RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data
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Remy DouHeidi CianZahra HazariPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
In partnership with early childhood service providers and elementary school systems, the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry will expand the reach of its programming to share its hands-on, play-based approach to STEM education with targeted children and educators. The museum will create a Power of Play curriculum with lesson plans that reflect best practices and focus on play-based activities to teach STEM concepts tied to grade level and state standards. The museum will train and support 40 teachers and educators from ten Head Start/First Steps early childhood centers and ten Title I elementary schools, and provide them with free Pop Up Tinker Shop (a museum on wheels) outreach visits. The trainings will build teacher confidence, promote best practices for play-based learning, support a community of practice, and enhance young learners' engagement, fascination, and attitude towards STEM. The Power of Play Curriculum will be published as a bound resource and shared with other children's museums and service providers.
The Children's Museum at La Habra's Lil' Innovators Early Childhood STEM project will increase STEM skill and engagement among early childhood preschool teachers, disadvantaged preschoolers, and their parents. Delivered in partnership with three of La Habra's Head Start and California State Preschool program schools, the project will provide 224 preschoolers and 20 teachers with a year-long program offering increased developmental skills in STEM for underserved, low-income Hispanic students who are primarily English Language Learners. Teacher outcomes will include improved strategies for teaching STEM and increased teaching quality of STEM subjects. Parent outcomes include increased belief in the importance of STEM and increased ability to support their child's STEM learning. The standards-based education project will improve the museum's ability to serve its public by creating a community of practice consisting of a network of administrators, educators, and evaluators who will work together to improve the quality of STEM education for the youngest learners in this academically-challenged community.
In informal science contexts, the word tinkering describes a learning process that combines art, science, and technology through hands-on inquiry. With the growth in popularity of the making and tinkering movements nationwide, these practices are increasingly making their way into early childhood environments where they have great promise to positively impact the early STEM learning experiences of young children. This 2-day conference hosted at the Exploratorium in San Francisco will bring together stakeholders exploring applications of tinkering in informal early childhood environments. The conference will provide opportunities to explore the role, value, and challenges associated with implementing meaningful tinkering interventions in learning environments serving young children. The project seeks to 1) Convene stakeholders from the tinkering and early childhood programs; and 2) further the exploration and evolution of practitioner and researcher knowledge about tinkering in early childhood contexts. The long-term goal is to support more young children being introduced to STEM learning through tinkering's adaptable approaches to STEM-learning that align with the developmental needs of this young population.
This project will collaboratively analyze and document the state of the field of STEM-rich tinkering in informal early childhood contexts. Additionally, the project will deepen relationships across the early childhood tinkering ecosystem. Additional outcomes include an effort to provide tangible resources to the field highlighting current promising practices and future opportunities for development. The conference will also provide an understanding of how tinkering interventions may contribute to the development of STEM interest, identity and learning amongst early childhood audiences. Finally, the conference will bring together research and practitioners to explore how tinkering in early childhood settings can be used effectively to meet the needs of diverse learners including learners from underserved and underrepresented communities. The project will recruit a total of 75 participants with backgrounds in the field of tinkering and STEM learning, early childhood research, and professional development practices representing a diverse set of institutions and organizations. Research questions for the conference will focus on: 1) What types of supports and professional development do early childhood educators need to facilitate early STEM learning through tinkering? 2) What types of built environment and hands-on materials best support young children's ability to learn STEM content and practices through tinkering? 3) What types of strategies best support caregiver involvement in young children's learning? 4) What is the role of early childhood tinkering in young children?s STEM learning, interest, and identity development? 5) How can culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies be used to ensure equity across a diversity of young learners and their families? To answer these research questions the project will use qualitative methods before, during and post-conference. Research methods will include a landscape analysis identifying needs of participants, surveys, observations and informal interviews with participants.
This Conference award 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.
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 one-year Collaborative Planning project seeks to bring together an interdisciplinary planning team of informal and formal STEM educators, researchers, scientists, community, and policy experts to identify the elements, activities, and community relationships necessary to cultivate and sustain a thriving regional early childhood (ages 3-6) STEM ecosystem. Based in Southeast San Diego, planning and research will focus on understanding the needs and interests of young Latino dual language learners from low income homes, as well as identify regional assets (e.g., museums, afterschool programs, universities, schools) that could coalesce efforts to systematically increase access to developmentally appropriate informal STEM activities and resources, particularly those focused on engineering and computational thinking. This project has the potential to enhance the infrastructure of early STEM education by providing a model for the planning and development of early childhood focused coalitions around the topic of STEM learning and engagement. In addition, identifying how to bridge STEM learning experiences between home, pre-k learning environments, and formal school addresses a longstanding challenge of sustaining STEM skills as young children transition between environments. The planning process will use an iterative mixed-methods approach to develop both qualitative and quantitative and data. Specific planning strategies include the use of group facilitation techniques such as World Café, graphic recording, and live polling. Planning outcomes include: 1) a literature review on STEM ecosystems; 2) an Early Childhood STEM Community Asset Map of southeast San Diego; 3) a set of proposed design principles for identifying and creating early childhood STEM ecosystems in low income communities; and 4) a theory of action that could guide future design and research. This 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.
The Common Core's higher academic standards are forcing schools into a false dichotomy of reducing playtime in favor of more time to learn math and literacy. But play can deepen learning even in core content areas.