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resource research Resource Centers and Networks
This "mini-poster," a two-page slideshow presenting an overview of the project, was presented at the 2023 AISL Awardee Meeting.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Sheri Vasinda Stephanie Hathcocke Joanna Garner Elizabeth Murray
resource project Public Programs
In this project, the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh in partnership with EdTogether, Spelman College, and the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester will bring together these distinct domains of learning by working with youth and practitioners to conduct a systematic review of equity and belonging work in informal science learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Katie Todd Gabrielle Rappolt-Schlichtmann Samantha Daley Fatima Brunson
resource research Public Programs
The Making Spaces project aims to contribute to a longer-term vision of a future where all UK makerspaces can be vehicles for social justice, offering spaces and resources for a wide range of communities to enhance and improve their lives, wellbeing and agency through STEM-rich making in ways that feel authentic, respectful and value the wisdom, cultures, needs, values and identities of communities. This vision includes a future where the STEM workforce is diverse and representative, where STEM is used to address key societal challenges and where people can use STEM knowledge, skills and
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TEAM MEMBERS: Louise Archer Jen DeWitt Esme Freedman Kylo Thomas
resource project Public Programs
The Pacific Science Center will develop new evaluation tools to assess the impact of Tinker Tank, a visitor-directed, hands-on design space in which participants are challenged to use their creativity, problem solving, and experience to understand the processes of design, engineering, and science. The project will allow the museum to determine which tools, adapted from both informal learning settings (such as timing and tracking studies, observations, surveys, and focus groups) and formal settings (such as design journals, digital portfolios, and badging),are most suitable for providing meaningful data about the learning and engagement occurring in its makerspace. By adjusting and refining the evaluation tools and methods, the museum will be able to measure learning in its makerspace, determine the extent to which it is achieving the goals and objectives of its Tinker Tank, and guide planning for expansion of making activities into different areas of its exhibition floor.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Diana Johns
resource research Public Programs
A practical guide containing descriptions of 11 Tinkering activities for adult learners. It can be used by community development and informal learning practitioners working with adult groups. Some of the activities were newly developed while others were adjusted from already existing and tested activities. Special focus is given to activities suitable for adults from different backgrounds, taking into account different needs, interests and motivations. This publication is a product of Tinkering EU: Addressing the Adults, funded with support from the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Sarah Funk
resource research Public Programs
Making as a term has gained attention in the educational field. It signals many different meanings to many different groups, yet is not clearly defined. This project’s researchers refer to making as a term that bears social and cultural impact but with a broader more sociocultural association than definitions that center making in STEM learning. Using the theoretical lenses of critical relationality and embodiment, our research team position curriculum as a set of locally situated activities that are culturally, linguistically, socially, and politically influenced. We argue that curriculum
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TEAM MEMBERS: Veronica Oguilve Wen Wen Em Bowen Yousra Abourehab Amanda Bermudez Elizabeth Gaxiola Jill Castek
resource research Public Programs
But many young people face signifcant economic, cultural, historical, and/or social obstacles that distance them from STEM as a meaningful or viable option— these range from under-resourced schools, race- and gender-based discrimination, to the dominant cultural norms of STEM professions or the historical uses of STEM to oppress or disadvantage socio-economically marginalized communities (Philip and Azevedo 2017). As a result, participation in STEM-organized hobby groups, academic programs, and professions remains low among many racial, ethnic, and gender groups (Dawson 2017). One solution to
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TEAM MEMBERS: Bronwyn Bevan Kylie Peppler Mark Rosin Lynn Scarff Lissa Soep Jen Wong
resource project Public Programs
The goal of the National Science Foundation?s Research Coordination Network (RCN) program is to advance a field or create new directions in research or education by supporting groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, geographic and international boundaries. This RCN will bring together scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of equity and interdisciplinary making in STEM education. Making is a culture that emphasizes interest-driven learning by doing within an informal, peer-led and creative social environment. Hundreds of maker spaces and maker-oriented classroom pedagogies have developed across the country. Maker spaces often include digital technologies such as computer design, 3-D printers, and laser cutters, but may also include traditional crafts or a variety of artist-driven creations. The driving purpose of the project is to collectively broaden STEM-focused maker participation in the United States through pursuing common research questions, sharing resources, and incubating emergent inquiry and knowledge across multiple working sites of practice. The network aims to build capacity for research and knowledge, building in consequential and far-reaching mechanisms to leverage combined efforts of a core group of scholars, practitioners, and an extended network of formal and informal education partners in urban and rural sites serving people from groups underrepresented in STEM. Maker learning spaces can be particularly fruitful spaces for STEM learning toward equity because they foster interest-driven, collective, and community-oriented learning in making for social and community change. The network will be led by a team of multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary researchers from different geographic regions of the United States and guided by a steering committee of prominent researchers and practitioners in making and equity will convene to facilitate network activities.

