The Katonah Museum of Art (KMA) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to evaluate its early childhood program, ArteJuntos/ArtTogether (ArteJuntos), ArteJuntos is a bilingual art and culture-based family literacy program that introduces low-income, educationally at-risk preschool children and their families to the KMA. Using works of art in KMA’s exhibitions, the program connects parents and their children (ages 3-5) to activities that support children’s emergent literacies—observation, oral and receptive language, and critical thinking skills.
How did we approach this study?
RK
This full scale research and development collaborative project between Smith College and Springfield Technical Community College improves technical literacy for children in the area of engineering education through the Through My Window learning environment. The instructional design of the learning environment results from the application of innovative educational approaches based on research in the learning sciences—Egan's Imaginative Education (IE) and Knowledge Building (KB). The project provides idea-centered engineering curriculum that facilitates deep learning of engineering concepts through the use of developmentally appropriate narrative and interactive multimedia via interactive forums and blogs, young adult novels (audio and text with English and Spanish versions), eight extensive tie-in activities, an offline teachers’ curriculum guide, and social network connections and electronic portfolios. Targeting traditionally underrepresented groups in engineering—especially girls—the overarching goals of the project are improving attitudes toward engineering; providing a deeper understanding of what engineering is about; supporting the development of specific engineering skills; and increasing interest in engineering careers. The project will address the following research questions: What is the quality of the knowledge building discourse? Does it get better over time? Will students, given the opportunity, extend the discourse to new areas? What scaffolding does the learning environment need to support novice participants in this discourse? Does the use of narrative influence participation in knowledge building? Are certain types of narratives more effective in influencing participation in knowledge building? Evaluative feedback for usability, value effectiveness, and ease of implementation from informal educators and leaders from the Connecticut After School Network CTASN) will be included. The evaluation will include documentation on the impact of narrative and multimedia tools in the area of engineering education. Currently, there is very little research regarding children and young teen engagement in engineering education activities using narrative as a structure to facilitate learning engineering concepts and principles. The research and activities developed from this proposed project contributes to the field of Informal Science and Engineering Education. The results from this project could impact upper elementary and middle-school aged children and members from underrepresented communities and girls in a positive way.
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.
The Exploratorium, in collaboration with the Boys and Girls Club Columbia Park (BGC) in the Mission District of San Francisco, is implementing a two-year exploratory project designed to support informal education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) within underserved Latino communities. Building off of and expanding on non-STEM-related efforts in a few major U.S. cities and Europe, the Exploratorium, BGC, and residents of the District will engage in a STEM exhibit and program co-development process that will physically convert metered parking spaces in front of the Club into transformative public places called "parklets." The BGC parklet will feature interactive, bilingual science and technology exhibits, programs and events targeting audiences including youth ages 8 - 17 and intergenerational families and groups primarily in the Mission District and users of the BGC. Parklet exhibits and programs will focus on STEM content related to "Observing the Urban Environment," with a focus on community sustainability. The project explores one approach to working with and engaging the public in their everyday environment with relevant STEM learning experiences. The development and evaluation processes are being positioned as a model for possible expansion throughout the city and to other cities.
The project is designed to engage Hispanic students in grades K-5 in STEM in afterschool programs within community-based organizations (CBOs). The project builds on the foundation of an NSF-supported afterschool science program--APEX (Afterschool Program Exploring Science). In collaboration with National Council of La Raza (NCLR), and ASPIRA, the project adapts APEX into a bilingual English/Spanish format and, using a train the trainer model, disseminates it nationally, using a train the trainer model. Each of the ten local project sites will build on a partnership between a science museum and a CBO affiliate of NCLR or ASPIRA. The project is designed to: (1) Build the organizational capacity of partner science museums to work with CBOs and the Hispanic community. (2) Strengthen links between science museums and Hispanic serving CBOs in their communities. (3) Engage the expertise, involvement, and collaboration of national Hispanic-serving organizations, NCLR and ASPIRA, in STEM education. (4) Increase the engagement of Hispanic children and families in STEM. The project evaluation will investigate how effectively the project builds the organizational capacity of partner museums and CBOs in engaging Hispanic children and families in STEM; the types and strength of science museum/CBO partnerships; the effectiveness of the project in increasing Hispanic student and family engagement in STEM, and the types of contributions the project makes to the field of informal STEM learning. The evaluation will use qualitative and quantitative methods, including surveys, interviews, case studies, social network and collaboration analysis, observations, activity tracking, embedded assessment, photo elicitation, and focus groups.
