The Habitot Children's Museum will renovate its Rocketship and Mission Control exhibition to increase functionality, making it more accessible and interactive for parents, caregivers, and children. With input from the community and a professional advisory group of museum professionals, early learning specialists, space scientists and parents, the museum will refurbish, update, and improve exhibition access for children with special needs by completing previously identified universal design requirements; adding interactive components that support young children's need for open-ended, play-based experiences to build strong STEM learning foundations; and addressing adult visitors' needs to have defined roles in exhibition spaces to better engage with their children. A customized, observation-based evaluation tool will be used to measure the identified project outcomes.
This is the summative evaluation for the My Sky Tonight: Early Childhood Pathways to Astronomy is a National Science Foundation funded Full-Scale Development project that was designed to support informal science education practitioner’s ability to provide astronomy learning for young children ages 3-5 years. Based on prior research and assessment of the field, the project team identified that many informal educators lack the astronomy content, interpretive strategies, and confidence they need to effectively engage audiences of families with preschool-aged children. Three mechanisms were
The Space and Earth Informal STEM Education (SEISE) project, led by the Arizona State University with partners Science Museum of Minnesota, Museum of Science, Boston, and the University of California Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and Space Sciences Laboratory, is raising the capacity of museums and informal science educators to engage the public in Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics, and their social dimensions through the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net). SEISE will also partner on a network-to-network basis with other existing coalitions and professional associations dedicated to informal and lifelong STEM learning, including the Afterschool Alliance, National Girls Collaborative Project, NASA Museum Alliance, STAR_Net, and members of the Association of Children’s Museums and Association of Science-Technology Centers. The goals for this project include engaging multiple and diverse public audiences in STEM, improving the knowledge and skills of informal educators, and encouraging local partnerships.
In collaboration with the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD), SEISE is leveraging NASA subject matter experts (SMEs), SMD assets and data, and existing educational products and online portals to create compelling learning experiences that will be widely use to share the story, science, and adventure of NASA’s scientific explorations of planet Earth, our solar system, and the universe beyond. Collaborative goals include enabling STEM education, improving U.S. scientific literacy, advancing national educational goals, and leveraging science activities through partnerships. Efforts will focus on providing opportunities for learners explore and build skills in the core science and engineering content, skills, and processes related to Earth and space sciences. SEISE is creating hands-on activity toolkits (250-350 toolkits per year over four years), small footprint exhibitions (50 identical copies), and professional development opportunities (including online workshops).
Evaluation for the project will include front-end and formative data to inform the development of products and help with project decision gates, as well as summative data that will allow stakeholders to understand the project’s reach and outcomes.
Physical science and engineering remain the least diverse of all STEM fields---with regard to women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities---across all levels of STEM education and training. SCI-STEPS is an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot that will address this persistent challenge by developing a complete end-to-end pipeline (or system of pathways) from the beginning of college to the PhD, and then into the workforce. Many isolated efforts to broaden participation have shown promise, but they have not produced big enough impact. SCI-STEPS represents a concerted set of coordinated interventions---consciously facilitated, systemically linked, and purposefully disseminated. SCI-STEPS represents a broad regional network among major research universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, comprehensive universities, community colleges, national labs, and major scientific organizations. The goal of the network is to ensure that underrepresented individuals in the physical sciences and engineering can get from their starting point in STEM higher education---freshmen at 2-year or 4-year college---through the higher education pathways leading to an appropriate terminal degree and employment in the STEM workforce.
