The goal of this project is to promote informal STEM education in polar research through a novel interactive learning display that uses virtual and augmented reality technology. A new display system will be developed that combines the successful techniques of touch-enabled tabletop displays with new low-cost, head-mounted display technology to deliver an immersive 3D learning experience for the IceCube Neutrino Detection system located at the South Pole. The system will provide new means for engaging the public in learning about the IceCube Neutrino Dectection system and the challenges of Antarctic research.
The proposal relies on collaboration between three groups on the University of Wisconsin- Madison campus, including the Living Environments Laboratory (LEL), the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC), and the Games Learning Society (GLS). Once developed, the display system will be installed at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery Town Center, a public space that attracts close to 50,000 people per year. This proposal was submitted as an Exploratory Pathways proposal, meaning that it represents a chance to establish the basis for future research, design, and development of innovations or approaches. Outcomes from this project will inform the PIs of how best to extend the system to add more 3D environments for other research locations in Antarctica. The system will be implemented in an extensible fashion so that a user can select from one of several Antarctic research station locations, not just IceCube, from the main menu of the system and suddenly be immersed in a 3D world that seeks to teach users about polar research at that location. Contents of the interactive learning display will be translated into Spanish, and users will be able to choose which language they want to use. Evaluations of the system will also inform designers about how these museum-type systems impact learning outcomes for the general public.
This project was submitted to the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, but will be funded by the Division of Polar Programs. AISL 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 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. This ITEST project aims to research the STEM career interests of late elementary and middle-school students and, based on the results of that research, build an informal education program to involve families and community partners to enhance their science knowledge, attitudes, experiences, and resources. There is an emphasis on underrepresented and low income students and their families.
The project will research and test a new model to promote the development of positive attitudes toward STEM and to increase interest in STEM careers. Phase 1 of the project will include exploratory research examining science capital and habitus for a representative sample of youth at three age ranges: 8-9, 9-10 and 11-12 years. The project will measure the access that youth have to adults who engage in STEM careers and STEM leisure activities. In phase II the project will test a model with a control group and a treatment group to enhance science capital and habitus for youth.
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.
European Researchers’ Night is an annual pan-European initiative of the European Commission held on the last Friday in September. In 2015, 1.1 million European citizens and 18,000 researchers took part in events organised in more than 300 cities within Europe and neighbouring countries. The objective of European Researchers’ Night is to encourage the wider public to visit research institutes, engage with researchers, and learn more about European research and potential career opportunities. In this paper, European Researchers’ Night in Ireland is considered through the lens of informal
This poster was presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) in Atlanta, GA. It discusses how cogenerative dialogues (cogens) might serve as a tool to dissolve emotional breakdowns in a project-based learning (PBL) science internship.
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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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jennifer A. UfnarVirginia L. Shepherd
Abstract: We aim to disrupt the multigenerational cycle of poverty in our rural indigenous (18% Native American and 82% Hispanic) community by training our successful college students to serve as role models in our schools. Poverty has led to low educational aspirations and expectations that plague our entire community. As such, its disruption requires a collective effort from our entire community. Our Collective unites two local public colleges, 3 school systems, 2 libraries, 1 museum, 1 national laboratory and four local organizations devoted to youth development. Together we will focus on raising aspirations and expectations in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) topics, for STEM deficiencies among 9th graders place them at risk of dropping out while STEM deficiencies among 11th and 12th graders preclude them from pursuing STEM majors in college and therefore from pursuing well paid STEM careers. We will accomplish this by training, placing, supporting, and assessing the impact of, an indigenous STEM mentor corps of successful undergraduate role models. By changing STEM aspirations and expectations while heightening their own sense of self-efficacy, we expect this corps to replenish itself and so permanently increase the flow of the state's indigenous populations into STEM majors and careers in line with NSF's mission to promote the progress of science while advancing the national health, prosperity and welfare.
Our broader goal is to focus the talents and energies of a diverse collective of community stakeholders on the empowerment of its local college population to address and solve a STEM disparity that bears directly on the community's well-being in a fashion that is generalizable to other marginalized communities. The scope of our project is defined by six tightly coupled new programs: three bringing indigenous STEM mentors to students, one training mentors, one training mentees to value and grow their network of mentors, and one training teachers to partner with us in STEM. The intellectual merit of our project lies not only in its assertion that authentic STEM mentors will exert an outsize influence in their communities while increasing their own sense of self-efficacy, but in the creation and careful application of instruments that assess the factors that determine teens' attitudes, career interests, and behaviors toward a STEM future; and mentors' sense of self development and progress through STEM programs. More precisely, evaluation of the programs has the potential to clarify two important questions about the role of college-age mentors in schools: (1) To what degree is the protege's academic performance and perceived scholastic competence mediated by the mentor's impact on (a) the quality of the protege's parental relationship and (b) the social capital of the allied classroom teacher; (2) To what degree does the quality of the student mentor's relationships with faculty and peers mediate the impact of her serving as mentor on her self-efficacy, academic performance, and leadership skills?
