This project is designed to support collaboration between informal STEM learning (ISL) researchers, designers, and educators with sound researchers and acoustic ecologists to jointly explore the role of auditory experiences—soundscapes—on learning. In informal STEM learning spaces, where conversation advances STEM learning and is a vital part of the experience of exploring STEM phenomena with family and friends, attention to the impacts of soundscapes can have an important bearing on learning. Understanding how soundscapes may facilitate, spark, distract from, or even overwhelm thinking and conversation will provide ISL educators and designers evidence to inform their practice. The project is structured to reflect the complexity of ISL audiences and experiences; thus, partners include the North Park Village Nature Center located in in a diverse immigrant neighborhood in Chicago; Wild Indigo, a Great Lakes Audubon program primarily serving African American visitors in Midwest cities; an after-school/summer camp provider, STEAMing Ahead New Mexico, serving families in the rural southwest corner of New Mexico, and four sites in Ohio, MetroParks, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and the Center of Science and Industry.
Investigators will conduct large-scale exploratory research to answer an understudied research question: How do environmental sounds impact STEM learning in informal learning spaces? Researchers and practitioners will characterize and describe the soundscapes throughout the different outdoor and indoor exhibit/learning spaces. Researchers will observe 800 visitors, tracking attraction, attention, dwell time, and shared learning. In addition to observations, researchers will join another 150 visitors for think-aloud interviews, where researchers will walk alongside visitors and capture pertinent notes while visitors describe their experience in real time. Correlational and cluster analyses using machine learning algorithms will be used to identify patterns across different sounds, soundscapes, responses, and reflections of research participants. In particular, the analyses will identify characteristics of sounds that correlate with increased attention and shared learning. Throughout the project, a team of evaluators will monitor progress and support continuous improvement, including guidance for developing culturally responsive research metrics co-defined with project partners. Evaluators will also document the extent to which the project impacts capacity building, and influences planning and design considerations for project partners. This exploratory study is the initial in a larger research agenda, laying the groundwork for future experimental study designs that test causal claims about the relationships between specific soundscapes and visitor learning. Results of this study will be disseminated widely to informal learning researchers and practitioners through workshops, presentations, journal articles, facilitated conversations, and a short film that aligns with the focus and findings of the research.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Martha MersonJustin MeyerDaniel Shanahan
This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
Zoos and aquariums have been offering programming, events, and visit accommodations to autistic individuals for several years. While these efforts can provide great experiences, they are focused more on accommodation and the outward-facing guest experience than inclusion. Lack of inclusion features in design, programming, and representation amongst zoo and aquarium representatives, ultimately limits full inclusion and adds to a sense in autistic individuals of not belonging and not being welcomed. To develop a fully inclusive experience for autistic individuals, this project will develop an evidence-based framework of inclusive practices for zoos and aquariums and build a community of practice around inclusion broadly. The project brings together researchers from Oregon State University, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Researchers will create and investigate the extent and ways in which a research-informed framework and associated tools (i.e. case studies, discussion guides, self-guided audits, etc.) and strategies support science learning for autistic individuals, and help practitioners expand access and inclusion of autistic audiences beyond special events or the general visit experience by applying inclusive practices for programs, exhibit development, internships, volunteer opportunities, and employment. To maximize impact, the project will develop and expand a network of early adopters to build a community of practice around inclusive practices to develop fully inclusive zoo and aquarium experiences for all individuals.
The project will investigate 4 research questions: (1) In what ways and to what extent are zoos and aquariums currently addressing access and inclusion for autistic individuals? (2) How do staff in zoos and aquariums perceive their and their institution’s willingness and ability to address access and inclusion for autistic individuals? (3) What is a framework of evidence-based practices across the zoo and aquarium experience that is inclusive for autistic individuals, and what associated tools and strategies are needed to make the framework useful for early adopters? And (4) to what extent and in what ways does a research informed framework with associated tools and strategies engage, support, and enhance an existing community of practitioners already dedicated to addressing autistic audiences and promote inclusive practices at zoos and aquariums for autistic people? The project is designed as two phases: (1) the research and development of a framework of inclusive practices and tools for supporting autistic individuals and (2) expanding a network of early adopters to build a community of practice around inclusive practices and an overall strategy of implementation. The framework will be informed through a state of the field study across the zoo/aquarium field that includes a landscape study and needs assessment as well as a review of literature that synthesizes existing research across disciplines for developing inclusive practices for autistic individuals in zoos and aquariums. The team will also conduct online surveys and focus groups to gather input from various stakeholders including zoo and aquarium employees and practitioners, autistic individuals, and their social groups (e.g., family members, peers, advocacy organizations). The second phase of the study will focus on sharing the framework and tools with practitioners across the zoo/aquarium field for feedback and reflection to develop an overall strategy for broader implementation and expanding the existing network of zoo and aquarium professionals to build a community of practice dedicated to the comprehensive inclusion of autistic individuals across the full zoo and aquarium experience. The results will be disseminated through conference presentations, scholarly publications, online discussion forums, and collaborative partners’ websites. The project represents one of the first of its kind on autistic audiences within the zoo and aquarium context and is the first to look at the full experience of autistic patrons to zoos and aquariums across programs/events, exhibits, volunteering, internship, and employment opportunities. A process evaluation conducted as part of the project will explore how the approach taken in this project may be more broadly applied in understanding and advancing inclusion for other audiences historically underserved or marginalized by zoos and aquariums.
