Despite decades of policies and programs meant to increase the representation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), girls and women of color still represent a much smaller percent of the STEM workforce than they do in the US population. This lack of representation is preventing the US STEM workforce from reaching its true potential. Intersecting inequalities of gender, race, ethnicity, and class, along with stereotypes associated with who is successful in STEM (i.e., White men), lead to perceptions that they do not belong and may not succeed in STEM. Ultimately, these issues hinder girls’ STEM identity development (i.e., sense of belonging and future success), lead to a crisis of representation for women of color and have compounding impacts on the STEM workforce. Research suggests there are positive impacts of in-person STEM learning after-school and out-of-school time programs on girls’ sense of belonging. The increasing need for online learning initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic means it is vital to investigate girls’ STEM identity development within an online community. Thus, the project will refine and test approaches in online learning communities to make a valuable impact on the STEM identity development of girls of color by 1) training educators and role models on exemplary approaches for STEM identity development; 2) implementing a collaborative, girl-focused Brite Online Learning Community that brings together 400 girls ages 13-16 from a minimum of 10 sites across the United States; and 3) researching the impact of the three core approaches -- community building, authentic and competence-demonstrating hands-on activities, and interactive learning with women role models -- on participating girls’ STEM identities in online settings.
The mixed methods study is guided by guided by Carlone & Johnson’s model of STEM identity involving four constructs: competence, performance, recognition, and sense of belonging. Data collection sources for the quantitative portion of the project include pre- and post-surveys, while qualitative data sources will be collected from six case study sites and will include observations, focus group interviews with girls, artifacts created by girls and educators, educator interviews, and open-ended survey responses. This approach will enable the research team to determine how and the extent to which the Brite Online Learning Community influences STEM identity constructs, interpreting which practices lead to meaningful outcomes that can be linked to the development of STEM identity for participating girls in an online environment. The products of this work will include research-based, tested Brite Practices and a toolkit for fostering girls’ interest, identification, and long-term participation in STEM. The resulting products will increase the reach of informal STEM education programming to girls of color across the nation as online spaces can reach more girls, potentially increasing the representation of women of color in the STEM workforce.
Few people realize that the largest part of our planet’s biosphere remains virtually unexplored and unknown. This enormous habitat, accounting for an area of 116 million square miles or the equivalent size of roughly 30 times the area of the United States, is the abyssal zone of the deep ocean. The abyssal sea floor, at about 6000 ft., contains more than four times as much habitat for animal life as all of the dry mountains, forests, deserts, plains and jungles combined. Microscopic larvae in the deep ocean, are essential for the renewal and replenishment of life and they repopulate areas damaged by human activities such as mining and trawling, and they make marine protected areas both feasible and important. The National Science Foundation has funded intensive studies of oceanography related to larval recruitment for decades. However, findings from this large NSF investment of personnel, technology and funding have never been widely presented to the public. This project proposes to remedy this by developing a 40 minute giant screen film to be shown in science centers across the country, supported by virtual reality and augmented reality learning tools. The film will cover select deep ocean science expeditions using the deep-sea vehicles Alvin and ROV Jason. Content will include elements of the research process, activities related to the design and operation of deep-sea vehicles as well as interviews with scientists and technologists. The companion activities, Deep-Ocean Pilot (a VR-360° viewing station) and Plankton Quest (an AR biology treasure hunt) will extend the audience experience of the deep ocean out of the giant screen theater and into the surrounding museum environment. The website and social media will extend awareness and resources into homes. The project will be appropriate for a broad general audience, with particular appeal for the target audience of women and girls (ages 7-20). The larval biologist team is led by the PI at the University of Oregon, in collaboration with scientists from North Carolina State University, Western Washington University and the University of Rhode Island. Several young women scientists will be featured in the film providing role models. The production company, Stephen Low Productions, Inc. will use the latest technology on the Alvin and other cinematic tools to capture the visual images in the abyss. Collaborating museums will participate in the development and implementation of the Virtual and Augmented Reality learning tools as well as showing the film in their theaters.