Equitable processes are rooted in a commitment to understand and build on the skills, practices, values, and knowledge of communities marginalized in STEM. The research network aims to fill in gaps in current understandings about making and equity, including the many ways different projects define equity and STEM in making. The project will survey the existing research terrain to develop a dynamic and cohesive understanding of making that connects to learners' STEM ideas, communities, and historical ways of making. Additionally, the network will collaboratively develop central research questions for network partners. The network will create a repository for ethical and promising practices in community-based research and aggregate data across sites, among other activities. The network will support collaboration across a multiplicity of making spaces, research institutions, and community organizations throughout the country to share data, methodologies, ways of connecting to local communities and approaches to robust integration of STEM skills and practices. Project impacts will include new research partnerships, a dissemination hub for research related to making and equity, professional development for researchers and practitioners, and leveraging collective research findings about making values and practices to improve approaches to STEM-rich making integration in informal learning environments. The project is funded by NSF's Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings.

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: Maria Olivares Eli Tucker-Raymond Edna Tan Jill Castek Cynthia Graville
resource research Public Programs
The making and tinkering movement has become increasingly mainstream over the past decade, pioneered in part through the popularity of magazines like `Make', events such as Maker Faire and DIY websites including `Instructables'. Science centres and museums have been developing their own ideas, notably the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium. In this commentary piece, we reflect on why this movement has a strong appeal for the Life Science Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne and why we are in the process of developing a new making and tinkering space to help us enact our centre's vision to `Enrich
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TEAM MEMBERS: Elin Roberts
resource project Public Programs
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. The project will develop and research, as a feasibility study, a series of art-inclusive, pop-up Science, Art, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEAM) makerspaces in a high-poverty, primarily rural county in Oklahoma. A makerspace is a collaborative work space inside a library, school or other community space for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to low tech tools. The makerspaces will be temporary workshops that are developed through a community planning process that assesses the needs and interests of citizen stakeholders. Scientists, artists and other experts will work together with the community to design a series of thematic pop-up makerspace sessions. The project builds a collaborative infrastructure and capacity for small and rural communities by bringing together resource providers and experts to identify and design science-oriented challenges. Long-term benefits for participants include sustained focus on new approaches for civic engagement through STEAM-driven making which could foster new role identities pertaining to science and art. The project deliverables include: (1) a theoretically informed model to build a community's capacity to collaborate toward fostering civic engagement through science-oriented pop-up makerspaces, (2) Pop-Up STEAM Studio makerspaces, (3) training for pop-up facilitators, and (4) visual documentation panels and web-based digital stories to communicate progress and process.

Project research will enhance knowledge-building of the process of developing a science-oriented community challenge that embraces STEAM and making. A key contribution of the proposed project will be the generation of insights into how community members establish consensus around the joint goal of designing, documenting, and facilitating integrated art and science making activities to address and communicate the challenge. Research will focus on the roles participants take when engaging in the making process through an identity-based model of motivated action. Analysis of advisory board meeting artifacts and focus group data will allow the researchers to identify processes of negotiation and consensus building at the collective level and in relation to each issue to which the group attends. Emergent themes (such as negotiation, shared learning, idea or project revisions, diverse perspectives coming to consensus, etc.) will be examined across individual and group units of analysis, from all data sources, and through the congruent theoretical lenses of role identity theory and negotiated learning pedagogy. The research outcomes should inform efforts to build infrastructure and capacity of community resources by providing a model for developing collaborative pop-up makerspaces.

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: Sheri Vasinda Joanna Garner Stephanie Hathcock Rebecca Brienen
resource project Public Programs
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Sheryl Burgstahler Meena Selvakumar
resource evaluation Public Programs
This annual report presents an overview of Saint Louis Science Center audience data gathered through a variety of evaluation studies conducted during 2016. This report includes information on the Science Center's general public audience demographics and visitation patterns, gives an overview of visitors' comments about their Science Center experience, summarizes major trends observed in the Science Center's tool for tracking educational programs, and presents highlights from evaluations of the new GROW exhibition and First Friday program.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Elisa Israel Sara Davis Kelley Staab