The conference will provide a critical opportunity for enhancing knowledge around innovation in these areas and sharing lessons learned with and advancing collaboration. The focus will be on collective impact, rural empowerment, and successful rural STEM programs.
Each year, millions of Americans visit science centers and museums, children’s museums, zoos, aquariums, nature centers, planetariums, and similar institutions. Recognized as trusted and popular places for educational and leisure experiences, these institutions are uniquely capable of engaging people across a spectrum of beliefs, experiences, and identities on topics related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), as well as addressing pressing societal problems related to science, technology, and innovation. However, the potential impacts of these institutions are largely dependent on the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the professionals working at them. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to shift the nature of work, the informal STEM learning workforce was dramatically impacted. The recent period of disruption is a time for innovation. The field is well-positioned to promote new models of professional learning and development that are grounded in the values and practices of informal learning. This project will benefit local communities across the United States and society at large by advancing the capacity of science-engagement professionals to respond to societal needs, concerns, and interests more effectively through their institutions’ exhibitions, education and learning programs, and various forms of public engagement (e.g., community outreach events, supports for teachers/educators and schools). Led by the Association of Science and Technology Centers in collaboration with the Center of Science and Industry’s Center for Research and Evaluation and Oregon State University’s STEM Research Center, this work will build on the Informal STEM Learning (ISL) Professional Competency Framework developed and validated with prior National Science Foundation funding. Competency frameworks are increasingly used across many sectors to identify the suite of skills, knowledge, and capabilities necessary to be successful in a particular area of work. Given dramatic changes to the ISL workplace in the last two years, there is an even stronger potential for the Framework, particularly if newly developed supports can link the Framework to the current, emerging, and continuing needs of the workforce.
Guided by a systematic process for designing training and instructional materials, this project will first capture changes in the ways diverse informal STEM learning professionals describe, pursue, and achieve competencies to produce a revised Framework. Next, the project will collaboratively develop companion resources with diverse professionals through a series of participatory design workshops, using a sequential and iterative approach. The resources are expected to include indicators of professional competencies, self-assessments, training tools, and other types of resources that have the potential to significantly advance the professional learning (as undertaken by individuals and institutions) and the professional development capacity (as provided by institutions, associations, and other organizations) of the informal STEM learning field. Next, the project will share final products–including a refreshed website that hosts the updated Framework and newly-developed suite of tools–with professional association and network partners who can disseminate directly to the institutions and professionals who are developing and practicing these competencies. The project will gather evidence from a small number of early adopters, providing data on specific use-case scenarios. Finally, the project will document the potential impact of the Framework on the field by measuring how the Framework is perceived by informal STEM learning professionals as usable, useful, and beginning to be “in-use." Over time—and with increased use—the Framework and its companion resources hold the promise of contributing to the opening of the field to professionals with identities currently underrepresented through more transparent expectation and clearer growth pathways.
Diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and belonging-related change is often difficult to achieve in organizations. In the context of Informal STEM Learning (ISL), this results in inequitable opportunities for both ISL professionals and learners to engage in STEM environments and experiences. For people to thrive in these settings, creative and innovative approaches that address historical and current realities of intersectional marginalization and inequitable norms within informal STEM institutions are necessary to disrupt conventions, institutional barriers, and patterns of inequities. TERC and the Detroit Zoological Society will develop and implement an ISL Equity Resource Center (the Center). The Center will advance equity within the ISL field by cultivating a multi-sector, diverse learning community that designs and conducts evidence-based research and practice, including but not limited to equity-focused leadership, decision-making, theory, methods, project topic selection and design, and budget management.
