Each year, millions of Americans visit science centers and museums, children’s museums, zoos, aquariums, nature centers, planetariums, and similar institutions. Recognized as trusted and popular places for educational and leisure experiences, these institutions are uniquely capable of engaging people across a spectrum of beliefs, experiences, and identities on topics related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), as well as addressing pressing societal problems related to science, technology, and innovation. However, the potential impacts of these institutions are largely dependent on the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the professionals working at them. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to shift the nature of work, the informal STEM learning workforce was dramatically impacted. The recent period of disruption is a time for innovation. The field is well-positioned to promote new models of professional learning and development that are grounded in the values and practices of informal learning. This project will benefit local communities across the United States and society at large by advancing the capacity of science-engagement professionals to respond to societal needs, concerns, and interests more effectively through their institutions’ exhibitions, education and learning programs, and various forms of public engagement (e.g., community outreach events, supports for teachers/educators and schools). Led by the Association of Science and Technology Centers in collaboration with the Center of Science and Industry’s Center for Research and Evaluation and Oregon State University’s STEM Research Center, this work will build on the Informal STEM Learning (ISL) Professional Competency Framework developed and validated with prior National Science Foundation funding. Competency frameworks are increasingly used across many sectors to identify the suite of skills, knowledge, and capabilities necessary to be successful in a particular area of work. Given dramatic changes to the ISL workplace in the last two years, there is an even stronger potential for the Framework, particularly if newly developed supports can link the Framework to the current, emerging, and continuing needs of the workforce.
Guided by a systematic process for designing training and instructional materials, this project will first capture changes in the ways diverse informal STEM learning professionals describe, pursue, and achieve competencies to produce a revised Framework. Next, the project will collaboratively develop companion resources with diverse professionals through a series of participatory design workshops, using a sequential and iterative approach. The resources are expected to include indicators of professional competencies, self-assessments, training tools, and other types of resources that have the potential to significantly advance the professional learning (as undertaken by individuals and institutions) and the professional development capacity (as provided by institutions, associations, and other organizations) of the informal STEM learning field. Next, the project will share final products–including a refreshed website that hosts the updated Framework and newly-developed suite of tools–with professional association and network partners who can disseminate directly to the institutions and professionals who are developing and practicing these competencies. The project will gather evidence from a small number of early adopters, providing data on specific use-case scenarios. Finally, the project will document the potential impact of the Framework on the field by measuring how the Framework is perceived by informal STEM learning professionals as usable, useful, and beginning to be “in-use." Over time—and with increased use—the Framework and its companion resources hold the promise of contributing to the opening of the field to professionals with identities currently underrepresented through more transparent expectation and clearer growth pathways.
Diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and belonging-related change is often difficult to achieve in organizations. In the context of Informal STEM Learning (ISL), this results in inequitable opportunities for both ISL professionals and learners to engage in STEM environments and experiences. For people to thrive in these settings, creative and innovative approaches that address historical and current realities of intersectional marginalization and inequitable norms within informal STEM institutions are necessary to disrupt conventions, institutional barriers, and patterns of inequities. TERC and the Detroit Zoological Society will develop and implement an ISL Equity Resource Center (the Center). The Center will advance equity within the ISL field by cultivating a multi-sector, diverse learning community that designs and conducts evidence-based research and practice, including but not limited to equity-focused leadership, decision-making, theory, methods, project topic selection and design, and budget management.