This Research in Service to Practice project is supported by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
Access to STEM information is unequal, with rural and poor communities often receiving the fewest public education science and science literacy opportunities. Rural areas also face unique STEM teaching and technology integration challenges. In fact, LatinX communities in rural areas are less likely to have access to educational resources and language supports available to LatinX communities in urban centers. This project will help address these inequities by engaging rural librarians, bilingual science communicators, polar scientists, and a technical team to create a series of five bilingual virtual reality (VR) experiences to enhance STEM understanding and appreciation. Project researchers will create a new channel for disseminating polar science, working first with rural Latinx communities in Wisconsin to create a new network between rural communities and university researchers. Involving rural librarians in the co-design of instruction process will produce new ways for rural libraries to engage their local communities and their growing Latinx populations with polar science learning experiences. Each of the five VR experiences will focus on a different area of research, using the captivating Arctic and Antarctic environments as a central theme to convey science. VR is a particularly powerful and apt approach, making it possible to visit places that most cannot experience first-hand while also learning about the wide range of significant research taking place in polar regions. After design, prototyping and testing are finished, the VR experiences will be freely available for use nationally in both rural and urban settings. Public engagement with science creates a multitude of mutual benefits that result from a better-informed society. These benefits include greater trust and more reasoned scrutiny of science along with increased interest in STEM careers, many of which have higher earning potential. The project team will partner with 51 rural libraries which are valued community outlets valuable outlets to improve science literacy and public engagement with science. The effects of this project will be seen with thousands of community members who take part in the testing of prototype VR experiences during development and scaled engagement through ongoing library programs utilizing the final VR experiences for years to come.
This project will create new informal STEM learning assessment techniques through combining prior efforts in the areas of educational data mining for stealth assessment and viewpoint similarity metrics through monitoring gaze direction. Results of the project contribute to the field of educational data mining (EDM), focusing on adopting its methods for VR learning experiences. EDM is a process of using fine grained interaction data from a digital system to support educationally relevant conclusions and has been applied extensively to intelligent tutors and more recently, educational videogames. This project will continue building on existing approaches by expanding to include the unique affordances of VR learning media, specifically gaze. The project will focus on predicting user quitting as well as assessing key learning goals within each experience and triangulate these predictive models with user observations and post-experience surveys. The eventual application of this foundational research would address the problem in assessing a learner using measures external to the experience itself (i.e., surveys) and instead provide new methods that instrument learners using only data generated by their actions within the learning context. These techniques will provide a new means for evaluating informal learning in immersive technology settings without need for explicit tagging. The findings from this project will enable a greater understanding of the relationship between a user’s experience and their learning outcomes, which may prove integral in the creation of educational interventions using VR technology.
This Innovations in Development 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. This project is also supported by the Office of Polar Programs.
Informal STEM learning environments, programs, and policies can be designed to support and promote neurodiversity through inclusive practices. This project will explore the benefits of informal STEM learning for K-12 neurodiverse learners through a systematic review and meta-analysis of extant literature and research grounded in the theory of social model of ability. This framework is an asset-based approach and aims to promote social, cognitive, and physical inclusion, leading to positive outcomes. Using various quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this project endeavors to collect and synthesize the evidence for supporting and enhancing accessibility and inclusiveness in informal STEM learning for K-12 neurodiverse learners. It will explore key features of informal STEM learning and effective, evidence-based strategies to effectively engage children and youth with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and dyspraxia, in informal STEM learning environments. The findings of this complex synthesis will provide a timely contribution to deeper understanding of supports for neurodiversity while also highlighting areas that inform further research, shifts in practice, and policy.