The Center will cultivate lasting change in the ISL and broader STEM learning ecosystem via (a) sharing more inclusive, culturally relevant, and responsive ISE research and practice; (b) identifying scalable, equity-focused research findings useful in ISL programming; and (c) promoting greater public awareness of the importance of broadening participation in STEM. The Center's primary stakeholders are ISL professionals, including researchers, practitioners, and evaluators. The Center will maintain and expand a digital infrastructure to support innovation and sharing across the ISL field. Through its combined efforts, the Center will raise the visibility and impact of ISL equity-focused research and practice and its contributions to the overall STEM endeavor. The Center will also organize and host the biennial AISL Awardee Meeting. The Center is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Stephen AlkinsDiane MillerLisette Torres-GeraldPati Ruiz
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Developing solutions to large-scale collective problems -- such as resilience to environmental challenges -- requires scientifically literate communities. However, the predominant conception of scientific literacy has focused on individuals, and there is not consensus as to what community level scientific literacy is or how to measure it. Thus, a 2016 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, “Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences,” stated that community level scientific literacy is undertheorized and understudied. More specifically, the committee recommended that research is needed to understand both the i) contexts (e.g., a community’s physical and social setting) and ii) features of community organization (e.g., relationships within the community) that support community level science literacy and influence successful group action. This CAREER award responds to this nationally identified need by iteratively refining a model to conceptualize and measure community level scientific literacy. The model and metrics developed in this project may be applied to a wide range of topics (e.g., vaccination, pandemic response, genetically-modified foods, pollution control, and land-use decisions) to improve a community’s capacity to make scientifically-sound collective decisions. This CAREER award is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) and the EHR CORE Research (ECR) programs. It supports the AISL program goals to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. It supports the ECR program goal to advance relevant research knowledge pertaining to STEM learning and learning environments.
The proposed research will conceptualize, operationalize, and measure community level scientific literacy. This project will use a comparative multiple case study research design. Three coastal communities, faced with the need to make scientifically-informed land-use decisions, will be studied sequentially. A convergent mixed methods design will be employed, in which qualitative and quantitative data collection and analyses are performed concurrently. To describe the i) context of each community case, this project will use qualitative research methods, including document analysis, observation, focus groups, and interviews. To measure the ii) features of community organization for each community case, social network analysis will be used. The results from this research will be disseminated throughout and at the culmination of the project through professional publications and conference presentations as well as with community stakeholders and the general public. The integrated education activities include a professional learning certificate for informal science education professionals and STEM graduate students. This certificate emphasizes high-quality community-engaged scholarship, placing students with partners such as museums, farmer’s markets, and libraries, to offer informal learning programs in their communities. This professional learning program will be tested as a model to provide training for STEM graduate students who would like to communicate their research to the public through outreach and extension activities.
This project will scale up fully virtual or face-to-face STEM professional development to afterschool educators in both urban and rural settings. Given that many afterschool educators have little or no background in STEM education, there is demand for professional development that is effective, inexpensive, and accessible. This project will build national capacity in STEM education by developing the STEM skills of over 1,500 educators across multiple states and will ultimately impact over 31,000 under-represented youth in these areas. The project will also deliver robust materials through a free open-source mechanism, for use by educators anywhere and anytime. The project will broaden participation in STEM by engaging community educators in the rural parts of the nation, a critically under-represented group in STEM. It will also reach educators from low-income urban communities across three states and seven cities, targeted through strategic networks and partnerships, including organizations such as the YMCA, 4-H, and the National Afterschool Association.
This collaborative project is scaling the ACRES model (Afterschool Coaching for Reflective Educators in STEM). The model humanizes the virtual experience, making it social and engaging, and allows educators to learn, share, and practice essential STEM facilitation skills with a focus on making STEM relevant and introducing STEM careers to youth. In addition to enhancing the professional STEM skills of rural and urban educators, the project will create a national cohort of coaches with deep expertise in (i) converting in-person activities for youth into a highly engaging, choice-rich online format, (ii) engaging isolated informal educators in supportive professional learning communities, and (iii) coaching foundational research-based STEM facilitation skills that ensure these activities are pedagogically sound. A key part of this broad implementation project involves studying how to integrate an effective professional development program into afterschool organizations, including the ways afterschool programs adapt the materials to be culturally responsive to their local communities. The researchers will also study factors contributing to the longer-term sustainability of the program. The research will use surveys, interviews, direct observations, and case studies of participants to provide the field with valuable insights into scaling a program in the afterschool world.
This 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 extending 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.
