This project addresses the urgent need for the development of equitable approaches to early childhood STEM education that honor the diverse cultural practices through which caregivers (such as parents, grandparents, and other adults in children’s lives) support young children’s learning. Recent studies suggest that both formal and informal educational institutions often privilege Western or Eurocentric parenting practices, neglecting many families’ cultural practices and ways of learning. This study will bring together a group of caregivers, pre-K educators, researchers, and museum staff to investigate how families with young children negotiate among their own cultural practices and the types of STEM learning they encounter in museums, schools, and other community settings. The project team will work together to identify opportunities for informal STEM learning institutions to strengthen their roles as places that can bridge home and school environments and open up new possibilities for building on caregivers’ knowledge and cultural practices within this larger community context. The project will directly benefit the 330 families whose children attend the partnering public school each year, as well as hundreds of families who attend family events at the New York Hall of Science annually. Finally, by considering nuances in caregivers’ perspectives and experiences based on multiple facets of their identities, the research will reveal how structures in educational settings might be changed to become more inclusive and culturally responsive for the broadest possible audience of families.
This Pilots and Feasibility project seeks to 1) conduct exploratory research to understand caregiver engagement, defined as caregivers’ expectations, values, and practices related to their roles in children’s learning, from the perspectives of caregivers, and 2) engage in co-design efforts with caregivers and pre-K educators to explore how the museum can be leveraged as a material and creative resource to support caregiver engagement in STEM learning. This work will be carried out in the context of a long-term partnership between the New York Hall of Science and the New York City Department of Education. Methods will include in-depth interviews with caregivers, using narrative and intersectional research methods to extend existing studies on caregiver engagement in informal STEM learning, while taking into account multiple aspects of families’ social and cultural identities. This work will be carried out in Corona — a neighborhood in Queens, NY, largely made up of low-income and first-generation immigrant families. The project team will collaboratively interpret findings and engage in the initial phases of co-design work, which will include: reflecting on the systems currently in place to support caregivers’ involvement in children’s learning across settings; collaboratively generating new, culturally responsive strategies for leveraging the museum as a material and creative resource for families with young children; and choosing promising directions for further development and testing. Products from this work will include directions for new caregiver engagement initiatives that can be developed and refined as the partnership continues, and strategies for supporting equitable participation by caregivers, pre-K educators, and other community stakeholders in future research-practice partnerships.
This project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. It responds to continuing concerns about racial and social inequities in STEM fields that begin to emerge in the early childhood years. The overarching goal of the project is to identify cultural strengths that support early science learning opportunities among Spanish-speaking children from immigrant Latin American communities, a population that is traditionally underrepresented in STEM educational and career pursuits. Building on a growing interest in the ways stories can promote early engagement in and understanding of science, this project will investigate the role of oral and written stories as culturally relevant and potentially powerful tools for making scientific ideas and inquiry practices meaningful and accessible for young Latinx children. Findings will reveal ways that family storytelling practices can provide accessible entry points for Latinx children's early science learning, and recommend methods that parents and educators can use to foster learning about scientific practices that can, in turn, increase interest and participation in science education and fields.
The project will advance knowledge on the socio-cultural and familial experience of Latinx children that can contribute to their early science learning and skills. The project team will examine the oral story and reading practices of 330 Latinx families with 3- to 5-year-old children recruited from three geographic locations in the United States: New York, Chicago, and San Jose. Combining interviews and observations, the project team will investigate: (1) how conversations about science and nature occur in Latinx children's daily lives, and (2) whether and to what extent narrative and expository books, family personal narratives, and adivinanzas (riddles) engender family conversations about scientific ideas and science practices. Across- and within-site comparisons will allow the project team to consider the immediate ecology and broader factors that shape Latinx families’ science-related views and practices. Although developmental science has long acknowledged that early learning is culturally situated, most research on early STEM is still informed by mainstream experiences that largely exclude the lived experiences of children from groups underrepresented in STEM, especially those who speak languages other than English. The proposed work will advance understanding of stories as cultural resources to support early science engagement and learning among Latinx children and inform the development of high quality, equitable informal and formal science educational opportunities for young children.