Women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities collectively represent the majority of college-age individuals entering higher education with an expressed interest in physical science and engineering. A growing body of research indicates that academic and social integration may be even more influential than academic abilities for retention of students. Thus, interventions aimed at stemming the losses of these individuals must ultimately be aimed at changing the system---including unwelcoming institutional climates, racial/ethnic/gender stereotyping, a lack of mentors with whom to identify, and evaluation methods that emphasize conformity over individual capabilities---rather than changing the individual. The SCI-STEPS pilot focuses effort on institutional readiness for implementation of best practice interventions at four key junctures: (i) college freshman to sophomore; (ii) undergraduate to graduate; (iii) PhD to postdoc; and (iv) postdoc to workforce.The pilot will proceed in three steps: (1) a planning phase, (2) development of an initial end-to-end pathways model with four Juncture Transition teams, and (3) scale-up of the SCI-STEPS "network of networks" with all initial partners. By addressing these objectives through a collective impact framework and embedded research, this pilot will demonstrate how best-practice interventions at each pathway juncture can be dovetailed and scaled up across a broad range of institutional types and across a large but distinct geographical area. Addressing these objectives will thus also serve to advance Broadening Participation efforts at a national scale, by suggesting the forms of institutional partnerships and best-practices that may inform other alliances in other STEM disciplines and/or different regional areas.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Keivan StassunNicole JosephKelly Holley-BockelmannWilliam RobinsonRoger Chalkley
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 project will advance knowledge in the design of interest triggers for science in immersive digital simulation learning games. When learners are interested in a topic, it can have a profound impact on the quality of their learning. Although much is known about how informal learning experiences can promote interest in STEM, much less research has addressed links between technology use and interest development. This Exploratory Pathways project will investigate (1) the impact of entertainment technology use by middle school learners on STEM interest development, (2) the design of interactive educational technologies created specifically to trigger interest in astronomy, and (3) informal learning resources for sustained interaction with STEM content over time. In particular, learners will have the opportunity to interactively explore the scientific consequences of considering alternative versions of Earth via "What if?" questions, such as "What if the earth had no moon?" or "What if the earth were twice its current size?". While using the simulations, learners will be invited to make observations and propose scientific explanations for what they see as different. Given recent discoveries of potentially habitable worlds throughout the Galaxy, such questions have high relevance to public discourse around space exploration, conditions necessary for life, and the long-term future of the human race. Studies will occur across three informal learning settings: museum exhibits, afterschool programs, and summer camps, and are driven by the following research questions: What technology-based triggers of interest have the strongest influence on interest? Which contextual factors are most important for supporting long-term interest development? And, what kinds of technology-based triggers are most effective for learners from audiences who are underrepresented in STEM? This research will result in an empirically tested approach for cultivating interest that will allow educators to leverage the "What if?" pedagogy in their own work, as well as downloadable materials suitable for use in both informal and formal learning settings.
Planned studies will identify features that are effective in triggering interest, with an emphasis on groups underrepresented in STEM, and elaborate on the importance of engaging learners in explanatory dialogues and in service of interest development. It is hypothesized that interacting in such novel ways can act as a trigger for interest in astronomy, physics, and potentially other areas of STEM. Design iterations will also investigate different forms of learning supports, such as guidance from facilitators, collaboration, and automated guidance available within the simulations, and identify how features vary with respect to learning contexts. Data collected will include interview and survey data to track interest development, measures of knowledge in astronomy and physics, and log files of simulation use to better understand how behaviors in the simulations align with stated interests. Results of the studies will advance the theoretical understanding of interest development and its relationship to interactive experiences, and will also have practical implications for the deployment of technology in informal settings by identifying features critical for triggering the interest of middle school learners. 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 understandings of deeper learning by participants.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
H Chad LaneJorge Perez-GallegoNeil Comins
Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) Howard B. Owens Science Center (HBOSC) will infuse NASA Earth, Heliophysics, and Planetary mission science data into onsite formal and informal curriculum programs to expand scientific understanding of the Earth, Sun, and the universe. The goal of the project is to develop a pipeline of programs for grades 3-8 to enhance teacher and student understanding of NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Earth, Planetary, and Heliophysics science and promote STEM careers and understanding of NASA career pathways using the HBOSC Planetarium, Challenger Center and classrooms. During the school year, PGCPS students in Grades 3 through 8 will experience field trip opportunities that will feature NASA Sun-Earth connection, comparative planetology, Kepler Exoplanet data, and NASA Space Weather Action Center data. PGCPS Grade 3 through 8 teachers will receive summer, day, and evening professional development in comparable earth and space science content both engaging the HBOSC Planetarium and Challenger facility and its resources. The students and teachers in four PGCPS academies (Grades 3 through 8) will serve as a pilot group for broader expansion of the program district-wide. ESPSI will provide opportunities for county-wide participation through community outreach programs that will promote NASA Earth, Heliophysics, and Planetary mission data. Community outreach will be offered through piloting the Maryland Science Center outreach program to four of PGCPS southern located schools and monthly evening planetarium shows along with quarterly family science nights that will include guest speakers and hands-on exhibits from the local science community and Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).
