, we wished to establish a starting point, so that other researchers who are engaged in ERT efforts with teens have both an instrument and baseline data to use in their work.
A sample of 170 youth completed the questionnaire. The average correct response rate was 4.2 out of 10, only slightly higher than the chance of guessing correctly (3 out of 10). This suggests teens have limited baseline knowledge of Emergency Response Technology and our Cafés therefore served an important purpose given this lack of knowledge. Indeed, for half of the questions at least one incorrect answer was selected more often than the correct answer! Note that there were no statistically significant correlations between age and gender and rates of correct answers.
Three things are clear from our work: 1) Youth need and want to know about the vital roles they can play by learning to use technology in the face of natural disasters; 2) Teens currently know little about the uses of technology in mitigating or responding to disasters; and 3) Teen Science Cafés provide a timely and relatively simple way of sparking interest in this topic. The project showed that it is possible to empower youth to become involved, shape their futures, and care for their communities in the face of disasters. We plan to continue to expand the theme of Emergency Response Technology within the Teen Science Café Network. Reaching teens with proactive messages about their own agency in natural disasters is imperative and attainable through Teen Science Cafés.
European Researchers’ Night is an annual pan-European initiative of the European Commission held on the last Friday in September. In 2015, 1.1 million European citizens and 18,000 researchers took part in events organised in more than 300 cities within Europe and neighbouring countries. The objective of European Researchers’ Night is to encourage the wider public to visit research institutes, engage with researchers, and learn more about European research and potential career opportunities. In this paper, European Researchers’ Night in Ireland is considered through the lens of informal
The Art of Science Learning, Phase 2 was an NSF-funded research and development project to investigate the value of incorporating arts-based learning techniques in STEM-related group innovation processes. The project team created a new, arts-infused innovation curriculum in consultation with leading national practitioners in the arts, creativity, and innovation, then deployed that curriculum in “innovation incubators” in San Diego, Chicago, and Worcester (Mass.) in partnership with informal STEM institutions in those cities. At each incubator, diverse members of the public (from high school
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Peter LinettSteve ShewfeltNicole BaltazarNnenna OkekeDreolin FleisherEric LaPlantMadeline SmithChloe Chittick PattonSarah LeeHarvey Seifter
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The project's goal is to demonstrate an educational model fully commensurate with the demands of the 21st Century workforce, and more specifically, with the emerging “green-tech” economy.
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 Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, in collaboration with several informal science education and other cultural and business organizations in San Diego, Chicago, and Worcester, MA are implementing a research and development project that investigates a range of possible approaches for stimulating the development of 21st Century creativity skills and innovative processes at the interface between informal STEM learning and methods for creative thinking. The goal of the research is to advance understanding of the potential impacts of creative thinking methods on the public's understanding of and engagement with STEM, with a focus on 21st Century workforce skills of teens and adults. The goal of the project's development activities is to experiment with a variety of "innovation incubator" models in cities around the country. Modeled on business "incubators" or "accelerators" that are designed to foster and accelerate innovation and creativity, these STEM incubators generate collaborations of different professionals and the public around STEM education and other STEM-related topics of local interest that can be explored with the help of creative learning methodologies such as innovative methods to generate creative ideas, ideas for transforming one STEM idea to others, drawing on visual and graphical ideas, improvisation, narrative writing, and the process of using innovative visual displays of information for creating visual roadmaps. Hosting the project's incubators are the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership (San Diego), the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) and the EcoTarium (Worcester, MA). National partners are the Association of Science-Technology Centers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Americans for the Arts. Activities will include: the formation and collaborative processes of three incubator sites, a research study, the development of a creative thinking curriculum infused into science education, professional development based on the curriculum, public engagement events and exhibits, a project website and tools for social networking, and project evaluation. A national advisory council includes professionals in education, science, creativity, and business.
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting. It describes a project that creates experiences in herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians) for rural underrepresented groups.
Families and school-aged constituents at 30 urban, inner-city neighborhood community-based organizations and teachers and students in earth science classes in 40 middle schools. Intent: This project will prepare neighborhood and community leaders in Philadelphia to use simple but effective observation tools and NASA’s educational web content to help their inner-city Philadelphia neighbors learn about space science and technology – and about their city and themselves – by knowledgably exploring the sky. Project Goals: 1. Create multiple opportunities for inner-city children, adults and families to observe and learn about the solar system through neighborhood and city-wide events. 2. Equip CBO’s with the knowledge, skills and materials they need to make space science-related events and activities a sustained part of programming for their constituents. 3. Stimulate interest and engagement in NASA’s missions and resources among residents of traditionally underserved, inner-city neighborhoods through astronomy experiences and NASA’s websites. 4. Create and strengthen collaborative ties between The Franklin Institute, CBO’s, city residents, and local amateur astronomers. Programs/Products produced: 1. Repeatable ‘Galileoscope’ workshops and activities in 30 CBO’s 2. Solar observing activities for 30 CBO’s and 40 middle schools. 3. School assembly-type audience interactive program about observational astronomy for use in schools and community organizations. 4. Recurring neighborhood star parties facilitated through on-going partnerships with local amateur astronomy clubs. 5. Participation in city-wide star party as part of the annual Philadelphia Science Festival.
Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF),The STEM Pathways project focused on exploring strategies through which at-risk and incarcerated Hispanic youth could be engaged around STEM careers, understand the education, training, and skills they would need to attain them, and think that such a path was a future possibility. To this end, the project and evaluation teams collaborated on a literature review, the development of a logic model, and the design, implementation, and evaluation of a diverse set of program activities that included media, art, and flash mentoring with STEM role models