Broader impact project goals include 1) Advancing public awareness of the abyssal ocean, the role of microscopic larvae, and what scientists are learning from expeditions that use deep submergence technologies; 2) Introducing public audiences and young women specifically to the wide range of STEM-related occupations encompassed in the field of ocean exploration and research; and 3) Advancing STEM learning research and practice in the area of immersive media in conveying STEM concepts and enhancing audience identification with STEM. Oregon State University’s STEM Research Center will build new knowledge by conducting formative and summative evaluation of the film and its associated support products (e.g., Virtual and augmented reality activities, website resources), addressing the following evaluation questions: 1)What do audiences take away from their experience in terms of fascination/interest, awareness and understanding related to ocean science exploration? 2) To what degree does the film alone or in combination with supplemental experiences trigger career awareness in girls and young women, and youth of racial/ethnic backgrounds? 3) To what degree do immersive experiences (a sense of “being there”) contribute to learning from the film? 4) How enduring are outcomes with audiences past the onsite immediate experience? Formative evaluation will be designed as ongoing improvement informed by empirical evidence in which evaluators work with team members to answer decision-relevant questions in a timely and project-focused way. The summative evaluation will be structured as an effectiveness study using mixed methods and ascertaining whether key programmatic outcomes have been reached and the degree to which particular program elements will have contributed to the results.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Craig YoungAlexander LowStephen LowGeorge von DassowTrish Mace
Engineering is arguably one of the most critical skills in any society, from building bridges and homes, to designing cell phones and life-saving medical devices. Yet many Americans do not consider engineering to be essential or relevant to their everyday lives, and may even question its positive impact on society. While there have been gains in the number of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM professions over the past few decades, their numbers in the field remain disproportionately low. The Built World integrated multimedia and research project therefore aims to expand access to engineering content through the lens of “inclusive engineering,” which highlights how problem-solvers of all ages, genders, backgrounds, and perspectives approach and overcome challenges to innovate. The project applies this concept through the creation of Built World, a three-hour documentary series for broadcast on PBS stations nationwide, and a complementary interactive escape game streamed live on Twitch, where individuals of all ages and backgrounds can play and solve engineering challenges together. There is a need for effective remote and virtual interaction to support informal STEM learning, and live streaming game platforms present a promising approach to filling this need. Built World is poised to advance the field through: (1) content - creating high-quality inclusive engineering content across multiple platforms to reach a wide audience (Built World documentary, digital reporting and short form videos, community outreach campaign); (2) applied research - designing and studying how live-streaming, collaborative platforms can serve as safe and inclusive spaces for engineering learning; and (3) best practices - exploring how audiences engage with inclusive engineering on different platforms—a traditional documentary format (Built World) versus an interactive, collaborative space (Twitch game)—and identifying what learning outcomes might be expected on each.
A three-phase research design aims to understand what motivates users to engage with STEM content on Twitch; how to define and measure learning outcomes associated with the platform; and how to mitigate the risk of toxic environments in online communities by fostering safe spaces for a diversity of gamers. Phase 1 informs the initial design of the Twitch game and audience interaction strategies and seeks to answer: What is the best way to measure informal learning on Twitch? What is the best way to design a Twitch channel to create an inclusive space while optimizing learner engagement? Phase 2 is the core focus of the research and uses a semi-experimental design to answer questions such as: Is there evidence of learning on Twitch, and what type of learning is happening? What is the digital culture that emerges? Phase 3 assesses the pairing of the documentary series with the Twitch game to maximize informal STEM learning and is guided by questions such as: How does inclusive engineering content presented on two platforms (Twitch game and Built World series) mediate learning outcomes? How does inclusive engineering content presented on two platforms shape learners’ experiences of inclusivity and belonging? Knowledge generated through the Built World project will offer tools and best practices to other STEM media producers so that they may also leverage live streaming platforms for learning.
Data is increasingly important in all aspects of people’s lives, from the day-to-day, to careers and to civic engagement. Preparing youth to use data to answer questions and solve problems empowers them to participate in society as informed citizens and opens doors to 21st century career opportunities. Ensuring equitable representation in data literacy and data science careers is critical. For many girls underrepresented in STEM, developing a "data science identity" requires personally meaningful experiences working with data. This project aims to promote middle school-aged girls’ interest and aspirations in data science through an identity-aligned, social game-based learning approach. The goals are to create a more diverse and inclusive generation of data scientists who see data as a resource and who are equipped with the skills and dispositions necessary to work with data in order to solve practical problems. The research team will run 10 social clubs and 10 data science clubs mentored by women in data science recruited through the University of Miami’s Institute for Data Science and Computing. Participants will be 250 middle school-aged girls recruited in Miami, FL, and Yolo County, CA, through local and national girls’ organizations. Youth will participate in a data science club and will learn key data science concepts and skills, including data structures, storage, exploration, analysis, and visualization. These concepts will be learned from working with their own data collected in personally meaningful ways in addition to working with data collected by others in the same social game eco-system. The project will also develop facilitator materials to allow adult volunteers to create game-based informal data science learning experiences for youth in their areas. The project 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 and is co-funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST), which seeks to engage underrepresented students in technology-rich learning environments, including skills in data literacy, and increase students’ knowledge and interest in information and communication technology (ICT) careers.