This award is funded in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
It has been well documented that under-resourced Latinx communities face persistent barriers to accessing quality STEM education and STEM careers, particularly in the field of engineering. For young children and their families from these communities, the development of executive function skills offers promising pathways to support educational success and prepare children to engage with STEM practices and content. Executive function skills, such as focusing attention, retaining information, and managing emotions are critical for children’s development and long-term success, and have been identified as central to engagement with STEM practices and content, whether in or out of school. However, much of the work on development of executive function skills to date has been conducted with White, middle-class children and has largely ignored the knowledge, values, or perspectives of other communities, including Latinx families. Similar gaps also exist in attention to culturally responsive approaches to using family-based STEM activities to support executive function skills. Taken together, there is a critical need to work with Latinx communities to re-imagine the intersection of STEM learning and executive function skills using equity-based frameworks. This Pilot and Feasibility project will develop and test a new participatory, dialogic method that leverages informal family engineering activities to support the development of executive function skills for preschool-age children from Latinx families. The combination of this proposal’s unique engagement of parents as research partners with the study of engineering and executive functions could lay the foundation for a promising program of future equity-focused research.
Three research questions will guide the study: 1) What knowledge, assets, and practices already exist within Latinx families related to these executive function skills? 2) What aspects of executive function skills can be supported through informal family engineering activities? and 3) What are promising design strategies for adapting informal family engineering activities to highlight family assets and support executive function skills for young children? To address these questions, the project team will engage Latinx parents in a dialogue series in which parents are central collaborators, sharing their in-depth perspectives and partnering with researchers to develop conceptual frameworks and new approaches. Data generated through these ongoing discussions will be analyzed using (a) qualitative, participatory approaches, including iterative co-development and refinement of emergent themes with parents, (b) detailed inductive coding of parent dialogue group discussions using grounded theory techniques, and (c) retrospective analysis at the end of the project. The parent dialogue series will be supported by a systematic literature review examining the intersections between engineering design, executive function, and the strengths and assets within Latinx families. The results of the exploratory research will include a (1) conceptual framework co-developed with parents that highlights promising opportunities and design strategies for using family engineering design activities to support executive function skills for preschool-age children from Latinx families and (2) research agenda outlining questions and priorities for future work that reflect the goals and interests of this community. Aligned with project’s equity approach, the team will work collaboratively with project partners and families for dissemination, focusing on amplifying community voices, sharing challenges and successes, and supporting improvements in the local community. Results will also be broadly shared with educators and researchers to advance knowledge and promote new equitable approaches to collaborating with parents from Latinx communities.
This Pilots and Feasibility project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
HBCUs are critical to producing a diverse and inclusive workforce as they graduate a disproportionate number of African American future STEM workers and STEM leaders. Although the National Science Foundation is fully committed to diversity and inclusion, there has been little research to determine why Historically Black Colleges and Universities are not fully participating in the NSF STEM educational research opportunities. The project will investigate the challenges, needs and support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to succeed in applying for educational research support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Participants will be recruited from 96 HBCUs that are eligible to apply for such funding and will include the wide range of college and university administration and faculty that are involved in the preparation of research projects and related applications for research funding. The investigation will focus primarily on the Division of Research on Learning in Informal and Formal Settings (DRL) within NSF. The investigation will: 1) determine the submission rate and funding success rate of HBCUs within the DRL funding mechanisms; 2) determine why a greater proportion of HBCUs are not successful in their applications of research or do not apply; and 3) determine what factors, such as institutional support, research expertise, and professional development, could lead to a larger number of research proposals from HBCUs and greater success in obtaining funding. The project has the potential to have significant influence on the national educational and research agenda by providing empirical findings on the best approach to support and encourage HBCU participation in DRL educational research funding programs.