This project will bring STEM education to rural communities through local public libraries. Museum quality exhibits labelled as "Discover Earth", "Discover Technology", and "Discover Space" will spend 3 months at a series of locations around the Nation. Twenty four medium sized libraries will be chosen for the large exhibits and forty small libraries will be chosen for scaled down versions. The project's intent is to provide exhibits in every state and to reach as many under-represented individuals as possible. The significance of this project is that rural areas of this country are underserved regarding STEM education and since this segment of society is represented by 50-60 million residents, it is important to reach out to them. There is a significant segment of the Nation's population (50-60 million) that is underserved by out-of-school learning venues such as museums and science centers. An earlier phase 1 project demonstrated at 18 sites that rural libraries and librarians could provide STEM education to community members ranging in age from adults to children using these hands-on exhibits. Each exhibit (earth, space or technology) includes information about the topic and technologically enabled models to provide interesting and fun discovery mechanisms. They use common layman friendly language that highlights the most recent discoveries in each area. Each exhibit will be placed in the selected library for 3 months during which the library will organize events to feature and advertise the STEM learning opportunities. Another feature of this project will be to determine the models of learning in library settings and as a function of the demographics. The partners in this project that bring the necessary expertise are the American Library Association, the Afterschool Alliance, the Association of Rural and Small Libraries, the University of Colorado Museum, Datum Advisors, LLC, Evaluation and Research Associates, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, the American Geophysical Union, and the Space Science Institute.
Research shows that participation and interest in science starts to drop as youth enter high school. This is also the point when science becomes more complex and there is increased need for content knowledge, mathematics capability, and computer or computational knowledge. Evidence suggests that youth who participate in original scientific research are more likely to enter and maintain a career in science as compared to students who do not have these experiences. We know young people get excited by space science. This project (STEM-ID) is informed by previous work in which high school students were introduced to scientific research and contributed to the search for pulsars. Students were able to develop the required science and math knowledge and computer skills that enabled them to successfully participate. STEM-ID builds on this previous work with two primary goals: the replication of the local program into a distributed program model and an investigation of the degree to which authentic research experiences build strong science identities and research self-efficacies. More specifically the project will support (a) significant geographic expansion to institutions situated in communities with diverse populations allowing substantial inclusion of under-served groups, (b) an online learning and discovery environment that will support the participation of youth throughout the country via online activities, and (c) opportunities for deeper participation in research and advancement within the research community. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program which seeks to advance new approaches to, and understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. STEM-ID will serve 2000 high school youth and 200 high school teachers in afterschool clubs with support from 30 undergraduate and graduate students and 10 college/university faculty. Exploratory educational research will determine the broad mechanisms by which online activities and in-person and online peer-mentor teacher-scientist interactions influence science identity, self-efficacy, motivation, and career intentions, as well as a focused understanding of the mechanisms that influence patterns of participation. Youth will be monitored longitudinally through the first two years of college to provide an understanding of the long-term effects of out-of-class science enrichment programs on STEM career decisions. These studies will build an understanding of the best practices for enhancing STEM persistence in college through engagement in authentic STEM programs before youth get to college. In addition to the benefits of the education research, this program may lead participants to discover dozens of new pulsars. These pulsars will be used for fundamental advances such as for testing of general relativity, constraining neutron star masses, or detecting gravitational waves. The resulting survey will also be sensitive to transient signals such as sporadic pulsars and extragalactic bursts. This project provides a potential model for youth from geographical disparate places to participate in authentic research experiences. For providers, it will offer a model for program delivery with lower costs. Findings will support greater understanding of the mechanisms for participation in STEM. This work is being led by West Virginia University and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Participating sites include California Institute of Technology, Cornell University, El Paso Community College, Howard University, Montana State University, Penn State University, Texas Tech University, University of Vermont, University of Washington, and Vanderbilt University.