Researchers will focus on two primary research questions: 1) Across gameplay and club experiences, in what ways do participants engage with data to pursue personal or social goals? 2) How do gameplay and club experiences shape girls’ perceptions of data, data science, and their fit with data and data science? The project will use design-based research methods to iteratively design the game and social club experiences. To ensure that uses of data feel personally and socially meaningful to young girls, the virtual world’s goals, narratives, and activities will be co-designed with girls from groups underrepresented in data science. The project will research engagement with game data in two informal, game-based learning scenarios: organic, self-directed, social play club, and structured, adult-facilitated data science clubs. The research will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods including surveys, focus groups, interviews, and gameplay and club observations. Project evaluation will determine how gameplay and club experiences impact participants' attitudes toward and interest in data-rich futures. The project holds the potential for broadening participation and promoting interest in data science by blending game-based learning with the rich social and adult mentoring through club participation. The results will be disseminated through conference presentations, scholarly publications, and social media. The game and facilitator materials will be designed for dissemination and made freely available to the public.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lisa HardyGary GoldbergerJennifer Kahn
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 U.S. urgently needs the perspective and knowledge of females who are Latinx and African American in STEM fields. Providing early STEM interest pathways for these populations that are historically underrepresented in STEM fields is critical to creating gender equity in the STEM workforce. There are profound inequities in STEM fields for women of color that impact their interest and persistence in these fields. This Research in Service to Practice project will build important knowledge about early pathways for reducing these inequities by developing early interest in STEM. Gender stereotypes around who can do STEM are one of the sociocultural barriers that contributes to girls’ loss of interest in STEM. These stereotypes emerge early and steer young women away from STEM studies and pursuits. Exposing girls to role models is an effective strategy for challenging stereotypes of who belongs and succeeds in STEM. This project will explore how an afterschool program that combines narrative and storytelling approaches, STEM role models, and family supports, sparks elementary-age girls’ interest in STEM and fosters their STEM identity. The project targets K-5 students and families from underrepresented groups (e.g., Latinx and African American) living in poverty. The project will evaluate an inquiry-based, afterschool program that serves both elementary school girls and boys and explores if adding storytelling components to the out-of-school time (OST) learning will better support girls’ interest in STEM. The storytelling features include: 1) shared reading of books featuring females in STEM; 2) students’ own narratives that reminisce about their STEM experiences; and 3) video interviews of female parents and community members with STEM careers. A secondary aim of this project is to build capacity of schools and afterschool providers to deliver and sustain afterschool STEM enrichment experiences. Museum-based informal STEM experts will co-teach with afterschool providers to deliver the Children’s Museum Houston (CMH) curriculum called Afterschool Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (A’STEAM). Although A’STEAM has been implemented in over 100 sites and shows promise, to scale-up this and other promising afterschool programs, the team will evaluate how professional development resources and the co-facilitation approach can build afterschool educators' capacity to deliver the most promising approaches.