This exploratory research project will investigate what changes and/or supports would contribute to significantly increasing the number of applications and successful grant awards for STEM educational research project proposed by HBCUs. The project has the following research questions: (1) What factors discourage participation of HBCUs in the DRL funding mechanisms and what are the best practices to encourage participation? (2) What approaches have been successful for HBCUs to obtain DRL funding? (3) What dynamic capabilities are necessary for HBCU researchers to successfully submit STEM proposals to NSF? (4) What changes would be helpful to reduce or eliminate any barriers for HBCU applications for DRL educational research funding and what supports, such as professional development, would contribute to greater success in obtaining funding? Participants will be recruited from the 96 eligible HBCUs and will include both individuals from within the administration (e.g., Office Sponsored Programs, Deans, VP, etc.) as well as from within the faculty. The research will collect variety of quantitative and qualitative data designed to support a comprehensive analysis of factors addressing the research questions. The project will develop research findings and recommendations that are relevant to faculty, administrators, and policymakers for improving HBCU participation in research funding opportunities. Results of project research will be widely disseminated to HBCUs and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) through a project website, peer reviewed journals, newsletters, and conference presentations.
This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST), the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL), and the Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) programs. These programs which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' and general public knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Cynthia TrawickJohn HaynesTriscia HendricksonTerry Mills
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.
The Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. An ongoing challenge to the design of effective STEM learning exhibits for diverse young children is the absence of reliable and evidence-based resources that designers can apply to the design of STEM exhibits that draw upon play as a child's primary pedagogy, while simultaneously engaging children with STEM content and processes that support development of STEM skills such as observation. To address these challenges, the project team will use a collaborative process in which learning researchers and informal STEM practitioners iteratively develop, design, and test the STEM for Play Framework that could then be applied to the design of STEM-focused exhibits that support play and STEM skill use among early learners.
This Research in Service to Practice project will address these questions: 1) What is a framework for play in early STEM learning that is inclusive of children's cultural influences?; 2) To what extent do interactions between early learners (ages 3-8) and caregivers or peers at exhibits influence the structure and effectiveness of play for supporting STEM skill development?; 3) How do practitioners link play to STEM skill development, and to what extent does a framework for play in early STEM learning assist in identifying types of play that supports early STEM skill development?; and 4) What do practitioners identify as best practices in exhibit design that support the development of STEM skills for early childhood audiences, and conversely, to what extent do practitioners perceive specific aspects of the design as influential to play? The project team will address these questions across four phases of study that will include (a) development of a critical research synthesis to inform the initial STEM for Play framework; (b) the use of surveys, focus groups, and interviews to solicit feedback from practitioners; (c) testing and revising the framework by conducting structured observations of STEM exhibits at multiple museums. The project team will use multiple analytic approaches including qualitative thematic analyses as well as inferential statistics. Results will be disseminated to children?s museums, science centers, and research communities.
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.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alison Slinskey LeggJan MorrisonJennifer IritiAlaine AllenDavid Boone
Parents and adult caregivers play a significant role in young children's understanding of (and participation in) science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Research suggests that early engagement with STEM can have a profound impact on children's use of STEM process skills such as exploration, observation, and problem-solving, as well as future academic success. An immediate yet ongoing challenge facing informal STEM learning providers is to understand how limited resources can be used to support effective STEM learning opportunities and experiences for all children and families. Through a collaboration between researchers, Head Start, two science centers (one rural, one urban), and educators, this project aims to foster STEM access and engagement with specific attention to young children and their caregivers. 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 Pilot and Feasibility study will apply an experimental, mixed-methods design to examine parent/caregiver and child (ages 4-5) interactions before, during, and after informal STEM experiences to identify which factors influence children's transfer of learning STEM process skills across multiple informal contexts. Research results will lay the foundation for a future longitudinal study. The project team will ask: (1) What types of parent/caregiver-child engagement at the science center are most predictive of children's application of STEM process skills in subsequent problem-solving tasks and school readiness? (2) How do variations in parent/caregiver-child conversational strategies during the science center visit influence children's memory and learning? and (3) How can informal educators best support Head Start family engagement and children's emerging STEM knowledge? This study will collect data on 240, 4-5-year-old children, with their caregivers, in two different science centers that serve a largely rural and largely urban population. Data sources will include video/audio of caregiver-child interactions at the science centers and at home, as well as children's recall, engagement with a problem-solving task, and school readiness scores. Coding and analysis of the tasks during and after the science center visit will detail mechanisms underlying children's memory, learning, and application of STEM process skills that transfer to the problem-solving task. The project will be implemented by a research-practice partnership, leveraging the expertise of project partners and communities to ensure the use of culturally responsive research practices. This research has the potential to strategically impact how science centers and Head Start grantees work together on Family Engagement programming to achieve equitable STEM learning opportunities, broadening participation for low-income young children and their families.
