This project focuses on environmental health literacy and will explore the extent to which diverse rural and urban youth in an out-of-school STEM enrichment program exhibit gains in environmental health literacy while engaged in learning and teaching others about community resilience in the face of changing climates. Science centers and museums provide unique opportunities for youth to learn about resilience, because they bring community members together to examine the ways that current science influences local decisions. In this project, teams of participating youth will progress through four learning modules that explore the impacts of changing climates on local communities, the local vulnerabilities and risks associated with those changes, possible mitigation and adaptation strategies, and building capacities for communities to become climate resilient. After completion of these modules, participating youth will conduct a resilience-focused action project. Participants will be encouraged to engage peers, families, friends, and other community stakeholders in the design and implementation of their projects, and they will gain experience in accessing local climate and weather data, and in sharing their findings through relevant web portals. Participants will also use various sensors and web-based tools to collect their own data.
This study is guided by three research questions: 1) To what extent do youth develop knowledge, skills, and self- efficacy for developing community resilience (taken together, environmental health literacy in the context of resilience) through participation in museum-led, resilience-focused programming? 2) What program features and settings foster these science learning outcomes? And 3) How does environmental health literacy differ among rural and urban youth, and what do any differences imply for project replication? Over a two- year period, the project will proceed in six stages: a) Materials Development during the first year, b) Recruitment and selection of youth participants, c) Summer institute (six days), d) Workshops and field experiences during the school year following the summer institute, e) Locally relevant action projects, and f) End- of-program summit (one day). In pursuing answers to the research questions, a variety of data sources will be used, including transcripts from youth focus groups and educator interviews, brief researcher reflections of each focus group and interview, and a survey of resilience- related knowledge. Quantitative data sources will include a demographic survey and responses to a self-efficacy instrument for adolescents. The project will directly engage 32 youth, together with one parent or guardian per youth. The study will explore the experiences of rural and urban youth of high school age engaged in interactive, parallel programming to enable the project team to compare and contrast changes in environmental health literacy between rural and urban participants. It is anticipated that this research will advance knowledge of how engagement of diverse youth in informal learning environments influences understanding of resilience and development of environmental health literacy, and it will provide insights into the role of partnerships between research universities and informal science centers in focusing on community resilience.
The Portland Children’s Museum will open a new exhibition, “Drip City,” which focuses on water as a precious natural resource that has shaped the region’s geography, weather, and culture. Following an IMLS-funded evaluation and design process, the museum will engage a local fabrication company to construct and install exhibit components that explore concepts in science, engineering, and art. The museum will also engage community members in the design and testing of associated programs that target families and children ages 0 to 7. Museum staff will evaluate all exhibit elements to ensure they are working properly, accessible as intended, and making children’s learning visible to adult audiences.
In November 2020, President-elect Joe Biden identified four priority areas for the incoming administration: COVID-19; climate change, economic recovery, and racial equity. These crucial areas of national interest will be the focus of media attention, policy debates, funding initiatives, and community discussions over the next four years. Will museums be part of these important conversations and initiatives? Are there opportunities for museums to affirm or to reposition their roles within the difficult public deliberations ahead? Addressing Societal Challenges through STEM (ASCs) is a research
This NOVA multiplatform media initiative consisted of a 2-hour nationally broadcast PBS documentary, Polar Extremes; a 10-part original digital series, Antarctic Extremes; an interactive game, Polar Lab; accompanying polar-themed digital shorts, radio stories, text reporting, and social media content; a collection of educational resources on PBS LearningMedia; and community screening events and virtual field trips for science classrooms. Across multiple media platforms the project’s video content had nearly 13 million views.
The research explored the potential for informal STEM learning
The pilot test for Changemakers: Advancing Community Science Literacy was a capacity building program integrating strategic discourse & community change theory that identified a new path for advancing community STEM literacies. The results of experiment established partnerships with locally based non-profits, and a collaborative effort to address environmental justice and social disparities in areas threatened by climate change.
The evaluation was underaken with instruments developed for multiple research projects to support cross-project comparative analysis.