The Center will cultivate lasting change in the ISL and broader STEM learning ecosystem via (a) sharing more inclusive, culturally relevant, and responsive ISE research and practice; (b) identifying scalable, equity-focused research findings useful in ISL programming; and (c) promoting greater public awareness of the importance of broadening participation in STEM. The Center's primary stakeholders are ISL professionals, including researchers, practitioners, and evaluators. The Center will maintain and expand a digital infrastructure to support innovation and sharing across the ISL field. Through its combined efforts, the Center will raise the visibility and impact of ISL equity-focused research and practice and its contributions to the overall STEM endeavor. The Center will also organize and host the biennial AISL Awardee Meeting. The Center is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Stephen AlkinsDiane MillerLisette Torres-GeraldPati Ruiz
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The National Girls Collaborative Project and Education Development Center are convening “Advancing the Conversation on Scaling National Informal STEM Programs,” a two-and-a-half day knowledge-building conference that brings together key stakeholders in informal STEM education (ISE) to examine what scale looks like across informal learning settings. Currently, there is not a common definition or set of dimensions related to what it means to scale programs in informal learning settings. Approaches to scale in ISE too often center on the perspectives and needs of people who are developing and spreading programs while less consideration is given to the realities of those responsible for operationalizing programs in hyper-local contexts. This conference approaches the question of scale from the perspective of the program implementers, who are the beneficiaries of capacity building and serve as facilitators of these scaled programs. The conference also gives voice to program developers, researchers, evaluators, and funders of national informal STEM programs who study and support scale in education. The aim of the conference is to develop a new framework for scale in ISE that centers partnership and capacity building of informal educators. Such an approach to scale addresses issues of local access and diversity, equity, and inclusion, and promotes sustainability of ISE in high-need communities.
Conference discussions challenge three common misperceptions of scale across ISE: (1) simple spread and replication of turnkey programs lead to effective scale in ISE; (2) definitions of scale derived from formal learning settings should be used to scale across ISE; and (3) scale across ISE should be defined by program developers and those that seek to study it. Participants with a wide range of perspectives and who represent a diversity of organizational types will attend the conference and work together to articulate scaling success factors, barriers, diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies, and intended outcomes, distilling themes, questions, and concerns about current approaches to evaluating and researching scale in ISE. Together, conference participants will co-create a framework for scale in ISE which will define new and expanded dimensions of scale that center on capacity building and diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as a Program Developer’s Guide for scaling ISE programs through the lens of the framework. These products will increase the knowledge and capacity of informal learning organizations involved in nationally scaled initiatives, STEM-rich institutions wanting to scale their own locally developed programs, informal STEM researchers and evaluators, and the broader field of ISE including program funders. Conference findings will be broadly disseminated through publications, conferences, and a national webinar co-hosted by the National Girls Collaborative Project and Education Development Center.
Maker education has increased tremendously in community settings and classrooms across the country. Maker education is learner-driven and hands-on, often collaborative, and may focus on solving a problem or designing an object or device. There is a growing need for assessment and evaluation tools and approaches to understand and improve the nature of maker learning and provide evidence for the value of maker pedagogy. This workshop will bring together approximately 25 researchers from formal and informal settings as well as practitioners to review current maker assessment and evaluation tools and examine the role those tools can play for informing research and practice. The workshop will identify areas where future work is needed, including designing assessment and evaluation that effectively addresses the interests and needs of diverse learners. The workshop will disseminate an online collection of these assessment and evaluation tools, a research brief, and several webinars sharing the results and recommendations of the conference.
The two-day, in-person conference will include pre-workshop surveys to determine and refine issues for consideration at the conference, identify a core set of readings and resources for conference participants, and to identify key topics for research briefings presented at the conference. The conference will include background briefings, hands-on try-outs of assessment tools, synthesis discussions, and identification of future directions for research and next steps. Resources developed from the workshop will be widely disseminated through workshop partner Maker Education’s website, an annual maker conference held at the University of Wisconsin, and through other publications reaching researchers and practitioners in informal and formal educational settings,
This 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.
IMPACT NC is a collaboration between the North Carolina science centers and museums and NC State University (NCSU) to build and foster a Community of Practice (CoP) for collective evaluation among the 54 partner organizations across the state of North Carolina. Funded by IMLS Museum Leadership Grant (MG-70-19-0019-19).
The goals of IMPACT NC are:
Identification of a set of shared goals for informal science education across the state.
Development of metrics to assess these goals.
Enhanced capacity of the Community of Practice of science museums to conduct evaluation centered on these collective evaluation goals and metrics.
