The purpose of this paper is to explore results from a qualitative study of how high school aged BLV youth used spatial language during a virtual engineering experience administered by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). Findings from this study can provide recommendations to enhance language in curricula that better reflects BLV students' content and may ultimately encourage more BLV students to pursue careers in STEM fields.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gary TimkoNatalie ShaheenWade GoodridgeTheresa GreenDaniel Kane
The Researching Invention Education white paper compiles contributions from a community of individuals and organizations working in Invention Education (IvE) in the United States. IvE is a term that refers to the practice of teaching students how to problem-solve and think like inventors in order to become positive change-makers in the world. The paper was written by researchers interested in IvE who attended the 2018 InventEd convening hosted by The Lemelson Foundation. The group worked together for a year to publish their findings that were then uncovered at the 2019 InventEd convening in
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Audra SkukauskaiteStephanie CouchLeslie Flynn
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This is a project to offer the Forum on Inclusive STEMM Entrepreneurship (FISE), a novel effort to broaden the participation of underrepresented minority women in STEMM entrepreneurship and to enhance the diversity of the science and engineering workforce. Through a convening of educators, entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors and policy experts, entrepreneurial education thought leaders, and intersectionality scholars the PI proposes to use this conference as a platform for building capacity in the preparation and development of future entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. The PI also seeks to contribute to the emerging field of research that bridges tech entrepreneurship and education policy.
The proposed forum has the potential to advance knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship education and engineering education. Given the dearth of research-based interventions to broaden participation in tech entrepreneurship, this conference offers an opportunity for participants to contribute to the leading edge of research and interventions in this field.
The convening and associated activities will leverage the social capital of knowledgeable experts in the academy and industry, investors, entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs to address critical needs of the nation that relate to enhanced global competitiveness, an improved national economy, and the participation of underrepresented cohorts in entrepreneurship and commercialization.
This evaluation reports on the Mission: Solar System project, a 2-year project funded by NASA. The goal of the Mission: Solar System was to create a collection of resources that integrates digital media with hands-on science and engineering activities to support kids’ exploration in formal and informal education settings. Our goal in creating the resources were: For youth: (1) Provide opportunities to use science, technology, engineering, and math to solve challenges related to exploring our solar system, (2) Build and hone critical thinking, problem-solving, and design process skills, (3)
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. This project, "STEM Learning in Libraries: A National Conference on Needs, Opportunities, and Future Directions," brings together libraries, informal educators and STEM education and research organizations to discuss the role of libraries in STEM out-of-school time (OST) education, share existing programs, define library needs, and develop a research and evaluation agenda. To date, there has not been systematic exploration of the ways that STEM programming occurs in libraries nor of their effectiveness when they do happen. This will be the first conference of its kind and stands to have a high degree of visibility and the potential for broad impact. Principal Investigator Paul Dusenbery, Director of the National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) and Executive Director of Space Science Institute, will lead an experienced project team that includes Co-PI Keliann LaConte, Lunar Planetary Institute; Susan Brandehoff, Public Programs Office, American Library Association; and Anne Holland, NCIL. The conference sessions will be organized around four strands: (1) showcasing successful STEM programs and reviewing research and evaluation results on informal STEM learning in public libraries; (2) examining the current needs, barriers, and opportunities of public libraries; (3) elucidating the possible future roles of public libraries in the 21st Century; and (4) identifying promising practices and strategies. Beginning with core members comprised of the project team and organizing committees, the project will create a Leadership Forum for library directors, library science educators, and policy makers, as well as STEM professionals and educators. Conference results will be disseminated through a wide variety of organizational websites: NCIL, ALA, LPI, the conference website, the STAR_Net online community, and CAISE. In 2010, there were nearly 1.6 billion visits to 17,000 public libraries. Library audiences are true reflections of the nation's population - they serve all races, ages, economic backgrounds, and regions of the country. The STEM Learning in Libraries conference will give public libraries, STEM organizations, informal educators, and funders an opportunity to begin a dialogue with implications for profoundly impacting the attitudes of millions of Americans toward STEM topics.
"Hybrid spaces for science learning" refers to the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time. Learning science within hybrid spaces can be a fun, engaging, and reflective experience. Further, hybrid spaces are inherently social, facilitating dialogue and social exchange, as well as the construction of knowledge, paralleling the nature of contemporary science. This symposium brings together several research programs that address learning "across contexts" that span classroom activities
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ole SmordalJim SlottaTom MoherMichelle LuiAlfredo Jornet
The Coalition for Science After School was launched January 28, 2004 at the Santa Fe Institute, home to the world’s leading researchers on the study of complexity. Against the dazzling backdrop of the New Mexican mesa, 40 educational leaders from diverse but overlapping domains—science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and after-school programs—met to grapple with three emerging, important trends in youth development and science learning in this country: 1. An explosion in the number of U.S. youth attending after-school programs, and increasing links between school and after
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TEAM MEMBERS:
The Coalition for Science After SchoolLeah Reisman
This paper describes the integration of handheld computer technology into an existing web-based educational platform, the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) and the synergy it produces. This solution facilitated a research program that explores how handheld computers (PDAs, palmtops, etc.) can expand the scope and functionality of inquiry activities in K-12 science and mathematics curriculum. The paper presents the WISE software and curriculum and explains how combining it with handheld technology creates unique educational opportunities. It then goes on to describe the system that
To explore how the United States can harness the powerful features of digital games for learning, the Federation of American Scientists, the Entertainment Software Association, and the National Science Foundation convened a National Summit on Educational Games, on October 25, 2005 in Washington, DC. The Summit brought together nearly 100 experts to discuss ways to accelerate the development, commercialization, and deployment of new generation games for learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Federation of American ScientistsHenry Kelly
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) permeate the modern world. The jobs people do, the foods they eat, the vehicles in which they travel, the information they receive, the medicines they take, and many other facets of modern life are constantly changing as STEM knowledge steadily accumulates. Yet STEM education in the United States, despite the importance of these subjects, is consistently falling short. Many students are not graduating from high school with the knowledge and capacities they will need to pursue STEM careers or understand STEM-related issues in the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Steve OlsonJay LabovNational Research Council
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
In this article, the author expresses her views on how science technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) standards can be developed to upgrade lifelong science learning. She mentions that the International Conference in the Learning Sciences (ICLS) that will be conducted by the International Society for the Learning Sciences (ISLS) will have an advantage to the development of the STEM standards. She also comments on the establishment of cyberlearning environments to improve science education.