The systematic review will occur over a two-year period. It will focus on identifying program elements that promote inclusion of children and youth with neurodevelopmental disabilities in informal STEM learning contexts. Specifically, the review will explore two overarching research questions and several sub-research questions:
RQ1. What program elements (teaching and learning variables) in informal STEM learning settings facilitate inclusion of K-12 neurodiverse STEM learners? Sub-RQ1a: What are the overlapping and discrete characteristics of the program elements that facilitate social, cognitive, and physical inclusion?
Sub-RQ1b: In what ways do the program elements that facilitate inclusion vary by informal STEM learning setting?
RQ2: What program elements (teaching and learning variables) in informal STEM learning settings are correlated with benefits for K-12 neurodiverse STEM learners? Sub-RQ2a: What are the overlapping and discrete characteristics of the program elements that correlate with increased STEM identity, self- efficacy, interest in STEM, or STEM learning?
Sub-RQ2b: In what ways do the program elements that correlate with positive results for students vary by informal STEM learning setting? The research synthesis will consider several different types of studies, including research and evaluation; experimental and quasi-experimental designs; quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods; and implementation studies.
The research team will (a) review all analyses and organize findings to illustrate patterns, factors, and relationships, (b) identify key distinctions and nuances derived from the contexts represented in the literature, and (c) revisit and confirm the strength of evidence for making overall assertions of what works, why, and with whom. The findings will be disseminated in practice briefs, journal articles, the AISL resource center, as well as presentations and materials for researchers, practitioners, and informal STEM leaders. Ultimately, this work will result in a comprehensive synthesis of effective informal STEM learning practices for neurodiverse K-12 learners and identify opportunities for further research and development.
This literature review and meta-analysis 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.
Recent studies have advocated for a shift toward educational practices that involve learners in actively contributing to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as a shared and public endeavor, rather than limiting their involvement to the construction of previously established knowledge. Prioritizing learners’ agency in deciding what is worth knowing and how learning takes place may create more equitable and inclusive learning experiences by centering the knowledge, cultural practices, and social interactions that motivate learning for people across ages, genders, and backgrounds. In informal learning environments, families’ social interactions are critical avenues for STEM learning, and science centers and museums have developed strategies for prompting families’ sustained engagement and conversation at STEM exhibits. However, exhibits often guide visitors’ exploration toward predetermined insights, constraining the ways that families can interact with STEM content, and neglecting opportunities to tap into their prior knowledge. Practices in the maker movement that emphasize skill-building and creative expression, and participatory practices in museums that invite visitors to contribute to exhibits in consequential ways both have the potential to reframe STEM learning as an ongoing, social process that welcomes diverse perspectives. Yet little is known about how these practices can be scaled, and how families themselves respond to these efforts, particularly for the diverse family audiences that science centers and museums aim to serve. Further, although gender and ethnicity both affect learning in informal settings, studies often separate participants along a single dimension, obscuring important nuances in families’ experiences. By addressing these outstanding questions, this research responds to the goals of the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening engagement in STEM learning experiences and advancing innovative research on STEM learning in informal environments.
Research will address (1) how families perceive and act on their collective epistemic agency while exploring STEM exhibits (i.e., how they work together to negotiate and pursue their own learning goals); (2) whether and how families’ expressions of agency are influenced by gender and ethnicity; and (3) what exhibit design features support expressions of agency for the broadest possible audience. Research studies will use interviews and observational case studies at a range of exhibits with distinct affordances to examine families’ epistemic agency as a shared, social practice. Cultural historical activity theory and intersectional approaches will guide qualitative analyses of families’ activities as systems that are mediated by the physical environment and social setting. Education activities will involve an ongoing collaboration between researchers, exhibit designers, educators, and facilitators (high-school and college-level floor staff), using a Change Laboratory model. The group will use emerging findings from the research to create a reflection tool to guide the development of more inclusive learning experiences at STEM exhibits, and a set of design principles for supporting families’ expressions of agency. A longitudinal ethnographic study will document the development of inclusive exhibit design practices throughout the project as well as how the Change Lab participants develop their sociocultural perspectives on learning and exhibit design over time. Analyzing these shifts in practice within the Change Lab will provide a deeper understanding of what works and what is difficult or does not occur when working toward infrastructure change in museums. By considering how multiple aspects of families’ identities shape their learning experiences, this work will generate evidence-based recommendations to help science centers and museums develop more inclusive practices that foster a sense of ownership over the learning process for the broadest possible audience of families.
