We explored a long-standing community science partnership between the Science Museum of Virginia and Groundwork RVA, a local organization that connects youth with opportunities to enhance greenspaces in Richmond.
This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by engaging in hands-on field experience, laboratory/project-based entrepreneurship tasks and mentorship experiences.
Twin Cities Public Television project on Gender Equitable Teaching Practices in Career and Technical Education Pathways for High School Girls is designed to help career and technical education educators and guidance counselors recruit and retain more high school girls from diverse backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) pathways, specifically in technology and engineering. The project's goals are: 1) To increase the number of high school girls, including ethnic minorities, recruited and retained in traditionally male -STEM pathways; 2) To enhance the teaching and coaching practices of Career and Technical Education educators, counselors and role models with gender equitable and culturally responsive strategies; 3) To research the impacts of strategies and role model experiences on girls' interest in STEM careers; 4) To evaluate the effectiveness of training in these strategies for educators, counselors and role models; and 5) To develop training that can easily be scaled up to reach a much larger audience. The research hypothesis is that girls will develop more positive STEM identities and interests when their educators employ research-based, gender-equitable and culturally responsive teaching practices enhanced with female STEM role models. Instructional modules and media-based online resources for Minnesota high school Career and Technical Education programs will be developed in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and piloted in districts with strong community college and industry partnerships. Twin Cities Public Television will partner with STEM and gender equity researchers from St. Catherine University in St. Paul, the National Girls Collaborative, the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder), the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System.
The project will examine girls' personal experiences with equitable strategies embedded into classroom STEM content and complementary mentoring experiences, both live and video-based. It will explore how these experiences contribute to girls' STEM-related identity construction against gender-based stereotypes. It will also determine the extent girls' exposure to female STEM role models impact their Career and Technical Education studies and STEM career aspirations. The study will employ and examine short-form autobiographical videos created and shared by participating girls to gain insight into their STEM classroom and role model experiences. Empowering girls to respond to the ways their Career and Technical Education educators and guidance counselors guide them toward technology and engineering careers will provide a valuable perspective on educational practice and advance the STEM education field.
The LiFE Project, an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot, will investigate and design a collaborative effort to counter the stereotypical expectation that boys are "naturally" better at science and math which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, silently shaping the girls'own perceptions of their ability. LiFE collaborators will address this problem at its source: the early learning experiences of elementary school girls. The elementary-middle school period is critical because by 8th grade, many girls have left the STEM pathway forever. The key to reversing the trend is finding effective ways to showcase STEM as a collaborative, people-rich space in which girls can participate together, be themselves, and engage in exploration. Research indicates that girls prefer collaborative activities that can make a difference in the world. Partnering with a coalition of economically and racially diverse New Jersey elementary schools, LiFE will employ "iSTEAM" learning strategies that encourage girls to apply the tools of various disciplines to investigate and solve real-world problems in an open environment of innovation, collaboration, and communication. This approach promises to be especially effective in engaging girls.
LiFE will build on a successful Girls Science Club (GSC) model that introduces girls in grades 3-4 to hands-on iSTEAM exploration activities using Problem/Project-Based Learning strategies. Additional activities will leverage the expertise of the project's corporate/government partners (including Apple and USARMY) to build communication and leadership skills. LiFE will sustain the GSC's benefits by developing clubs for grades 5-6 involving enriched content and long-term independent projects. Eventually, a tiered peer network will link girls from elementary school through women college students and female STEM professionals--each tier mentoring the tiers below. This network will sustain a crucial "sense of community" to retain women in STEM. Within LiFE's social innovation framework approach, participating districts will tailor the GSC to their community while also working together toward shared common goals. LiFE will study the impact of GSCs on persistence of girls' interest in STEM into grade 7. Based on this research, LiFE will develop a cost-effective template that can be replicated across the US. LiFE will bring problem-based iSTEAM concepts to girls of all academic levels in their elementary schools years while, having a community focus with participant-developed projects in a non-competitive environment and leveraging the resources of academic, corporate and government partners to foster broader participation by women in STEM careers.