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.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ronda JensonKelly Roberts
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The informal science education (ISE) sector has an important role to play in addressing current societal issues, including changes in environmental conditions, systemic poverty, and societal responses to natural and manmade disasters. These complex social problems require engaging all sectors of society in deep discussions around science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (STEM) and inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA). To do this, ISE professionals need training in how to bring in diverse perspectives, support inclusive learning, and provide equal access to institutional policymaking, practices and systems. People from different backgrounds within informal science institutions (ISIs) and local communities bring new perspectives, identify new needs, and foster innovation. This broadening of perspectives is critical to address the complex social problems of the 21st century. A key part of the needed transformations in informal science institutions is the preparation of change agents within the ISE sector capable of reimagining what just and equitable informal science institutions might look like. iPAGE 2.0 is an NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Innovations in Development project conducted by the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Garibay Group in concert with 27 ISIs from across the US. The overarching goal of the project is to support transformative change toward IDEA in the ISE sector. The project is based on an extension service model of knowledge diffusion which seeks to bridge the knowledge-to-action gap by creating intermediaries that can translate research into practical innovations that can be used by practitioners in ISIs. The project brings together teams of strategically placed individuals within ISIs and prepares them to work with their colleagues to enact research-based practices and practical organizational changes toward greater equity and diversity. This project is funded by the 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.
This ISE professional development initiative will work with annual first-year cohorts consisting of leadership teams from 4-6 ISIs. Each new cohort will spend 11 days together in a 5-day institute and three 2-day colloquia either virtually or at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Individuals and teams will adapt, implement, and refine ideas, strategies, and tools from the iPAGE 2.0 framework for use within their specific ISI context and broader professional networks and engage in ongoing communication and consultation with the iPAGE 2.0 community. All individuals on the team will develop skills, such as communication and collaboration expertise, to function as change agents acting to transform their organizations with respect to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) in STEM. Participants from previous cohorts will continue their roles as change agents and enhance learning in the iPAGE 2.0 community by sharing what they have learned at iPAGE 2.0 colloquia. The iPAGE 2.0 framework focuses on developing participants' understanding of 1) how structural inequalities function to reproduce social advantage and disadvantage within ISIs and the ISE sector; 2) the barriers, supports, and transmission vectors that contribute to or inhibit a continued shift in the sector toward IDEA within a network of practitioners, organizations, evaluators and researchers; and 3) how to prepare and support diversity change agents within the network. The project will employ a creative evaluation approach that combines developmental, principles-focused, arts-based, and transformative evaluation and an interactive, mixed-methods research study grounded in culturally responsive methodologies to address central questions concerning individual, organizational, and sector change. The project's primary audience is ISE professionals, and the secondary audience is researchers and evaluators working within the ISE sector. The project will work directly with an estimated 122 individuals from 27 ISIs.
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.
Across the United States, individuals, organizations, and communities are wrestling with a wide array of challenging and persistent science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related problems. A few examples include ensuring more equitable access to STEM careers; building capacity for rural libraries to support STEM learning; and supporting greater cyber literacy among youth. The good news is that thousands of individuals, organizations, and communities are coming up with great ideas for how to confront these problems; many of them supported by the NSF. Unfortunately, most will encounter significant roadblocks to success along the way, but not because of bad ideas. Most change agents falter along the lengthy and often convoluted pathway between idea and successful execution because they bump up against barriers they do not expect or know how to overcome. This Pilot and Feasibility Study will create Learning Solutions, a multi-platform program designed to support those people and entities engaged in work that cultivates the public's understanding of, engagement with, and interest in STEM fields and STEM-related information. First, the project will systematically identify the real, but often unspoken issues that individuals, organizations, and communities run into as they work to bring about significant and impactful STEM-related change. Then, the project will assemble, curate, and make digitally available a collection of tools, resources and strategies designed to help someone understand and resolve these kinds of issues if and when they arise. By better understanding the experiences of change agents, the challenges they face, and the creative learning solutions they enact, this project will ensure that more change agents successfully access the learning know-how they need, when they need it, in curated, easy-to-digest formats. This award is funded by the Advanced Informal STEM Learning program which contributes to STEM engagement and literacy, workforce development, and educational success via supporting new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of STEM learning in informal environments. Learning Solutions will build capacity and will help more professionals successfully bring more good ideas to fruition.