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. An ongoing challenge to the design of effective STEM learning exhibits for diverse young children is the absence of reliable and evidence-based resources that designers can apply to the design of STEM exhibits that draw upon play as a child's primary pedagogy, while simultaneously engaging children with STEM content and processes that support development of STEM skills such as observation. To address these challenges, the project team will use a collaborative process in which learning researchers and informal STEM practitioners iteratively develop, design, and test the STEM for Play Framework that could then be applied to the design of STEM-focused exhibits that support play and STEM skill use among early learners.
This Research in Service to Practice project will address these questions: 1) What is a framework for play in early STEM learning that is inclusive of children's cultural influences?; 2) To what extent do interactions between early learners (ages 3-8) and caregivers or peers at exhibits influence the structure and effectiveness of play for supporting STEM skill development?; 3) How do practitioners link play to STEM skill development, and to what extent does a framework for play in early STEM learning assist in identifying types of play that supports early STEM skill development?; and 4) What do practitioners identify as best practices in exhibit design that support the development of STEM skills for early childhood audiences, and conversely, to what extent do practitioners perceive specific aspects of the design as influential to play? The project team will address these questions across four phases of study that will include (a) development of a critical research synthesis to inform the initial STEM for Play framework; (b) the use of surveys, focus groups, and interviews to solicit feedback from practitioners; (c) testing and revising the framework by conducting structured observations of STEM exhibits at multiple museums. The project team will use multiple analytic approaches including qualitative thematic analyses as well as inferential statistics. Results will be disseminated to children?s museums, science centers, and research communities.
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.
The science museum field is only starting to look at ways of providing visitors with opportunities for the authentic observation of complex, real-time biological phenomenon. The project will develop and research a microscope-based exhibit with pedagogical scaffolding (i.e., helpful prompts) that responds to visitors' changing views as they explore live samples and biological processes. 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. Scientific observation is a systematic, complex practice, critical in the biological sciences where investigation is heavily reliant on visual data. Using techniques and equipment similar to what scientists themselves use, the exhibit will enable visitors to see and explore the complex, dynamic visual evidence that scientists themselves see. The exhibit will use new and more affordable high-resolution imaging technology and image analysis software to make microscopic images of living organisms visible. Armed with "smart" (i.e., computer-assisted) pedagogical scaffolding that supports inquiry, the project will develop exhibits that help informal learners bridge the gap between everyday observation and authentic scientific observation. The platform will incorporate strategies grounded in prior work on learning through observation that will be applicable to a range of biological content and live specimens. The project platform will be designed for use to a variety of informal science learning environments, including nature centers and mobile laboratories as well as interactive science centers. The project platform itself, including the microscope, related imaging, and learning technologies will be relatively inexpensive, bring it within reach of small science museum and schools. The exhibit will directly engage thousands of learners who visit the Exploratorium and will reach underserved audiences through partnerships with BioBus, a mobile unit that serves the New York City area, and the Noyo Center of Marine Science, a science museum that serves rural areas in Northern California.
The project will move beyond simulation and modeling of complex visual phenomena and provide learners with experiences using real visual evidence that can deeply engage them with the content and practice of biological science. By grounding the work in prior theoretical and empirical findings, project research will refine and broaden understanding of scaffolding strategies and their effect on informal science learning at exhibits. Project research will investigate how the project supports learners (1) asking productive questions (i.e., those answerable through observations) that are meaningful to them, (2) interpreting what they see, and (3) connecting their observations to biological concepts to build a more coherent understanding of the content and practice of biological disciplines. A series of comparative studies across and within venues, specimens, and content will assess engagement and scaffolding strategies, with a particular focus on appropriately integrating computational imaging techniques in a way that is responsive to the interests and needs of different venues' audiences. Project research will contribute important knowledge on ways to support informal learners who are engaged in authentic observation of biological phenomenon. Project research findings and technology resources will be widely shared with informal STEM researchers and practitioners concerned with engaging the public in current research in biology, as well as those interested in supporting observation in other disciplines (e.g., meteorology, ocean science, environmental science) that rely on an evidence base of live, dynamic, complex imagery.
This Innovations in Development 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.