Researchers at the Children’s Learning Institute (CLI) at UTHealth will partner with Museum-based informal STEM educators at CMH, YES Prep, a high performing charter school serving >95% of underrepresented groups, and other afterschool providers serving mostly underrepresented groups experiencing poverty. Storytelling components that highlight females in STEM will be added to an existing afterschool program (A'STEAM Basic). This derivative program is called A’STEAM Stories. Both instantiations of the afterschool programs (Basic and Stories) include an afterschool educator component (ongoing professional development and coaching), a family component (e.g., home extension activities, in-person, and virtual family learning events), and two age-based groups (K-G2 and G3-G5). Further, the A’STEAM Stories professional development for educators includes training that challenges STEM gender stereotypes and explains how to make science interesting to girls. The 4-year project has four phases. In Phase 1, researchers, CMH, and afterschool educators will adapt the curriculum for scalability and the planned storytelling variation. During Phase 2, the research team will conduct an experimental study to evaluate program impacts on increasing STEM interest and identity and reducing STEM gender stereotypes. To this end, the project’s team will recruit 36 sites and 1200 children across Kindergarten through Grade 5. This experimental phase is designed to produce causal evidence and meet the highest standards for rigorous research. The researchers will randomly assign sites to one of three groups: control, A’STEAM Basic, or A’STEAM Stories. During Phase 3, researchers will follow-up with participating sites to understand if the inclusion of afterschool educators as co-facilitators of the program allowed for sustainability after Museum informal science educator support is withdrawn. In Phase 4, the team will disseminate the afterschool curriculum and conduct two training-of-trainers for local and national afterschool educators. This study uses quantitative and qualitative approaches. Data sources include educator and family surveys, focus groups, and interviews as well as observations of afterschool program instructional quality and analysis of parent-child discourse during a STEM task. Constructs assessed with children include STEM interest, STEM identity, and STEM gender stereotype endorsement as well as standardized measures of vocabulary, science, and math. Findings will increase understanding of how to optimize OST STEM experiences for elementary-age girls and how to strengthen STEM interest for all participants. Further, this project will advance our knowledge of the extent to which scaffolded, co-teaching approaches build capacity of afterschool providers to sustain inquiry-based STEM programs.
This Research in Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
This Innovations in Development project aims to foster the development of STEM identity among a diverse group of middle school students and, in turn, motivate them to pursue in STEM interests and careers. Vegas STEM Lab, led by a team of investigators from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will employ a mix of online and on-site activities to introduce students to engineering methods in the context of the entertainment and hospitality (E&H) industry that is the lifeblood of Las Vegas. Investigators will collaborate with local resorts, multimedia designers, and arts institutions to offer field experiences for students to interview, interact with, and learn from local experts. The Lab will help youth overcome prevailing beliefs of STEM as boring and difficult, boost their confidence as STEM-capable individuals, and expose them to the exciting STEM careers available in their hometown. UNLV engineering undergrads will serve as near-peer mentors to the middle school students, guiding them through Lab activities and acting as role models. Investigators will measure student learning and engagement over the course of the Vegas STEM Lab experience with the aim of understanding how the Lab model—with its rich set of activities and interpersonal interactions set in the local E&H industry—can cultivate STEM identity development and encourage students to pursue STEM pathways. Despite the project’s hyperlocal focus on the Las Vegas community, if successful, other cities and towns may learn from and adapt the Lab model for use in their youth development programs.
Vegas STEM Lab will provide online materials for students’ STEM learning during the academic year followed by on-site visits and hands-on project development during a three-week summer experience. The Lab will run for three years with cohorts of 40 students each (N=120) with the aim of iteratively improving its activities and outcomes from year to year. The local school district will help recruit middle school students who have demonstrated low interest in STEM to participate in the Lab, ensuring that participants reflect the demographic makeup of the Las Vegas community in terms of race and ethnicity, socio-economic status, and gender. Summer activities will take students behind the scenes of the city’s major E&H venues; investigate the workings of large-scale displays, light shows, and “smart hospitality” systems; and then build their own smaller scale engineering projects. Investigators will employ the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) framework to study how intentionally designed Lab experiences shape students’ understanding of themselves, their future aspirations, and their grasp of the scientific enterprise. Summer activities will be integrated into the online learning platform at the end of each year of Vegas STEM Lab, and in the final year of the project, workshops will train local educators to use the platform in either formal or informal learning settings. Materials and research findings produced through this work will be disseminated to middle school teachers and afterschool care providers, and shared with researchers through academic publications and conferences.
