The Explore Science: Let’s Do Chemistry project is a design-based research study creating both chemistry hands-on activities and a theoretical framework about strategies that promote increases in public interest, understandings of relevance, and feelings of self-efficacy about chemistry. This poster, which was presented at the 2019 NSF AISL Principal Investigators Meeting, shared the design-based research process for the ChemAttitudes project and asked how we can promote use of project findings and products beyond the life of the grant.
BioEYES, a nonprofit outreach program using zebrafish to excite and educate K–12 students about science and how to think and act like scientists, has been integrated into hundreds of under-resourced schools since 2002. During the week-long experiments, students raise zebrafish embryos to learn principles of development and genetics. We have analyzed 19,463 participating students’ pre- and post-tests within the program to examine their learning growth and attitude changes towards science. We found that at all grade levels, BioEYES effectively increased students’ content knowledge and produced
This article shares the results and reflections on the research process conducted by the Maloka Interactive Museum (https://www.maloka.org/) regarding the implementation of the policy that extends the school day in public schools in Bogotá. Based on ethnographic observations, focus groups and interviews with the participants, the text concludes that the communication and education process about science and technology can be understood as a social practice of knowledge exchange among heterogeneous participants whose intention is to promote transformations within their specific settings.
This
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gonzalo PeñalozaLina QuijanoSigrid FallaSara Marquez
While there is extensive evidence that STEM careers can be important pathways for augmenting social mobility and for increasing individual prestige, many youth perceive a STEM trajectory as an unattractive option. In the US, women and members of historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups, continue to be underrepresented across STEM disciplines. One vehicle for generating and sustaining interest in STEM is providing youth long-term access to informal science education (ISE) institutions. Here, we incorporate triangulation methods, collecting and synthesizing both qualitative and
This study focused on narrative reflections families recorded shortly after they visited the Tinkering Lab exhibit at Chicago Children’s Museum. They recorded their narrative reflections in a multi-media station called Story Hub. Some families brought the projects they had made in Tinkering Lab with them into Story Hub. We asked if families who had their project with them engaged in more STEM-related talk and associations to prior and future experiences than those who did not.
This study was designed to examine narratives that families recorded shortly after visiting the Tinkering Lab at the Chicago Children’s Museum. We view this work as intersecting with the event memory literature concerning variations in parental reminiscing styles for talking about past events (Fivush, Haden, Reese, 2006). The study also connects with efforts to assess learning in museum settings (Haden, Cohen, Uttal, & Marcus, 2016).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lauren PaganoDanielle NesiDestinee JohnsonDiana AcostaCatherine HadenDavid UttalPerla Gamez
This presentation was a part of a workshop/paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Children's Museums. The presentation includes strategies on how to increase STEM learning through tinkering experiences at museums.
Conversations shortly after hands-on learning experiences can consolidate children’s fleeting patterns of engagement with objects into long-lasting memories. Moreover, conversational reflection can add layers of understanding of events beyond what is available from direct experience with objects alone.
For the past several years, my colleagues and I have partnered with practitioners at Chicago Children’s Museum on projects to build knowledge and a research base for educational practices in museums. One focus of our work together concerns family engagement in conversational reflections about
This Innovations in Development 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.
The Designing Our Tomorrow project will develop a framework for creating exhibit-based engineering design challenges and expand an existing model of facilitation for use in engineering exhibits. The project seeks to broaden participation in engineering and build capacity within the informal science education (ISE) field while raising public awareness of the importance of sustainable engineering design practices. The project focuses on girls aged 9-14 and their families and is co-developed with culturally responsive strategies to ensure the inclusion and influence of families from Latino communities. The project will conduct research resulting in theory-based measures of engineering proficiencies within an exhibit context and an exhibit facilitation model for the topic area of engineering. Based on the research, the project will develop an engineering design challenge framework for developing design challenges within an exhibit context. As the context for research, the project will develop a bilingual English/Spanish 2,000-square foot traveling exhibition designed to engage youth and families in engineering design challenges that advance their engineering proficiencies from beginner to more informed, supported by professional development modules and a host-site training workshop introducing strategies for facilitating family engineering experiences within a traveling exhibition. The project is a collaboration of Oregon Museum of Science and Industry with the Biomimicry Institute, Adelante Mujeres, and the Fleet Science Center.