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:
Bruce BukietJames LipumaNancy Steffen-Fluhr
This article discusses the Youth in Science Action Club (SAC), which uses citizen science to investigate nature, document their discoveries, share data with the scientific community, and design strategies to protect the planet. Through collaborations with regional and national partners, SAC expands access to environmental science curriculum and training resources.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Laura HerszenhornKatie LevedahlSuzi Taylor
To address the need for STEM reform in K-12 schools, this article describes the design and implementation of a rigorous, interdisciplinary science and research program (ISR) in two local high schools (HS-S and HS-H). The ISR, adapted from the successful School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt program, provides seven courses over four years that focus on the development of critical thinking skills and the ability to construct and perform hypothesis-driven research projects. The courses are co-taught by a science teacher (masters or doctoral level) and a Ph.D. scientist. Overall, students in
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Jennifer A. UfnarVirginia L. Shepherd
The Society for Science and the Public’s Advocate Grant Program provides selected Advocates with funding, resources, and information. Advocates include classroom teachers, school and district administrators, university professors, and informal science educators in community-based programs. The role of the Advocate is to support three or more underserved middle or high school students in the process of advancing from conducting a scientific research or engineering design project to entering a scientific competition. Advocates receive a stipend of $3,000; opportunities to meet and interact with
In the project entitled "The GLOBE Program 2010: Collaborative Environmental Research at Local to Global Scales," the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) will improve the functionality of the GLOBE Program by providing: (1) new methods, tools, and services to enhance GLOBE Partner and teacher abilities to facilitate inquiry-based learning and student research, (2) initial pilot testing and assessment of student and teacher learning activities and events related to Climate Science research, (3) improvements in GLOBE's technology infrastructure and data systems (e.g. database, social networking, information management) to support collaborations between students, scientists, and teachers, and (4) development of a robust evaluation plan. In addition, the UCAR will continue to provide support to the worldwide GLOBE community, as well as program management and timely communication with program sponsors.
This paper provides an analysis of the implementation and the outcomes of Scienza Attiva, an Italian national project for secondary school students, that makes use of deliberative democracy tools to address socio-scientific issues of great impact. The analysis has required a mixed method including surveys of students' pre- and post-project opinions, focus groups and interviews with students and teachers. The results from this evaluation study provide evidence that the project improves students' understanding of socio-scientific issues, strengthens their awareness of the importance of
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Federica CornaliGianfranco PomattoSelena Agnella
Stephanie Spiris is a 12-year veteran teacher at George Washington High School in Denver, teaching courses in biomedical science (Figure 1). Last year, Spiris spent four weeks in a summer internship at Terumo BCT, a medical device company that focuses on blood processing for medical treatment and care. Decked in full lab gear and ready to learn, Spiris worked in a sterile lab, conducting projects that allowed her firsthand experience with tasks such as separating t-cells from blood and freeze-drying plasma.
The Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.
STEM Practice-rich Investigations for NGSS Teaching (SPRINT) is an exploratory project that will research and develop resources and a model for professional learning needed to meet the demand of implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The Exploratorium Teacher Institute will engage middle school science teachers in a one-year professional learning program to study how familiar routines and classroom tools, specifically hands-on science activities, can serve as starting points for teacher learning. The Teacher Institute will use existing hands-on activities as the basis for developing "practice-rich investigations" that provide teachers and students with opportunities for deep engagement with science and engineering practices. The results of this project will include: (1) empirical evidence from professional learning experiences that support teacher uptake of practice-rich investigations in workshops and their classrooms; (2) a portfolio of STEM practice-rich investigations developed from existing hands-on activities that are shown to enhance teacher understanding of NGSS; and (3) a design tool that supports teachers in modifying existing activities to align with NGSS.
SPRINT conjectures that to address the immediate challenge of supporting teachers to implement NGSS, professional learning models should engage teachers in the same active learning experiences they are expected to provide for their students and that building on teachers' existing strengths and understanding through an asset-based approach could lead to a more sustainable implementation. SPRINT will use design-based research methods to study (a) how creating NGSS-aligned, practice-rich investigations from teachers' existing resources provides them with experiences for three-dimensional science learning and (b) how engaging in these investigations and reflecting on classroom practice can support teachers in understanding and implementing NGSS learning experiences.