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Emma RegentovaVenkatesan MuthukumarJonathan HilpertSi Jung Kim
Recent studies have advocated for a shift toward educational practices that involve learners in actively contributing to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as a shared and public endeavor, rather than limiting their involvement to the construction of previously established knowledge. Prioritizing learners’ agency in deciding what is worth knowing and how learning takes place may create more equitable and inclusive learning experiences by centering the knowledge, cultural practices, and social interactions that motivate learning for people across ages, genders, and backgrounds. In informal learning environments, families’ social interactions are critical avenues for STEM learning, and science centers and museums have developed strategies for prompting families’ sustained engagement and conversation at STEM exhibits. However, exhibits often guide visitors’ exploration toward predetermined insights, constraining the ways that families can interact with STEM content, and neglecting opportunities to tap into their prior knowledge. Practices in the maker movement that emphasize skill-building and creative expression, and participatory practices in museums that invite visitors to contribute to exhibits in consequential ways both have the potential to reframe STEM learning as an ongoing, social process that welcomes diverse perspectives. Yet little is known about how these practices can be scaled, and how families themselves respond to these efforts, particularly for the diverse family audiences that science centers and museums aim to serve. Further, although gender and ethnicity both affect learning in informal settings, studies often separate participants along a single dimension, obscuring important nuances in families’ experiences. By addressing these outstanding questions, this research responds to the goals of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening engagement in STEM learning experiences and advancing innovative research on STEM learning in informal environments.
Research will address (1) how families perceive and act on their collective epistemic agency while exploring STEM exhibits (i.e., how they work together to negotiate and pursue their own learning goals); (2) whether and how families’ expressions of agency are influenced by gender and ethnicity; and (3) what exhibit design features support expressions of agency for the broadest possible audience. Research studies will use interviews and observational case studies at a range of exhibits with distinct affordances to examine families’ epistemic agency as a shared, social practice. Cultural historical activity theory and intersectional approaches will guide qualitative analyses of families’ activities as systems that are mediated by the physical environment and social setting. Education activities will involve an ongoing collaboration between researchers, exhibit designers, educators, and facilitators (high-school and college-level floor staff), using a Change Laboratory model. The group will use emerging findings from the research to create a reflection tool to guide the development of more inclusive learning experiences at STEM exhibits, and a set of design principles for supporting families’ expressions of agency. A longitudinal ethnographic study will document the development of inclusive exhibit design practices throughout the project as well as how the Change Lab participants develop their sociocultural perspectives on learning and exhibit design over time. Analyzing these shifts in practice within the Change Lab will provide a deeper understanding of what works and what is difficult or does not occur when working toward infrastructure change in museums. By considering how multiple aspects of families’ identities shape their learning experiences, this work will generate evidence-based recommendations to help science centers and museums develop more inclusive practices that foster a sense of ownership over the learning process for the broadest possible audience of families.
This Innovations in Development project 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.
The Designing Our Tomorrow project will develop a framework for creating exhibit-based engineering design challenges and expand an existing model of facilitation for use in engineering exhibits. The project seeks to broaden participation in engineering and build capacity within the informal science education (ISE) field while raising public awareness of the importance of sustainable engineering design practices. The project focuses on girls aged 9-14 and their families and is co-developed with culturally responsive strategies to ensure the inclusion and influence of families from Latino communities. The project will conduct research resulting in theory-based measures of engineering proficiencies within an exhibit context and an exhibit facilitation model for the topic area of engineering. Based on the research, the project will develop an engineering design challenge framework for developing design challenges within an exhibit context. As the context for research, the project will develop a bilingual English/Spanish 2,000-square foot traveling exhibition designed to engage youth and families in engineering design challenges that advance their engineering proficiencies from beginner to more informed, supported by professional development modules and a host-site training workshop introducing strategies for facilitating family engineering experiences within a traveling exhibition. The project is a collaboration of Oregon Museum of Science and Industry with the Biomimicry Institute, Adelante Mujeres, and the Fleet Science Center.
Designing Our Tomorrow builds on a theory-based engineering teaching framework and several previous NSF-funded informal education projects to engage families in compelling design challenges presented through the lens of sustainable design exemplified by biomimicry. Through culturally-responsive co-development and research strategies to include members of Latino communities and provide challenges that highlight the altruistic, creative, personally relevant, and collaborative aspects of engineering, the Designing Our Tomorrow exhibition showcases engineering as an appealing career option for women and helps families support each other's engineering proficiencies. To better understand and promote engineering learning in an ISE setting, the project will conduct two research studies to inform and iteratively develop effective strategies. In the first study, measurement development will build on prior research and practice to design credible and reliable measures of engineering proficiency, awareness, and collaboration, as well as protocols for use in exhibit development and the study of facilitation at engineering exhibits, and future research. The second study will explore the effects of facilitation on the experience outcomes.