Improved cohesion among science museums and other partners in NC (e.g. university collaborators, non-profit organizations) as they collectively work toward shared goals.
Development of a system for reporting program outcomes using shared metrics that is integrated into annual reporting or grant proposal processes across NC, thereby informing decision making.
NASA@ My Library is made possible through the support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate as part of its Science Activation program. The project is led by the National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) at the Space Science Institute (SSI) in partnership with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office, Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), and Education Development Center (EDC). From 2016-2020, 78 public libraries (75 partner libraries and 3 pilot libraries), 18 State Library Agencies, 6 Portal to the Public Network sites, and 30 NASA-funded scientists participated in the project. More than 225,000 library patrons were reached through their efforts.
In 2021-2022, public libraries, universities, and state library agencies will participate in the project to increase and enhance STEAM learning opportunities in their communities, with an emphasis on reaching audiences underrepresented in STEM education and professions.
Across the United States, individuals, organizations, and communities are wrestling with a wide array of challenging and persistent science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related problems. A few examples include ensuring more equitable access to STEM careers; building capacity for rural libraries to support STEM learning; and supporting greater cyber literacy among youth. The good news is that thousands of individuals, organizations, and communities are coming up with great ideas for how to confront these problems; many of them supported by the NSF. Unfortunately, most will encounter significant roadblocks to success along the way, but not because of bad ideas. Most change agents falter along the lengthy and often convoluted pathway between idea and successful execution because they bump up against barriers they do not expect or know how to overcome. This Pilot and Feasibility Study will create Learning Solutions, a multi-platform program designed to support those people and entities engaged in work that cultivates the public's understanding of, engagement with, and interest in STEM fields and STEM-related information. First, the project will systematically identify the real, but often unspoken issues that individuals, organizations, and communities run into as they work to bring about significant and impactful STEM-related change. Then, the project will assemble, curate, and make digitally available a collection of tools, resources and strategies designed to help someone understand and resolve these kinds of issues if and when they arise. By better understanding the experiences of change agents, the challenges they face, and the creative learning solutions they enact, this project will ensure that more change agents successfully access the learning know-how they need, when they need it, in curated, easy-to-digest formats. This award is funded by the Advanced Informal STEM Learning program which contributes to STEM engagement and literacy, workforce development, and educational success via supporting new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of STEM learning in informal environments. Learning Solutions will build capacity and will help more professionals successfully bring more good ideas to fruition.
The target audience for this Pilot & Feasibility phase of Learning Solutions will be STEM professionals working at the intersection of STEM and society across diverse sectors. It will focus on change agents -- individuals who want to be or who already are engaged in community-based, action-oriented STEM-related change projects, whether acting on their own, within an organization, or as part of a broader community of organizations. To achieve the goal of making STEM-related change easier to accomplish, Learning Solutions will implement a multi-step process. With input from five Critical Advisors, 20 Key Informants, and ultimately hundreds of change agents, project staff will: 1) Utilize an iterative process of in-depth interviews and broadly disseminated surveys to identify the major understandings, skills and processes that current and past STEM-related change agents have experienced as impediments to their success; 2) Determine how best to describe and categorize these issues across diverse problem spaces; 3) Select twelve issues, based on which are the most frequently mentioned and/or perceived to be the most critical or challenging, and research and curate the best and most authoritative resources responsive to these dozen issues; and finally, 4) Use a variety of platforms (e.g., social media, traditional media, digital and in print publications, podcasts, panels, and group presentations) and utilization metrics to ensure effective digital delivery of potential solutions to the selected issues. By the project's end, we will have identified some of the key challenges the STEM-related change agents who work in communities across America regularly encounter, as well as the feasibility of developing a mechanism for helping those change agents discover preexisting and readily accessible resources to assist them in resolving those challenges.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John H FalkElysa CorinStacey Sheehan
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
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.
In 2018, the Croucher Foundation conducted its third annual mapping exercise for the out-of-school STEM learning ecosystem in Hong Kong.