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.
There are several critical reasons to understand and support interest development in early childhood: (a) as a primary motivator of engagement and learning; (b) interest development in preschool predicts important learning outcomes and behaviors in early elementary school; and (c) early childhood interests motivate ongoing interest development. Thus, there is growing recognition that interest is not just important but fundamental to education and learning. Head Start on Engineering (HSE) is a multi-component, bilingual (Spanish/English), family-focused program designed to (1) foster long-term interest in the engineering design process for families with preschool children from low-income backgrounds and (2) support family development and kindergarten readiness goals. The HSE program, co-developed with the Head Start community, provides families with developmentally appropriate, story-based engineering design challenges for the home and then connects these to a system of strategically aligned Informal STEM Education (ISE) experiences and resources. This current project, HSE Systems, builds on a previous HSE Pathways project which (a) established that participating families develop persistent engineering-related interests; (b) highlighted the value that the Head Start community has for the program and partnership; and (c) generated a novel, systems perspective on early childhood interest development. The aim of HSE Systems is to develop and test a model of early childhood STEM engagement and advance knowledge of how the family as a system develops interest in STEM from preschool into kindergarten.
Through the Design Based Implementation Research (DBIR) process, the team will iteratively refine and improve the HSE program and theory of change using ongoing feedback and data from staff, families, and partners. It is also designed to explore program impacts on family interest development over a longer period, as children enter kindergarten. The DBIR work will focus primarily on the program model questions, while the case study research will focus on the family interest questions, with both strands informing each other. The initial work is organized around a series of feedback and design-testing cycles to gather input from families and other stakeholders, update the program components and activities in collaboration with families and staff, and prepare for full implementation. During the next phase, the team will implement the full program model with six Head Start classrooms and track family experiences and interest development into kindergarten. During final implementation phase, the team will finish data collection, conduct retrospective analysis with all the data, and update the program model and theory of change.
This project will directly address the AISL program goals by broadening access to early childhood informal STEM education for low-income communities, with a focus on Spanish-speaking families, and building long-term skills and learning dispositions to support STEM learning inside and outside of school. Beyond the topic of engineering, HSE supports Head Start school readiness and child and family development goals, which are the foundation of lifelong success.
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.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. This project examines the conditions in which families and young learners most benefit from "doing science and math" together among a population that is typically underserved with respect to STEM experiences--families experiencing poverty. This project builds on an existing program called Teaching Together that uses interactive parent-child workshops led by a museum educator and focused on supporting STEM learning at home. The goal of these workshops is to increase parents'/caregivers' self-perception and ability to serve as their child's first teacher by supporting learning and inquiry conversations during daily routines and informal STEM activities. Families attend a series of afternoon and evening workshops at their child's preschool center and at a local children's museum. Parents/Caregivers may participate in online home learning activities and museum experiences. The project uses an experimental design to test the added value of providing incremental supports for informal STEM learning. The study uses an experimental design to address potential barriers parents/caregivers may perceive to doing informal STEM activities with their child. The project also explores how the quantity and quality parent-child informal learning interactions may relate to changes in children's science and mathematics knowledge during the pre-kindergarten year. The project partners include the Children's Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Children's Museum of Houston.