The proposed CAREER study uses a comprehensive mixed-methods design to develop measures of motivational beliefs and family supports for Spanish and English speaking Mexican-origin youth in high school physical science. The research examines a three-part model which may provide a deeper understanding of how Mexican families support youth through their general education strategies, beliefs about physical science, and science specific behaviors. This approach incorporates motivation and ecodevelopmental theories while pursuing an innovative line of research that examines how the contributions of older siblings and relatives complement or supplement parental support. The study has four aims which are to (1) to develop reliable, valid measures of Mexican-origin adolescent motivational beliefs and family supports in relation to high school chemistry and physics, (2) to test whether family supports predict motivational beliefs and course enrollment, (3) to test how indicators in Aim 2 vary based on gender, culture, English language skills and relationship quality, and (4) to examine how family supports strengthen or weaken the relationship between school-based interactions (teachers and peer support) and the pursuit of physical science studies. Spanish and English-speaking Mexican-origin youth will participate in focus groups to inform the development of a survey instrument which will be used in a statistical measurement equivalence study of 300 high school students in fulfillment of Aim 1. One hundred and fifty Mexican high school students and their families will participate in a longitudinal study while students progress through grades 9-12 to examine Aims 2- 4. Data to be collected includes information on science coursework, adolescent motivational beliefs, supports by mothers and older youth in the family, and family interactions. All materials will be in English and Spanish. The educational and research integration plan uses a three pronged approach which includes mentoring of doctoral students, teacher outreach, and the evaluation of the ASU Biodesign high school summer internship program using measures resulting from the research. It is anticipated that the study findings will provide research-based solutions to some of the specific behaviors that influence youth motivation in physical sciences. Specifically, the study will identify youth that might be most affected by an intervention and the age of maximum benefit, as well as valid, reliable measures of youths' motivation that can used in interventions to measure outcomes. The study will also identify family behaviors that may be influenced, including education strategies for school preparation, beliefs about physical science, and sciece-specific strategies such as engaging in science activities outside school. The findings will be broadly disseminated to science teachers, scholars, and families of Mexican-origin youth. This multi-tiered approach will advance current scholarship and practice concerning Mexican-origin adolescents' pursuit of physical science.
Capitalizing on the appeal of the PBS KIDS project PLUM LANDING, PLUM RX will research and develop resources to help families and educators infuse environmental science learning into outdoor prescription programs, while ensuring they are appropriate for broad use in other informal settings. The growing outdoor prescription movement is designed to increase the amount of time children spend outside in nature. Programs are structured so that health care providers write "prescriptions" for children to engage in outdoor activity, and informal educators "fill" these prescriptions by facilitating youth and family participation in outdoor activities. There is preliminary evidence that these programs are getting kids outside, but best practices for transitioning "get outside" programs to become "get outside and learn about the environment" programs remain unidentified. PLUM RX is designed to build this knowledge and create resources that are responsive to the needs of both English and Spanish-speaking urban families. The project will work with informal educators and families through multiple cycles of implementation and revision, testing and refining PLUM LANDING resources (animations, videos, games, hands-on science activities, and support materials for informal educators and families), with the goal of designing an effective and accessible PLUM RX Toolkit for national dissemination. 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 (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) learning in informal environments. The proposed research is designed to ensure that the PLUM RX Toolkit--the resources and support materials--will meet the needs of educators working in non-specialized urban settings. Education Development Center (EDC) and WGBH developers will collaborate on design-based research at three urban outdoor prescription programs serving low-income families: Philadelphia Nature Rx in Philadelphia, PA; Outdoors Rx in Boston, MA; and Portland Rx Play in Portland, OR. Moving through cycles of implementation, observation, analysis, and revision, the research team will work closely with educators, families, and developers to determine how the programmatic and structural features of the learning environment, the actions of the educators, and the intervention itself can most effectively support children and families' outdoor exploration in urban contexts. Toolkit materials will include resources for kids and families (including Spanish-speaking families) and informal educators (including those who work with families and directly with children in out-of-school settings). Directors from the three urban outdoor prescription programs will contribute to every phase of the research process, including recruiting families and youth who will participate in a weekly sequence of activities. The overarching focus of the analysis process will be on systematically describing the interaction between two dimensions of implementation: What happened during pilot implementations, and the factors that constrained or supported implementation as planned; and the quality of what happened, which will be defined with reference to the intended impacts. EDC will use a structured descriptive coding process to analyze the qualitative evidence gathered through interviews and observations during design and testing periods. Products of the research activities will include: a series of formative memos to the development team; a report mapping changes made to PLUM RX Toolkit materials in response to formative input and the intended impact of those changes; and findings regarding commonalities and differences across sites in the interaction of local contextual factors and the implementation success of the PLUM RX Toolkit. Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) will provide independent, summative evaluation of the project. Through this process, PLUM RX will build broader knowledge about how to design educational resources, geared for both families and informal educators, which respond to the unique challenges of exploring environmental science in urban environments.