This instrumemts presented
The pilot test of a capacity building program integrating strategic discourse & community change theory identified a new path for advancing community STEM literacies. The results of experiment established partnerships with locally based non-profits working to address environmental justice and social disparities in areas threatened by climate change identified five recommendations to reset the role of ISLC’s as more relevant to the communities: 1) Allocate Time to Build Relationships; 2) Develop a Shared Definition of Resilience; 3) Situate Community Aspirations as Context for STEM Learning; 4)
The nature of the learning that occurs with real versus replicated objects and environments is an important topic for museums and science centers. Our comparative, exploratory study addressed this area through an investigation of family visits to two different settings: an operating permafrost research tunnel, and a replica of this permafrost tunnel at a science center. We conducted and analyzed family interviews, grounding our work in the Contextual Model of Learning and ideas about sensory components of learning. We found significant differences between the real and replicated environments
Final External Evaluation Report for Informal STEM Learning at Biological Field Stations, an NSF AISL Exploratory Pathways project, which studied the pedagogical and andragogical characteristics of informal educational outreach activities at field stations. This report summarizes the project team’s major research activities and the contextual factors that supported that work.
Appendix includes interview protocol.
The impacts of changes in the climate at local and global levels threaten how people live. Some frontline communities, especially in historically disenfranchised and under-resourced areas, are particularly vulnerable to the devastating effects of climatological events such as wildfires, flooding, and urban heat islands. As such, there is an urgent need for collective, evidence-based understanding and engagement to prevent and prepare for these potentially fatal events. Led by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland, Oregon, in collaboration with local and national partners, Youth Lead the Way is an early-stage Innovations in Development project that offers a theory-based approach for youth in climatologically vulnerable communities to work in climate science research alongside field researchers, develop leadership skills, and engage in timely conversations that impact their own communities. The project will develop and evaluate a Youth Advisory Research Board model to equip and support youth and informal STEM education institutions to conduct evidence-based research on local climate impacts and communicate the findings of their research to their communities. Youth Lead the Way advances the work of several previous NSF-funded projects on climate education, youth advisory boards, and collaborative networks to engage the public in informal STEM learning. Findings from this project will support ongoing efforts in the informal STEM education field to meaningfully engage youth and to more effectively communicate science related to climate and its impacts to the public.
During this initial two-year early-stage project, youth predominantly from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in STEM will engage in a year-long extended STEM experience. These youth will work collaboratively with scientists and museum professionals to enhance their skills as climate researchers, science communicators, and educational leaders, while reaching an estimated 4,000 or more public audience members through research and events at OMSI, in their schools, and in their communities. Using a cohort model, the youth will conduct scientifically based research studies on various local climate impact topics while concurrently serving in an advisory role at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, where they will participate in shaping relevant museum programs and practices. The youth will also develop and present climate stories, a communication approach based on storytelling, to raise public understanding and awareness about local climatological changes and impacts. In addition to the youth component, a companion workshop will be held at the Sciencenter in Ithaca, New York, a partner organization, to train staff and formatively assess the feasibility of scaling the model in other museums. At the program level, an exploratory qualitative research study will be conducted to identify the factors of the overall model that contribute to desired outcomes of youth engagement, climate impact education, and informal science education professional development. Interviews, surveys, focus groups, group chats among youth cohort members, and reviews of artifacts generated by the youth will inform this exploratory study. A theory-based guide outlining key findings, considerations, and recommendations will also be produced. The dissemination of this work will be multi-tiered, reaching thousands within the target communities through public programs, professional networks, at conferences, and a live virtual professional development event hosted by the Association for Science-Technology Centers. If successful, Youth Lead the Way will lay the groundwork for a model that promotes youth and public engagement in STEM through climate science research and identifies promising pathways for future research and similar efforts well beyond this project.
This early-stage Innovations in Development project is funded by the NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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 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.