The project is designed to increase understanding of how parents/caregivers can be encouraged to support informal STEM learning by experimentally manipulating key aspects of the broader expectancy-value-cost motivation theory, which is well established in psychology and education literatures but has not been applied to preschool parent-child informal STEM learning. More specifically, the intervention conditions are designed to identify how specific parent supports can mitigate potential barriers that families experiencing poverty face. These intervention conditions include: modeling of informal STEM learning during workshops to address skills and knowledge barriers; materials to address difficulties accessing science and math resources; and incentives as a way to address parental time pressures and/or costs and thereby improve involvement in informal learning activities. Intervention effects will be calculated in terms of effect sizes and potential mediators of change will be explored with structural equation modeling. The first phase of the project uses an iterative process to refine the curriculum and expand the collection of resources designed for families of 3- to 5-year-olds. The second phase uses an experimental study of the STEM program to examine conditions that maximize participation and effectiveness of family learning programs. In all, 360 families will be randomly assigned to four conditions: 1) business-as-usual control; 2) the Teaching Together core workshop-based program; 3) Teaching Together workshops + provision of inquiry-based STEM activity kits for the home; and 4) Teaching Together workshop + activity kits + provision of monetary incentives for parents/caregivers when they document informal STEM learning experiences with their child. The interventions will occur in English and Spanish. A cost analysis across the interventions will also be conducted. This study uses quantitative and qualitative approaches. Data sources include parent surveys and interviews, conversation analysis of home learning activities, parent photo documentation of informal learning activities, and standardized assessments of children's growth in mathematics, science, and vocabulary knowledge.
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.
Many scientists want to connect with the public, but their efforts to do so are not always easy or effective. Visionary programs and institutions are leading the way identifying the support needed to enable scientists’ connections with the public. However, the current appetite by -- and demand for -- scientists to do this exceeds the capacity of those who facilitate quality communication and engagement efforts. More can be done to ensure that those who support scientists are networked, sharing best practices, and supported by a reliable infrastructure.
This workshop series, convened by the Kavli, Rita Allen, Packard and Moore Foundations, was intended to view the entire system of people who support scientists’ engagement and communication efforts in order to explore how this system can be most effective and sustainable. The discussions examined where this system is thriving, the limits people within the system face and what can be done to ensure their efforts are commensurate with the demand for quality communication and engagement support.
Conducted over four closely scheduled workshops in late 2017 and early 2018, the convenings brought together leaders in different parts of the field who bridge scientists and the public and led to the emergence of a number of key priority areas. While the initial intention was to also hold a plenary event to provide a more holistic view of scientists’ support system in order to collectively discern directions to advance the field, we feel a more efficient way forward right now is to focus our efforts and resources on building community and advancing these priority areas.
Our invitation-only workshops brought together scientists, academic leaders, engagement professionals, researchers, communication trainers, and foundation leaders. For each workshop, we also commissioned a “landscape overview”, to better understand the high-level state of each community. Workshops included:
Workshop I: Communication and engagement training programs - Dec. 4-5, 2017 at SUNY Global Center/Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science in New York
Workshop II: Associations, societies and other professional organizations - Feb. 28 - March 1, 2018 at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, MD
Workshop III: Academic institutions - March 27-28, 2018 at UC San Diego
Workshop IV: Science engagement facilitators (museums, science festivals, connectors) - May 2-3, 2018 at Monterey Bay Aquarium
TBD - Workshop V: Plenary event
The goal of the workshops was to explore how to ensure scientists’ communication and engagement support is effective and sustained. In doing so, we hoped to 1) deepen our understanding of how scientists are currently supported in these areas, 2) map the broader support system to expose the opportunities and obstacles that play a role in achieving this goal, and 3) identify strategic and practical next steps that move us closer to this goal. This initiative also aimed to forge and strengthen networks across communities and institutions – and in so doing, take a view of the entire system to explore how everyone can better ensure their efforts are impactful, mutually supportive, and connected to a greater whole.
Included in the links below are summaries from each workshop.