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), in partnership with the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), proposes to develop the Zoo in You: Exploring the Human Microbiome, a 2,000 square foot bilingual (English and Spanish) traveling exhibition for national tour to science centers, health museums, and other relevant venues. The exhibition will engage visitors in the cutting edge research of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Human Microbiome Project (HMP) and explore the impact of the microbiome on human health. To enrich the visitor experience, the Zoo in You project will also produce an interactive bilingual website and in-depth programs including science cafes and book groups for adult audiences. JCVI will provide its expertise and experience as a major site for HMP genomics research to the project. In addition, advisors from the Oregon Health & Science University, Multnomah County Library, the Multnomah County Health Department, ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum, Science Museum of Minnesota, and other experts will guide OMSI's development of exhibits and programs. The Institute of Learning Innovation in collaboration with OMSI will evaluate the exhibits, programs, and website. Front-end, formative, remedial, and summative evaluation will be conducted in English and Spanish at OMSI, ScienceWorks, and tour venues. The exhibition's target audience is families and school groups with children in grades 4-12. Latino families are a priority audience and the project deliverables will be developed bilingually and biculturally. The Zoo in You will tour to three venues a year for a minimum of eight years. We conservatively estimate that over two million people will visit the exhibition during the national tour. This project presents a powerful opportunity to inform museum visitors about new discoveries in genomic research, to invite families to learn together, and to present and interpret health-related research findings for diverse audiences. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): Our research education program, the Zoo in You (ZIY): Exploring the Human Microbiome, is relevant to public health because it will inform exhibition visitors and program participants about the significant new research of the NIH's Human Microbiome Project (HMP). Visitors will make connections between basic research, human health, and their own personal experiences. The bilingual (English and Spanish) ZIY exhibits and programs will present research finding and public health information in enjoyable and engaging ways to reach diverse family and adult audiences.
The National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) at the Space Science Institute (SSI), in collaboration with the Colorado Clinical and Translational Studies Institute (CTSCI), and Colorado Area Health Education Centers (AHECs), requests support for Discover Health/Descubre la Salud (DH/DS). The bilingual (English/Spanish) project will include an interactive library exhibit supported by media and community education resources to engage underserved communities in learning about their cardiovascular and digestive systems, and how to keep them healthy. The project will target underserved communities, including rural and Latino communities, working through libraries and community institutions. The project will use a strategic combination of bilingual, interactive exhibits presented at libraries and community health fairs and festivals, career events, family nights, science camps, and mini-med schools, to engage students, families, and adults in these important health issues. Project PI Robert Russell, Senior Education Associate at NCIL, and NCIL Founder Co-PI Dusenbery, Founder of NCIL, will direct the project. Dr. Jack Westfall, who will direct the Community Engagement Core of CCTSI and also directs Colorado AHECS, he will direct their subaward. An outstanding advisory committee includes biomedical researchers, community health educators, librarians, and informal science educators. They will provide expertise on biomedical science content and help guide the project's implementation. Knight Williams, Inc., a highly experienced media and community evaluation firm, will conduct the full required project evaluation.