The target audience for this Pilot & Feasibility phase of Learning Solutions will be STEM professionals working at the intersection of STEM and society across diverse sectors. It will focus on change agents -- individuals who want to be or who already are engaged in community-based, action-oriented STEM-related change projects, whether acting on their own, within an organization, or as part of a broader community of organizations. To achieve the goal of making STEM-related change easier to accomplish, Learning Solutions will implement a multi-step process. With input from five Critical Advisors, 20 Key Informants, and ultimately hundreds of change agents, project staff will: 1) Utilize an iterative process of in-depth interviews and broadly disseminated surveys to identify the major understandings, skills and processes that current and past STEM-related change agents have experienced as impediments to their success; 2) Determine how best to describe and categorize these issues across diverse problem spaces; 3) Select twelve issues, based on which are the most frequently mentioned and/or perceived to be the most critical or challenging, and research and curate the best and most authoritative resources responsive to these dozen issues; and finally, 4) Use a variety of platforms (e.g., social media, traditional media, digital and in print publications, podcasts, panels, and group presentations) and utilization metrics to ensure effective digital delivery of potential solutions to the selected issues. By the project's end, we will have identified some of the key challenges the STEM-related change agents who work in communities across America regularly encounter, as well as the feasibility of developing a mechanism for helping those change agents discover preexisting and readily accessible resources to assist them in resolving those challenges.
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.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John H FalkElysa CorinStacey Sheehan
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
In the 1990s, Science Cafes emerged that brought together people from all walks of life with scientists in conversation over science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics. The cafes were popular as conversations were informal in casual settings and engendered deep discussions. In 2007, Science Education Solutions received a grant from NSF and began an experiment to see if the adult science café model could be adapted to appeal to high school teens. The program, Café Scientifique New Mexico, became very popular with teens in towns across northern New Mexico. The blend of conversing with scientists about interesting science topics in an out-of-school social setting and digging deeper with hands on activities proved successful. The teen model was refined through trial and error and formal evaluation over several years. Today it continues to provide teens with a new perspective on the nature of science and a picture of scientists as real people leading interesting lives. The Teen Science Café Network (TSCN) was formed in 2012 with NSF funding to allow other individuals and organizations to start their own versions of the Teen Science Café, adapted to their local institutions and demographics. Five founding member organizations around the United States formed the initial Network and each began creating their own Teen Science Café programs. Today the TSCN is a dynamic, growing community of practice spread across the country with the mission of connecting high school teenagers with STEM and STEM experts via the science café model. The network currently has approximately 133 member organizations in 46 states and Canada. This project will move the network to a much larger scale by creating organization and professional support structures to create a strategically growing social movement with distributed leadership, organizational infrastructure, and robust professional development for long-term stability with a goal to increase the number of member organizations to 500 over five years. Building on the literature on professional development for informal science educators and the literature on network capacity building, network sustainability, and scale, the project will also conduct research that will inform the field about successful model diffusion. This 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 understanding of deeper learning by participants.
This Innovations in Development project has five objectives. The first is to re-structure the Teen Science Café Network (TSCN) to a more distributed leadership model that will move the network to long-term sustainability. The PI team will identify five experienced individuals already leading strong café programs to become Guides for new sites. These Guides will provide training, support, and mentorship to new network members. Each Guide will have responsibility over a given year for mentoring two cohorts of nine sites, allowing the network to increase in size over the next five years. The second objective is to implement an interactive program of professional development for new network members. The training will involve approximately 15 hours of adult leader training focused on building skills around teen engagement and café management. The third objective will be to strategically engage all members in the network community of practice through opportunities to participate in and lead ongoing learning with their peers. Through webinars, Birds of a Feather groups and annual workshops and a Science Events Summit, café leaders will actively hone professional skills and broaden their personal network. Objective four is to broaden the involvement of organizations and communities not currently in the network through strategic recruitment of STEM professional societies, military youth programs, library networks, and youth-serving organizations, among other organizations. Finally, objective five is to implement a research agenda to contribute to the informal learning knowledge base. The research will focus on how the project's approach to network growth and distributed leadership leads to effective scaling and sustainability.