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.
The Antarctic Dinosaurs project aims to leverage the popularity and charisma of dinosaurs to inspire a new generation of polar scientists and a more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)-literate citizenry. The project, centered on a giant screen film that will reach millions of theatrical viewers across the U.S., will convey polar science knowledge through appealing, entertaining media experiences and informal learning programs. Taking advantage of the scope of research currently taking place in Antarctica, this project will incorporate new perspectives into a story featuring dinosaurs and journey beyond the bones to reveal a more nuanced, multi-disciplinary interpretation of paleontology and the profound changes the Antarctic continent has endured. The goals of the project are to encourage young people to learn about Antarctica and its connection to the rest of the globe; to challenge stereotypes of what it means to participate in science; to build interest in STEM pursuits; and to enhance STEM identity.
This initiative, aimed particularly at middle school age youth (ages 11-14), will develop a giant screen film in 2D and 3D formats; a 3-episode television series; an "educational toolkit" of flexible, multi-media resources and experiences for informal use; a "Field Camp" Antarctic science intervention for middle school students (including girls and minorities); fictional content and presentations by author G. Neri dealing with Antarctic science produced for young people of color (including non-readers and at-risk youth who typically lack access to science and nature); and presentations by scientists featured in the film. The film will be produced as a companion experience for the synonymous Antarctic Dinosaurs museum exhibition (developed by the Field Museum, Chicago, in partnership with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Discovery Place, Charlotte, NC, and the Natural History Museum of Utah). Project partner The Franklin Institute will undertake a knowledge-building study to examine the learning outcomes resulting from exposure to the film with and without additional experiences provided by the Antarctic Dinosaurs exhibition and film-related educational outreach. The study will assess the strategies employed by practitioners to make connections between film and other exhibits, programs, and resources to improve understanding of the ways film content may complement and inspire learning within the framework of the science center ecosystem. The project's summative evaluation will address the process of collaboration and the learning impacts of the film and outreach, and provide best practices and new models for content producers and STEM educators. Project partners include film producers Giant Screen Films and Dave Clark Inc.; television producer Natural History New Zealand (NHNZ); Discovery Place (Charlotte, NC); The Franklin Institute; The Field Museum; The Natural History Museum of Utah (The University of Utah); author G. Neri; and a team of scientists and diversity advisers. This project 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. The project has co-funding support from the Antarctic section of the Office of Polar Programs.
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.
The intent of this five-year project is to design, deliver, and study professional development for Informal Science Learning (ISL) educators in the arena of equity-focused STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) teaching and learning. While the strategy of integrating art and science to promote interest, identity, and other STEM-related learning has grown in recent years, this domain is still nascent with respect to a guiding set of best practices. Through prior work, the team has developed and implemented a set of design principles that incorporate effective practices for broadening participation of girls in science via science-art integration on the topic of the biology, chemistry and optics of "Colors in Nature." The continued initiative would impact the ISL field by providing a mechanism for ISL educators in museums, libraries and after-school programs to adopt and implement these STEAM design principles into their work. The team will lead long-term (12-18 months) professional development activities for ISL educators, including: 1) in-person workshops that leverage their four previously developed kits; 2) online, asynchronous learning activities featuring interactive instructional videos around their STEAM design principles; 3) synchronous sessions to debrief content and foster communities of practice; and 4) guided design work around the development or redesign of STEAM activities. In the first four years of the project, the team will work with four core institutional partners (Sitka Sound Science Center, Sno-Isle Libraries, the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District after-school program, and the Pima County Public Library system) across three states (Alaska, Washington, and Arizona). In the project's later stages, they will disseminate their learning tools to a broad, national audience. This project 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.
The project has three main goals: (1) To support ISL educators in offering meaningful STEAM activities, (2) To create institutional change among the partner organizations, and (3) To advance the ISL field with respect to professional development and designing for STEAM Programming. The research questions associated with the professional development activities address the ways in which change occurs and focus on all three levels: individual, institutional, and the ISL field. The methods are qualitative and quantitative, including videotaped observations, pre and post interviews, surveys and analysis of online and offline artifacts. In addition, the project evaluation will assess the implementation of the project's professional development model for effectiveness. Methods will include observations, interviews, surveys and Website analytics and program data.