The study reveals a rich and vibrant ecosystem for out-of-school STEM in Hong Kong with over 3,000 discrete activities covering a very wide range of science disciplines. This third report indicates extremely rapid growth in available out-of-school STEM activities compared to 2016 and an even larger increase in the number of organisations offering out-of-school STEM activities in Hong Kong.
STEM educators are eager to foster long term collaboration with each other, and with schools. At the same time, good working practice by schools, teachers, STEM educators and institutions that involves and engages local communities was discovered, showing the diversified modes of connection which could enhance the sustainability of STEM ecosystem.
We trust that this three-year study with its associated digital maps, provides a useful resource for schools, teachers, students, parents, STEM educators and education policy makers in Hong Kong.
A large body of research highlights the benefits of storybooks for children's learning. In the context of preschool classrooms, the use of storybooks to engage young children in STEM is a frequent topic of practitioner-oriented articles. There is also an increasing number of informal STEM education (ISE) projects exploring how to leverage storybooks to engage young children and their families in different STEM content domains. While there is universal excitement for the potential of storybooks in ISE, there is an acknowledgment of a critical need for more cross-project sharing, more research, and more efforts to synthesize and share findings. This award will catalyze new research studies and partnerships to advance efforts in ISE contexts, including the role of books in the overall learning experience or program, how books are selected or designed, and how the reading is facilitated by teachers and families. Participants will be educators and researchers working with or studying family learning for preschool-age children (three to five years) using early childhood fiction books as a tool for engaging families in STEM topics and skills.
Storybook STEM will be implemented in four phases: (1) pre-convening activities to plan, synthesize existing resources, engage a broader group of educators and researchers beyond convening attendees, and prepare convening participants to maximize the value of the in-person discussions; (2) in-person convening to catalyze cross-project discussions, outline promising practices, and identify questions and ideas for the future; (3) evaluation of the impact and value of the convening, from the perspective of participants and a project steering committee; and (4) dissemination of findings and recommendations to educators and researchers within and beyond the ISE field. Outcomes include: (1) documenting current and past work in ISE and other fields; (2) summarizing key recommendations and resources from the reading, literacy, and early childhood development fields; and (3) outlining promising directions for future work.
The findings from this project will provide a critical resource to help broadening participation efforts be more effective and inclusive for audiences across the country. Research studies motivated by the convening will address the lack of empirical work on storybooks as a tool for ISE programs and advance the ISE field's knowledge of how to integrate these books effectively. Because storybooks are a highly accessible and almost universally used family learning resource, the topic of the convening will be relevant to a wide range of audiences and will help educators broaden access to ISE for traditionally underserved and under-resourced communities.
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.
Consideration of the needs of individuals with a wide range of disabilities is not always considered in the early design stages of an informal STEM learning (ISL) activity or program. The primary access approach for people with disabilities becomes the provision of accommodations once the ISL product or environment is created. In contrast, the Universal Design approach considers users with a wide range of characteristics throughout the design process and works to create products and environments that are accessible, usable, and inclusive. This project, called AccessISL, led by the University of Washington's DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology) Center and Museology Program, includes an academic museology program and local ISL sites, representing museums, zoos, aquariums, makerspaces, science centers, and other sites of informal STEM learning. Insights will be gained through the engagement of people with disabilities, museology graduate students and faculty, and ISL practitioners. The AccessISL project model, composed of a set of approaches and interventions, builds on existing research and theory in the fields of education science, change management, effective ISL practices, and inclusive design processes. The project will collect evidence of policies and practices (or lack thereof) that improve the inclusiveness of ISL with respect to a wide range of disabilities and considers approaches for the design and development of new strategies; explores what stakeholders need to make change happen; uncovers challenges to the adoption of inclusive practices in public ISL settings and explores ways to overcome them; and proposes relevant content that might be included in museology curriculum. 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 project addresses the following two objectives:
For ISL personnel and museology faculty: to increase knowledge, skills, and actions to make ISL programs, facilities, courses, and resources more welcoming and accessible to participants with disabilities and embed relevant practices within their work.
