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.
The Ka Makaiwa: Strengthening Digital Access for Native Hawaiian Futures project will develop an approach to producing online exhibits and related programming for the Bishop Museum. The project will address barriers to physical access to collections expected to continue beyond the pandemic by expanding access to information by developing a high-quality, thoughtfully designed, and user-friendly online exhibit platform. The museum will capture photographs, video footage, and other content from the (Re)Generations: Challenging Scientific Racism in Hawaii exhibition, which explores racism and bias in scientific research while celebrating Native Hawaiian voices and collaborative endeavors. The project team will test a beta version internally and conduct a thorough internal review before launching the online exhibit publicly.
The Detroit Zoo will partner with community-based organizations serving youth in metropolitan Detroit to implement a program to develop and present remote STEM programming for students in this area, targeting low- to moderate-income students of color. Staff from the zoo and three afterschool programs (American Institutional Management Services, Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, and Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeast Michigan) will participate in professional development workshops on virtual, inquiry-based, humane STEM education. They will then utilize skills developed in the workshops to develop and lead virtual education programming for a total of 24 groups of 20 middle school youth.
The University of Montana will create “Transforming Spaces” to foster a more inclusive, culturally responsive space for Missoula’s urban Indian population and to better meet the community’s needs. The project will explore cross-cultural, collaborative approaches to STEM and Native Science. In collaboration with Montana’s tribal communities, the museum’s education team and advisory groups will design and implement hands-on activities that engage visitors with Native Science. The project will engage tribal role models and partner with tribal elders to create a library of videos for tribal partners, K–12 schools, and organizations. The project will offer teachers professional development designed to fulfill the statewide mandate of Indian Education for All. The exhibit will connect Native and non-Native museum visitors, close opportunity and achievement gaps, and ensure that all Missoula children feel a sense of belonging in museums, higher education, and STEM.
Educational programming on digital video platforms such as YouTube wrestle with gender disparities in viewership. When men engage with science and technology content on digital platforms more than women, gender gaps in the understanding of, engagement with, and interest in STEM may intensify. Therefore, there is a critical need for more research aiming to aid in our understanding of these gender differences. This study provides evidence that the gender gaps may exist not in the use of YouTube itself, but with the engagement with science and technology content on the platform. Furthermore
The New England Aquarium will create Conservation STEM — an online curriculum that features engaging videos and hands-on activities aligned with state and national standards that are easily accessible for teachers to use in the classroom. The project responds to a need that the aquarium’s Teacher Advisory Council — composed of Pre-K through 12 teachers from the greater Boston area — identified, which was to help students develop critical and systems thinking skills. It also will provide a means for teachers to engage students with authentic experiences to address real-world problems and build an understanding of the need for a balanced use of the ocean.
The Westchester Children’s Museum will develop Full STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) Ahead, an integrated, module-based sequence of hands-on STEAM workshops adaptable for both in-person and virtual teaching for high-need 2nd to 6th grade students at Thomas Cornell Academy in Yonkers, NY and Waterside School in Stamford, CT. Project activities include program development, preparation, delivery, and evaluation to create programs that are replicable and sustainable while leveraging the museum’s resources to demonstrate how it can support their communities in need during unprecedented times. Full STEAM Ahead anticipates reaching 300 students from low-income and economically disadvantaged families.
The University of California Museum of Paleontology will upgrade two STEM websites that provide free resources for teachers, students, and the public for teaching and learning about evolution and the process of science. The project will allow the museum to respond more effectively to user expectations and enhance the security, functionality, and general appeal of these educational resources. In consultation with expert advisors, the project team will review and revise the content and graphics on the 30 most-accessed, high-content pages of each site to ensure that they reflect the latest research and perspectives in the field. New features will also provide more opportunities for visitor interaction with scientific data. Both front-end and formative evaluation will guide the phases of the project.
The Harvard Museums of Science and Culture will improve the ability of middle school teachers to use museum-based digital resources to support classroom instruction aligned with state and national science standards. Working with advisory teachers from five collaborating school districts, the museum will co-create classroom activities, based on digital resources from its collections, along with associated teacher professional development programs at three sites across urban and rural Massachusetts. The project will provide schools with access to classroom-ready resources that successfully support student learning. Teachers will learn how to use these materials, integrate them into their teaching, and enhance their skills to teach science content and practice. External evaluators will assess the project's effectiveness by measuring teacher implementation of the digital resources in the classroom, requests for information and assistance, and changes in teachers' confidence and comfort levels.
We started our three year National Science Foundation Cracking the Code: Influencing Millennial Science Engagement audience research in 2018 with a national survey of millennials’ media consumption habits. This survey was conducted by Jacobs Media Strategies and found, among other things, that millennials were the most science curious generation. This survey provided the groundwork for each of the studies that we have conducted over the past three years as part of our Cracking the Code: Influencing Millennial Science Engagement study.
To wrap up our project, we conducted another large
KQED’s science engagement team is on the front lines of making sure our overall science content, which includes science news and our Deep Look videos, are shared and engaged with on our various social media platforms. One of the platforms we use daily to disseminate our science content is Facebook. To better understand the success of our efforts beyond the usual metrics we track, the science engagement team tested a few Deep Look grant-related research questions using Facebook as a parallel research tool to our grant’s more traditional survey related research.
More specifically, Facebook’s
Science writers, science producers, and science engagement specialists from KQED Science Deep Look joined a team of researchers from the University of Connecticut, Missouri State University, and Texas Tech University to focus on women’s preferences and identities as related to their science engagement intentions. Findings from this most recent study of the gender disparity in Deep Look viewership suggests that one key piece of the puzzle is related to women’s preferences for images and another key piece of the puzzle is related to the identities that women report as most important to them.