Designing Our Tomorrow builds on a theory-based engineering teaching framework and several previous NSF-funded informal education projects to engage families in compelling design challenges presented through the lens of sustainable design exemplified by biomimicry. Through culturally-responsive co-development and research strategies to include members of Latino communities and provide challenges that highlight the altruistic, creative, personally relevant, and collaborative aspects of engineering, the Designing Our Tomorrow exhibition showcases engineering as an appealing career option for women and helps families support each other's engineering proficiencies. To better understand and promote engineering learning in an ISE setting, the project will conduct two research studies to inform and iteratively develop effective strategies. In the first study, measurement development will build on prior research and practice to design credible and reliable measures of engineering proficiency, awareness, and collaboration, as well as protocols for use in exhibit development and the study of facilitation at engineering exhibits, and future research. The second study will explore the effects of facilitation on the experience outcomes.
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 Innovations in Development 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. The Design Squad Maker project, a collaboration of WGBH Public Television (WGBH) and the New York Hall of Science (NySci), will research and develop engineering design projects that provide evidence for how to integrate informal learning spaces with digital public media assets. The project will be designed to provide accessible, motivating pathways for children aged 8-11 in pursuing and completing ambitious, fully realized engineering design projects. The project will build on WGBH's existing Design Squad model for using media to engage kids in informal engineering activities and NySCI's expertise in facilitating children's unique design processes in museum settings. By developing and studying new strategies for supporting children's use of the design process, Design Squad Maker will address critical issues in engineering education and informal learning that remain relatively unexplored. Project research will contribute to the emerging literature on "connected learning" by building new knowledge about how children's design activities can be sustained and supported over time and across multiple contexts, such as science museums and homes. Drawing on existing research in the learning sciences and engineering education, the project seeks to advance knowledge about the role of museums, maker spaces, and digital technology in sustaining children's learning in engineering. The project will use a design-based research approach, a research and development process whereby educational designers collaborate with learning scientists. Museum practitioners will collaborate with research staff and media developers to design, test, and improve digital resources, facilitation strategies, and parent engagement strategies to support children through an entire design process. The research and development process will result in digital resources and approaches in a flexible toolkit, which will be used when assessing the project's scale-up potential at 10 museum/maker spaces. The project will conduct a summative evaluation, assessing the project's intended impacts with children, parents, and staff at museums/maker spaces across the country. The toolkit will be nationally disseminated through national partners that include the Association of Science-Technology Centers, Maker Education, the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement, and engineering education organizations. 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.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program 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 Innovations in Development project will develop a collaborative program to connect and prepare researchers from divergent disciplines to communicate science to publics of all ages in three distinct informal environments: pop-ups at community events, experiential learning with problem solving events for youth, and presentations at a science museum. It will study the effects of this program on the identity and motivations of STEM researchers and evaluate the short and medium-term outcomes for public audiences. Project partners include, The STEAM Factory, OHI/O Informal Learning in Tech Program, and the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) all located in Columbus, Ohio.
The primary goals of this project are as follows. 1) Develop a collaborative program that connects and prepares researchers from divergent disciplines to creatively and effectively communicate science to people of all ages. 2) Evaluate the short and medium-term learning outcomes across different informal learning settings. 3) Study the effect of this collaborative program on the motivations and identify of the researchers. The specific research question is: In what ways do researchers motivations and identities further develop because of these collaborative experiences with divergent perspectives? A mixed method approach will be used. Data will be collected and analyzed from 3 cohorts of researchers who implement programs in different informal learning settings. A series of pre- and post interviews with scientists will be designed to answer the research question above. Interviews will be grounded in self-determination theory. Later reflective surveys will serve as triangulation for the data.
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:
Sathya GopalakrishnanJustin MeyerRachel KajfezArnab Nandi