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.
Diversity in the STEM workforce is essential for expanding the talent pool and bringing new ideas to bear in solving societal problems, yet entrenched gaps remain. In STEM higher education, students from certain racial and ethnic groups continue to be underrepresented in STEM majors and fields. Colleges and universities have responded by offering precollege STEM programs to high school students from predominantly underrepresented groups. These programs have been shown to positively affect students' analytical and critical thinking skills, STEM content knowledge and exposure, and self-efficacy through STEM-focused enrichment and research experiences. In fact, salient research suggests that out-of-school-time, precollege STEM experiences are key influencers in students' pursuit of STEM majors and careers, and underscore the value of precollege STEM programs in their ability to prepare students in STEM. This NSF INCLUDES Alliance: STEM PUSH - Pathways for Underrepresented Students to Higher Education Network - will form a national network of precollege STEM programs to actualize their value through the creation, spread and scale of an equitable, evidence-based pathway for university admissions - precollege STEM program accreditation. Building on several successful NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilots, this Alliance will use a networked improvement community approach to transform college admissions by establishing an accreditation process for precollege STEM programs in which standards-based credentials serve as indicators of program quality that are recognized by colleges and universities as rigorous and worthy of favorable consideration during undergraduate admissions processes. Given the high enrollment of students from underrepresented groups in precollege STEM programs, the Alliance endeavors to broaden participation in STEM by maximizing college access and STEM outcomes in higher education and beyond.
The STEM PUSH Network is a national alliance of precollege STEM programs, STEM and culturally responsive pedagogy experts, formal and informal education practitioners, college admissions professionals, the accreditation sector, and other higher education representatives. The Alliance will establish a formidable collaborative improvement space using the networked improvement community model and a "next generation" accreditation model that will serve as a mechanism for communicating the power of precollege programs to admissions offices. Framing this work is the notion that the accreditation of precollege STEM programs is an equitable supplemental admissions criterion to the current, often cited as a culturally biased, standardized test score-based system. To achieve its shared vision and goals, the Alliance has four key objectives: (1) establish and support a national precollege STEM program networked community, (2) develop a standards-based precollege STEM program accreditation system to broaden participation in STEM, (3) test and validate the model within the networked improvement community, and (4) spread, scale, and sustain the model through its backbone organization, the STEM Learning Ecosystem Community of Practice. Each objective will be closely monitored and evaluated by an external evaluator. In addition, the data infrastructure developed through this Alliance will provide an unprecedented opportunity to advance scholarship in the fields of networked improvement community design and development, the efficacy of STEM precollege programs, and effective practices for broadening participation pathways from high school to higher education. By the end of five years, the STEM PUSH Network will transform ten urban ecosystems across the country into communities where students from underrepresented groups have increased college access and therefore, entree to STEM opportunities and majors in higher education. The model has the potential to be replicated by another 80 STEM ecosystems that will have access to Alliance materials and strategies through the backbone organization.
This NSF INCLUDES Alliance is funded by NSF Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES), a comprehensive national initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in discoveries and innovations by focusing on diversity, inclusion and broadening participation in STEM at scale. It is also co-funded by the NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers program and the Advancing Informal STEM Learning Program.