This front-end evaluation study is part of Designing Our Tomorrow: Mobilizing the Next Generation of Engineers, a five-year project (2018–2023) led by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) with the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF, DRL-1811617) and project partners: Adelante Mujeres, the Biomimicry Institute, and the Fleet Science Center. The Designing Our Tomorrow (DOT) project seeks to promote and strengthen family engagement and engineering learning via compelling exhibit-based design challenges, presented through the lens of sustainable design exemplified by
This program will derive knowledge on extreme weather and its concepts to be shared with youth in the Boston and Kansas City areas. Subsequently, the youth will share this knowledge by displaying it as art work on the rapid transit systems. The art projects will culminate in broad-based exhibition at the end of each group's sessions. The project will involve 200 youth per region resulting in an impact of 1000 youth per year, 80 adult mentors and 20,000 adult transportation riders in learning about extreme weather concepts. Participant organizations are the University of Mass-Boston, University of Mass-Lowell, The Massachusetts College of Art, the University of Kansas Center for Research Inc., and the Goodman Research Group Inc.
The goals of this project are to bring the topic of extreme weather to the foreground by educating youth and in turn having them educate a selected group of adults that use the rapid transit system. Groups of youths will learn about the topic through a series of meetings with mentors who are experts on the issues around extreme weather. The youth will derive their own art-works with their interpretation. These art-works will be displayed on the rapid transit systems in New England (Merrimack Valley and Worcester regions) and the Mid-West (Topeka and Kansas City areas). Using a quasi-experimental mixed methodology (demographics, bus ridership, initial level of science awareness, and interest) the goal is to understand science learning outcomes associated with the creation and public display of youth art. Research questions of importance in this regard are 1. In what ways does blending art with the science enhance youth learning about extreme weather concepts? 2. To what extent does youth art support adult learning of science? and 3. How does regional context affect learning about extreme weather?
Broader impacts will result from the youth diversity as well as the diversity of riders of the rapid transit systems where the art of extreme weather is displayed.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert ChenLois HetlandJill LohmeierStephen MisholSteven SchrockClaudia Bode
Explore the Science of Spring: A Live Media Event is an Innovations in Development project produced by the signature PBS series Nature. The new primetime series Spring LIVE (working title) will break the frame of a traditional documentary, letting viewers themselves explore the dramatic seasonal changes of spring through the immediacy of live television. On-camera hosts, scientists and naturalists in locations across the U.S., and scores of citizen scientists will use observation and scientific inquiry to explore the workings of nature during this season of rebirth. The unfolding stories of seasonal change will illuminate larger scientific insights--into the biodiversity of species in habitats, the interconnectedness of plants and animals in diverse ecosystems, the global phenomenon of species migration, and how spring "green-up" can be affected by environmental change--while inspiring appreciation for species conservation and habitat preservation. Spring LIVE is conceived as an ongoing series, with this inaugural season composed of three one-hour programs broadcast live on three consecutive nights, along with real-time interactions via Facebook. Reaching long-standing Nature viewers (2.5 million per episode), Spring LIVE will seek to turn mature adults and diverse families into citizen science doers, and leverage younger Nature online audiences through social media and community engagement in partnership with citizen science projects.
Spring LIVE will build public knowledge of and engagement in phenology and citizen science. The project will also conduct knowledge-building research on the effectiveness of Facebook as a science learning tool. It will experiment with eliciting audience participation via Facebook within the live shows to generate synchronous, second-screen thought and discussion. An exploratory study by Multimedia Research will look at the impact of this feature, addressing the question: To what extent and how does Facebook interactivity within live science shows impact adult engagement, learning and motivation? Spring LIVE will also engage multiple partners to expand reach and impact and build capacity in their fields. National partners include the National Park Service and Next Avenue; citizen science partners include Celebrate Urban Birds, National Phenology Network, Monarch Blitz, and SciStarter, among others. PBS stations will work with these organizations to involve diverse, intergenerational audiences in observation of nature and seasonal change. Project evaluation, implemented by Knight Williams Research Communications, will focus on the impact of live television on science learning, and the success of the integration of citizen science projects on air, online, and in communities. 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.
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.