One common barrier to STEM engagement by underserved and underrepresented communities is a feeling of disconnection from mainstream science. This project will involve citizen scientists in the collection, mapping, and interpretation of data from their local area with an eye to increasing STEM engagement in underrepresented communities. The idea behind this is that science needs to start at home, and be both accessible and inclusive. To facilitate this increased participation, the project will develop a network of stakeholders with interests in the science of coastal environments. Stakeholders will include members of coastal communities, academic and agency scientists, and citizen science groups, who will collectively and collaboratively create a web-based system to collect and view the collected and analyzed environmental information. Broader impacts include addressing the STEM barriers to those who reside in the coastal environment but who are underrepresented in STEM education, vocations and policy-making. These include tribal communities (racial and ethnic inclusion), fishery communities (inclusion of communities of practice), and rural communities without direct access to colleges or universities. This project will create a physical, a social, and a virtual, environment where all participants have an equal footing in the processes of "doing science" - the Coastal Almanac. The Almanac is simultaneously a network of individuals and organizations, and a web-based repository of coastal data collected through the auspices of the network. During the testing phase, the researchers will implement the "rules of engagement" through multiple interaction pathways in the growing Coastal Almanac network: increases in rigorous citizen science, development of specific community-scientist partnerships to collect and/or use Almanac data, development of K-12 programs to collect and/or use Almanac data. The proposed work will significantly scale up citizen science and community-based science programs on the West Coast, broadening participation by targeting members of coastal communities with limited access to mainstream science, including participants from non-STEM vocations, and Native Americans. The innovation of the Coastal Almanac is in allowing the process of deepening involvement in science, and through that process increasing agency of community members to be bona fide members of the science team, to evolve organically, in the manner dictated by community members and the situation, rather than a priori by the project team and mainstream science. The project has the potential in the long-term to increase participation in marine science education, workforce, and policy-making by underrepresented groups resident in the coastal environment. Contributions by project citizen scientists will also provide valuable data to mainstream science and to resource management efforts.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Julia ParrishMarco HatchSelina Heppell
This is a two-year "Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science" (INCLUDES) Design and Development Launch Pilot targeting high school students in the Hudson Valley, including the New York Metropolitan Area. It will support a network of institutional partners that are committed to providing internship and mentoring opportunities to youths interested in authentic research projects. The proposed work will build on a current research immersion program--the Secondary School Field Research Program (SSFRP) at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. SSFRP serves high school students, mainly from underrepresented and underserved communities, who work with college students, science teachers, and researchers around a specific science problem. Over the past decade, the program has had demonstrable impact, including attendance to college, and students' selection of STEM majors. Tracking data indicates that retention rates of its alumni in four-year colleges are well above the norm, and a significant fraction of early participants are now in graduate programs in science or engineering. The program has surpassed all expectations in its effectiveness at engaging underserved populations in science and promoting entry into college, recruitment into STEM majors, and retention through undergraduate and into graduate studies. Hence, the project's overall goal will be to extend and adapt the research-immersive summer internship model through an alliance with peer research institutions, school districts and networks, public land and resource management agencies, private funding agencies, informal educational institutions, and experts in pedagogical modeling, metrics, and evaluation. Focused on earth and environmental sciences, the summer and year-round mentoring model will allow high school students to work in research teams led by college students and teachers under the direction of research scientists. The mentoring model will be multilayered, with peer, near-peer, and researcher-student relationships interweaving throughout the learning process.
The project has formulated a set of testable explanatory hypotheses: (1) Beyond specific subject knowledge, success rests on increased student engagement in a community of practice, with near-peer mentors, teachers, and scientists in the context of scientific research; (2) The intensity of engagement also shifts the students' vision of their future to include higher education, and specifically to imagine and move toward a STEM career; and (3) Early engagement, before students attend college, is critical because high school is where students form patterns of engagement and capacities related to science learning. Thus, the immediate goal of the two-year plan will be to create approximately 11 research internship programs focused on earth and environmental sciences, and to build the networks for growth through engagement with a wider community of educational partners. The main focus of this approach will be removing barriers between high school students and STEM organizations, and adapting the current mentoring model at Columbia University to the specific cultures of other research groups and internship programs throughout the lower Hudson Valley. The team has already assembled a diverse set of partners committed to broadening participation in STEM using a collective impact approach to early engagement in project-based learning. Research partners will provide the mentors, research projects, and laboratory facilities. The educational network partners will provide access for students, particularly those from under-resourced communities to participate, as well as participation opportunities for interested teachers. Informal learning organizations will provide access to field and research sites, along with research dissemination opportunities. In Year 1, the project will conduct a series of development workshops for partners already in place and foster the formation of new partnership clusters according to shared interest, complementary resources and geographic proximity. The workshops will provide a forum for partners to learn about each other's visions, values, challenges, and existing structures, while working through theoretical and practical issues related to STEM engagement for young investigators. In Year 2, the project will target the implementation of the internship programs at various sites according to the agreed-upon goals, program model, research projects, recruitment and retention strategy, staff training, data collection, and evaluation plans. An external evaluator will address both the formative and summative evaluation of the effort directed toward examining the three project's hypotheses concerning the educational impacts of scientific research on student engagement, extent of the immersion, and overall effectiveness of the programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Robert NewtonLuo Cassie XuMargie TurrinEinat LevMatthew Palmer