Very little is known about the experiences of people with learning disabilities in informal learning environments such as science centers and museums. This project will describe the ways in which engagement and intrinsic motivation for learning are and are not supported for visitors with learning disabilities, and build capacity for informal STEM education practitioners to apply this learning for the benefit of those with learning disabilities as well as any visitor who needs more support in the context of self-directed learning. Broadening participation science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) is a core goal of the National Science Foundation and its Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program. This project pursues this goal with a focus on young people with learning disabilities. As the largest group of individuals with disabilities in the United States, people with learning disabilities make up an estimated 20% of the U.S. population. Science professions offer many life- and work-related opportunities for individuals with learning disabilities, and the flexible experiences of informal learning spaces offer important opportunities to promote participation, engagement in and motivation for science. This work represents the next generation of accessible design to broaden participation in, and impacts of, informal STEM learning opportunities. This project will generate guidelines and resources to support inclusive design for this group of visitors. Resources will include a Toolkit of Visual Assets that can be shared digitally and in print with youth with learning disabilities, informal STEM practitioners, and the learning disability research and practice community.
The project will develop empirical knowledge to support informal STEM practitioners to better facilitate the inclusion of youth with learning disabilities. Using the lens of Self-Determination Theory as an explanatory framework, this research will be pursued in three phases. Self-Determination Theory describes the psychological needs that must be met, such as autonomy and feelings of efficacy, to create an environment that supports individuals' engagement in self-motivated behaviors. Phase 1 will be an exploratory study describing the engagement and motivation of adolescents (ages 10-17) with learning disabilities when experiencing varied STEM exhibits. This first phase will adapt validated scales, employ an existing observation protocol, and conduct stimulated recall interviews with youth. Phase 2 will explore, develop and investigate design strategies to improve the intrinsic motivation of youth with learning disabilities at educational STEM exhibits. This second phase will involve a set of experimental studies in which design strategies related to intrinsic motivation are manipulated to inform principles of inclusive design for visitors with learning disabilities. As in the previous phase, Phase 2 will adapt validated scales and employ an existing observation protocol. Phase 3 will focus on design charrettes in which researchers and practitioners work with high school students with learning disabilities in a co-design process. The charrettes will generate guidelines and case examples of exhibit components using Universal Design for Learning to balance varying design priorities and effectively, inclusively design exhibits for this population. This third phase will rely on qualitative coding of co-design charette artifacts, field notes and researcher reflections; member checking will play an important role in the coding process. Dissemination efforts for this project will target youth with learning disabilities, informal STEM education practitioners, and the broader field of learning disability researchers and practitioners. In addition to the exhibit design guidelines and Toolkit described above, the project will publish peer reviewed articles and develop manuscripts aimed at educational research and practice.
This Research in Service to Practice project is funded by the 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.
The project will refine, research and disseminate making exhibits and events that the museum has developed and tested to support early engineering skill development. The project will use cardboard, a familiar and flexible material, to support the activities. The goal is to develop insights and resources for informal educators across the museum field and beyond into how to effectively structure and facilitate open-ended maker education experiences for visitors that expand the number and kinds of museums and families who can engage in these activities. Maker education is often linked to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning and uses hands-on and collaborative approaches to support activities and projects that foster creativity, interest, and skill development. To address patterns of inequitable access to and participation in both formal and informal learning opportunities, the project will be designed to engage families from under-represented communities and research how they participate in informal engineering activities and environments. The project will make a suite of resources available for museums and other ISE practitioners that will be developed through iterative testing at all of the different settings. These resources will be made widely available via an open access online portal.
The project will research how effectively the use of cardboard making exhibits and events engage families, particularly families from underrepresented groups, in STEM and early engineering. The project's theoretical framework combines elements of: (1) learning sciences theories of family learning in museums; (2) making as a learning process; (3) early engineering practices and dispositions, and (4) equity in museums and the maker movement. The research will be conducted within two multi-month implementations of a large-scale Cardboard Engineering gallery at the Science Museum of Minnesota and two-week scaled implementations of the gallery at each of three recruited partner museum sites. The project design interweaves evaluation and research aims. Paired observations and surveys will be used to research how effectively the project is working in different venues. This integration of research and evaluation will generate a large data set from which to generalize about cardboard making across contexts. Case studies will be used to identify barriers to engagement that can be remedied, but they will provide a rich data set for understanding family learning and engineering in making. Research findings and products will be posted on the Center for Informal Science Education website and submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals such as Visitor Studies, ASTC Dimensions, the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research and others.
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.