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.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alison Slinskey LeggJan MorrisonJennifer IritiAlaine AllenDavid Boone
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This project in the Advancing Informal STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Learning program's Innovations in Development track aims to build professional capacity in Informal Science Education (ISE) institutions for effective engagement of Latinx audiences. A collaboration between The Exploratorium and the Children's Discovery Museum (CDM) of San Jose, Cambio is a professional development project based on the premise that developing cultural competence specific to Latinx communities and STEM learning, together with organizational change capacity, will enable ISE institutions to improve their ability to be inclusive of Latinx communities, cultures, and audiences. Cambio's ultimate aim is to broaden participation in STEM by building the ISE field's capacity to effectively engage Latinxs in informal STEM learning. ISE institutions and other out-of-school programs and organizations have an important role to play in inspiring and preparing the next generation of Latinx STEM students, employees, and educators. Cambio participants will deepen their engagement with the research and practice relevant to this role and build an understanding of what broadening Latinx engagement can and should look like in their institutions. Working with expert instructors and coaches, and together as peers, Cambio participants will apply what they learn to real-world strategic initiatives they implement at their home institutions.
The heart of the Cambio project is the creation of a professional development (PD) model for ISE institutions and their staff that synthesizes: (a) current knowledge about strategies for Latinx engagement in informal STEM learning; (b) previous NSF-funded projects that leveraged that knowledge to chart a way forward for the field; and (c) CDM's Cultural Competence Learning Institute professional development program for building cultural competence, inclusion, and organizational change in museums. This synthesis will form a robust professional development platform that has the potential to create a field-wide shift in the way informal science institutions approach working with Latinx audiences. The Cambio professional development program will include: a new professional development framework and curriculum that will reach 54 practitioners in 15 institutions; the development and dissemination of professional development tools and resources for use by ISE practitioners; a Community of Practice focused on Latinx engagement in informal STEM learning; evidence of the efficacy of the Cambio PD model; and knowledge generated by formative and summative evaluation that will inform other ISE efforts focused on increasing the participation of Latinxs in STEM. A STEM focus will be woven throughout the professional development experience that focuses explicitly on areas of intersection between Latinx culture and identities and STEM. Practitioners will increase their expertise in designing experiences that will invoke emotional engagement, spark curiosity and excitement, in ways that explicitly value Latinx identities.
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.
Polar Literacy: A model for youth engagement and learning will foster public engagement with polar science. The project targets middle-school aged underserved youth and polar research scientists, with the goal to increase youth interest in and understanding of Polar Regions, and to hone researchers' science communication skills. The project will develop affordable and replicable ways of bringing polar education to informal learning environments, extend our understanding of how polar education initiatives can be delivered to youth with maximum effect, and design a professional development model to improve the capacity for Polar Region researchers to craft meaningful broader impact activities. Polar Literacy will create and test a model which combines direct participation by scientists in after-school settings, with the use of curated polar research data sets and data visualization tools to create participatory learning experiences for youth. Beyond the life of the project funding, many of the project deliverables (including kits, videos, and other resources) will continue to be used and disseminated online and in person through ongoing work of project collaborators.
Polar Literacy: A model for youth engagement and learning will advance the understanding of informal learning environments while leveraging the rich interdisciplinary resources from polar investments made by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The project's key audiences -- polar researchers, informal educators, and out-of-school time (OST) youth in grades 4-7 (ages 9-13) -- will connect through both place-based and internet-based experiences and work collaboratively to generate a flexible, scalable, and transferable education model. The project will 1) design OST kits and resource guides (focused on Polar Literacy Principles) and include "Concept in a Minute" videos designed to highlight enduring ideas, 2) provide professional development for informal educators, 3) synthesize a club model through adaptation of successful facets of existing informal learning programs, and 4) create Data Jam events for the OST Special Interest (SPIN) clubs and camp programs by modifying an existing formal education model. A research design, implemented at four nodes over three years, will answer three research questions to evaluate the impact of professional development on informal educators, as well as the impact of programs on youth, and the effectiveness of the model. In addition to the project team and collaborators who are informal education practitioners, an advisory board composed of experts in youth programming, informal education, and evaluation will guide the project to ensure that it advances the body of informal STEM learning research.
Polar Literacy is an Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Innovations in Development project in response to the Dear Colleague Letter: Support for Engaging Students and the Public in Polar Research (NSF 18-103). Polar Literacy 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 (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) learning in informal environments. This project has co-funding support from the Antarctic section of the Office of Polar Programs.
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.
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Janice McDonnellOscar SchofieldCharles LichtenwalnerJason Cervenec