For postsecondary STEM students with disabilities and museology students: to increase knowledge and skills in advocating for ISL offerings that are welcoming and accessible to everyone, including those with a wide variety of disabilities, and to encourage individuals with disabilities to pursue careers in ISL.
The project employs a student-centered approach and a set of practices that embrace the social model of disability, social justice education, disability as a diversity issue, intersectionality, and Universal Design. A leadership team of interns--each member a STEM student with a disability or a museology graduate student--along with project staff will engage with the University of Washington's Museology Program to identify and implement strategies for making ISL activities and courses more welcoming and accessible to individuals with disabilities. An online community of practice will be developed from project partners and others nationwide. A one-day capacity building institute will be held to include presentations, student/personnel panels for sharing project and related experiences, and group discussions to explore issues and further identify systemic changes to make ISL programs more welcoming and accessible to individuals with disabilities. As prototypes of the AccessISL Model are developed, evaluation activities will primarily be formative (looking for strengths and weaknesses) and remedial (identifying/implementing changes that could be made to improve the model). The model will continue to be fine-tuned through formative evaluation. Evaluation of the model components will focus on the experience of a range of stakeholders in the project. Specifically, quantitative data collected will include levels and quality of engagement, accessibility recommendations and products developed, and delivery of ISL services. Qualitative data will be collected through observations, surveys, focus groups, interviews, and case studies.
AccessISL project products will include proceedings of an end-of-project capacity building institute, promising practices, case studies, a video, and other online resources to help ISL practitioners and museology faculty that will result in making future ISL opportunities more inclusive of people with disabilities. AccessISL will advance knowledge and ensure long-term impact using multiple strategies:
broadening the STEM participation of people with disabilities as well as women, racial/ethnic minorities, and other underrepresented groups through the application of universal design
strengthening associations and creating synergy and durable relationships among stakeholders,
encouraging teaching about disability, accessibility, and universal design in museology courses,
empowering students with disabilities and current and future ISL practitioners to advocate for accessible ISL and develops an infrastructure to promote accessible ISL programs nationwide, and
contributing to the body of promising practices with products that will (a) enhance understanding of issues related to the inclusion of people with disabilities in ISL programs and (b) promote inclusive practices.
Outcomes will benefit society by making STEM opportunities available to more people and enhancing STEM fields with the talents and perspectives of people with disabilities.
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.
The Space and Earth Informal STEM Education (SEISE) project, led by the Arizona State University with partners Science Museum of Minnesota, Museum of Science, Boston, and the University of California Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and Space Sciences Laboratory, is raising the capacity of museums and informal science educators to engage the public in Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics, and their social dimensions through the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net). SEISE will also partner on a network-to-network basis with other existing coalitions and professional associations dedicated to informal and lifelong STEM learning, including the Afterschool Alliance, National Girls Collaborative Project, NASA Museum Alliance, STAR_Net, and members of the Association of Children’s Museums and Association of Science-Technology Centers. The goals for this project include engaging multiple and diverse public audiences in STEM, improving the knowledge and skills of informal educators, and encouraging local partnerships.
In collaboration with the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD), SEISE is leveraging NASA subject matter experts (SMEs), SMD assets and data, and existing educational products and online portals to create compelling learning experiences that will be widely use to share the story, science, and adventure of NASA’s scientific explorations of planet Earth, our solar system, and the universe beyond. Collaborative goals include enabling STEM education, improving U.S. scientific literacy, advancing national educational goals, and leveraging science activities through partnerships. Efforts will focus on providing opportunities for learners explore and build skills in the core science and engineering content, skills, and processes related to Earth and space sciences. SEISE is creating hands-on activity toolkits (250-350 toolkits per year over four years), small footprint exhibitions (50 identical copies), and professional development opportunities (including online workshops).
Evaluation for the project will include front-end and formative data to inform the development of products and help with project decision gates, as well as summative data that will allow stakeholders to understand the project’s reach and outcomes.