This project responds to calls to increase children's exposure and engagement in STEM at an early age. With the rise of the maker-movement, the informal and formal education sectors have witnessed a dramatic expansion of maker and tinkering spaces, programs, and curricula. This has happened in part because of the potential benefits of tinkering experiences to promote access and equity in engineering education. To realize these benefits, it is necessary to continue to make and iterate design and facilitation approaches that can deepen early engagement in disciplinary practices of engineering and other STEM-relevant skills. This project will investigate how stories can be integrated into informal STEM learning experiences for young children and their families. Stories can be especially effective because they bridge the knowledge and experiences young children and their caregivers bring to tinkering as well as the conversations and hands-on activities that can extend that knowledge. In addition, a unique contribution of the project is to test the hypothesis that stories can also facilitate spatial reasoning, by encouraging children to think about the spatial properties of their emerging structures.
This project uses design-based research methods to advance knowledge and the evidence base for practices that engender story-based tinkering. Using conjecture mapping, the team will specify their initial ideas and how it will be evident that design/practices impact caregivers-child behaviors and learning outcomes. The team will consider the demographic characteristics, linguistic practices, and funds of knowledge of the participants to understand the design practices (resources, activities) being implemented and how they potentially facilitate learning. The outcome of each study/DBR cycle serves as inputs for questions and hypotheses in the next. A culturally diverse group of 300+ children ages 5 to 8 years old and their parents at Chicago Children's Museum's Tinkering Lab will participate in the study to examine the following key questions: (1) What design and facilitation approaches engage young children and their caregivers in creating their own engineering-rich tinkering stories? (2) How can museum exhibit design (e.g., models, interactive displays) and tinkering stories together engender spatial thinking, to further enrich early STEM learning opportunities? and (3) Do the tinkering stories children and their families tell support lasting STEM learning? As part of the overall iterative, design-based approach, the team will also field test the story-based tinkering approaches identified in the first cycles of DBR to be most promising.
This project will result in activities, exhibit components, and training resources that invite visitors' stories into open-ended problem-solving activities. It will advance understanding of mechanisms for encouraging engineering learning and spatial thinking through direct experience interacting with objects, and playful, scaffolded (guided) problem-solving activities.
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.
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.
In March of 2016, a total solar eclipse occurred in the southwestern pacific; and in August of 2017, a total solar eclipse occurred across a broad swath of the United States. The Exploratorium launched a 2.5 year public education program—Navigating the Path of Totality—that used these two total solar eclipses as platforms for sparking public engagement and learning about the Sun, heliophysics, and the STEM content related to both. These sequential eclipses provided an unprecedented opportunity to build and scaffold public engagement and education. Our strategy was to start the public engagement process with the 2016 eclipse, nurture that engagement with resources, activities and outreach during the 17 months between the eclipses, so that audiences (especially in the U.S., where totality was visible in multiple areas across the country) would be excited, actively interested, and prepared for deeper engagement during the 2017 eclipse. For the August 2017 eclipse, the Exploratorium produced live telescope and program feeds from Madras, OR and Casper, WY. The Exploratorium worked with NASA to leverage what was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for millions to bring heliophysics information and research to students, educators, and the public at large through a variety of learning experiences and platforms.
The core of this project was live broadcasts/webcasts of each eclipse. To accomplish these objectives, the Exploratorium produced and disseminate live feeds of telescope-only images (no commentary) of each eclipse originating them from remote locations; produce and disseminate from the field live hosted broadcasts/webcasts of each eclipse using these telescope images; design and launch websites, apps, videos, educator resources, and shareable online materials for each eclipse; design and deliver eclipse themed video installations for our Webcast studio and Observatory gallery in the months that lead up to each eclipse and a public program during each eclipse; and conduct a formative and summative evaluation of the project.
These broadcasts/webcasts and pre-produced videos provide the backbone upon which complementary educational resources and activities can be built and delivered. Programs and videos were produced in English and Spanish languages. As a freely available resource, the broadcasts/webcasts also provide the baseline content for hundreds if not thousands of educational efforts provided by other science-rich institutions, schools, community-based organizations, and venues. Platforms such as NASA TV and NASA website, broadcast and online media outlets such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and PBS, as well as hundreds of science institutions and thousands of classrooms streamed the Exploratorium eclipse broadcasts as part of their own educational programming, reaching 63M people. These live broadcasts were relied upon educational infrastructure during total solar eclipses for institutions and individuals on the path and off the path alike.