A non-technical description of the project test explains its significance and importance.
The goal of this project is to help students easily identify themselves as science or engineering professionals and increase the proportion of the local population, dominantly minorities, who pursue science and technology careers. Experience has demonstrated that students are most engaged in technical fields when they can participate in active, hands-on learning around problems with application to their local community. The focus of the effort is in marine science, which has local relevance to both the environment and the economy of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The project will use interventions at three crucial stages: middle school, high-school-college transition, and master-PhD transition, to engage students with specific active-learning and research-oriented programs. Community partners comprise a wide-ranging local organization that leverages the resources of other successful collaborations.
A technical description of the project
This project will create a transferable model that uses innovative partnerships among universities, governmental and non-governmental organizations, a professional society, and businesses, to create a local backbone organization with a shared vision for change and common success metrics broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This project addresses the critical challenge of building scientific identity to increase interest and engagement of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The plan includes targeted interventions at three significant times in the student career pathway (middle/high school, early college, and graduate school) that comprise: (1) field experiences in the marine sciences for middle/high school students, (2) early field research experiences for college freshmen and sophomore students, (3) bridge programming to a Ph.D. partnership with Pennsylvania State University, and (4) an intensive mentoring program. The model is grounded in social innovation theory through a framework that meets the five conditions for collective impact: common agenda, shared measurement of data and results, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristin Wilson GrimesMarilyn BrandtNastassia JonesCarrie BucklinMonica Medina
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
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This Research in Service to Practice project will examine how a wide range of pre-college out-of-school-time activities facilitate or hinder females' participation in STEM fields in terms of interest, identity, and career choices. The study will address the ongoing problem that, despite females' persistence to degree once declaring a major in college, initially fewer females than males choose a STEM career path. To uncover what these factors might be, this study will look at the extent to which college freshmen's pre-college involvement in informal activities (e.g., science clubs, internships, shadowing of STEM professionals, museum-going, engineering competitions, citizen science pursuits, summer camps, and hobbies) is associated with their career aspirations and avocational STEM interests and pursuits. While deep-seated factors, originating in culture and gender socialization, sometimes lower females' interest in STEM throughout schooling, this study will examine the degree to which out-of-school-time involvement ameliorates the subtle messages females encounter about women and science that can interfere with their aspiration to a STEM careers.
The Social Cognitive Career Theory will serve as the theoretical framework to connect the development of interest in STEM with students' later career choices. An epidemiological approach will be used to test a wide range of hypotheses garnered from a review of relevant literature, face-to-face or telephone interviews with stakeholders, and retrospective online surveys of students. These hypotheses, as well as questions about the students' demographic background and in-school experiences, will be incorporated into the main empirical instrument, which will be a comprehensive paper-and-pencil survey to be administered in classes, such as English Composition, that are compulsory for both students with STEM interests and those without by 6500 students entering 40 large and small institutions of higher learning. Data analysis will proceed from descriptive statistics, such as contingency tables and correlation matrices, to multiple regression and hierarchical modeling that will link out-of-school-time experiences to STEM interest, identity, and career aspirations. Factor analysis will be used to combine individual out-of-school activities into indices. Propensity score weighting will be used to estimate causal effects in cases where out-of-school-time activities may be confounded with other factors. The expected products will be scholarly publications and presentations. Results will be disseminated to out-of-school-time providers and stakeholders, educators, and educational researchers through appropriate-level journals and national meetings and conferences. In addition, the Public Affairs and Information Office of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics will assist with communicating results through mainstream media. Press releases will be available through academic outlets and Op-Ed pieces for newspapers. The expected outcome will be research-based evidence about which types of out-of-school STEM experiences may be effective in increasing young females' STEM interests. This information will be crucial to educators, service providers, as well as policy makers who work toward broadening the participation of females in STEM.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Roy GouldPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
The UMN MRSEC conducts an ambitious and multi-faceted education and outreach program to extend the impact of the Center beyond the university, providing undergraduates, college faculty, high school teachers, and K-12 students with opportunities that augment their traditional curriculum and increase their appreciation of materials science and engineering (MS&E). Our summer research program provides high-quality research and educational experiences in MS&E to students and faculty, drawn primarily from undergraduate institutions with limited research opportunities, while placing a strong emphasis on inclusion of women and members of underrepresented groups.