This informal education project utilizes the Science on a Sphere (SOS) Network to enable meaningful interpretation of real-time weather and climate data by museum docents and visitors viewing SOS exhibits nationwide. The project will generate and provide real-time NOAA weather, climate and ocean data to the SOS Network along with appropriate training for docents. It will also provide data interpretation summaries, data discussions and concise talking points on a regularly updated blog. This project is being implemented by a collaborative team of two weather and climate centers of NOAA/NESDIS: the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) and Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS), in association with the NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory, the I.M. Systems Group, and the Maryland Science Center.
This poster was presented at the 2010 Association of Science-Technology Centers Annual Conference. The Saint Louis Science Center is a partner in Washington University's Cognitive, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience interdisciplinary graduate program funded by the NSF-IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) flagship training program for PhD scientists and engineers.
This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the establishment of an interdisciplinary graduate training program in Cognitive, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience at Washington University in Saint Louis. Understanding how the brain works under normal circumstances and how it fails are among the most important problems in science. The purpose of this program is to train a new generation of systems-level neuroscientists who will combine experimental and computational approaches from the fields of psychology, neurobiology, and engineering to study brain function in unique ways. Students will participate in a five-course core curriculum that provides a broad base of knowledge in each of the core disciplines, and culminates in a pair of highly integrative and interactive courses that emphasize critical thinking and analysis skills, as well as practical skills for developing interdisciplinary research projects. This program also includes workshops aimed at developing the personal and professional skills that students need to become successful independent investigators and educators, as well as outreach programs aimed at communicating the goals and promise of integrative neuroscience to the general public. This training program will be tightly coupled to a new research focus involving neuro-imaging in nonhuman primates. By building upon existing strengths at Washington University, this research and training initiative will provide critical new insights into how the non-invasive measurements of brain function that are available in humans (e.g. from functional MRI) are related to the underlying activity patterns in neuronal circuits of the brain. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kurt ThoroughmanGregory DeAngelisRandy BucknerSteven PetersenDora Angelaki
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering and DO-IT IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology) at the University of Washington propose to create the AccessComputing Alliance for the purpose of increasing the participation of people with disabilities in computing careers. Alliance partners Gallaudet University, Microsoft, the NSF Regional Alliances for Persons with Disabilities in STEM (hosted by the University of Southern Maine, New Mexico State University, and UW), and SIGACCESS of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and collaborators represent stakeholders from education, industry, government, and professional organizations nationwide.
Alliance activities apply proven practices to support persons with disabilities within computing programs. To increase the number of students with disabilities who successfully pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees, the alliance will run college transition and bridge, tutoring, internship, and e-mentoring programs. To increase the capacity of postsecondary computing departments to fully include students with disabilities in coursers and programs, the alliance will form communities of practice, run capacity-building institutes, and develop systemic change indicators for computing departments. To create a nationwide resource to help students with disabilities pursue computing careers and computing educators and employers, professional organizations and other stakeholders to develop more inclusive programs and share effective practices, the alliance will create and maintain a searchable AccessComputing Knowledge Base of FAQs, case studies, and effective/promising practices.
These activities will build on existing alliances and resources in a comprehensive, integrated effort. They will create nationwide collaborations among individuals with disabilities, computing professionals, employers, disability providers, and professional organizations to explore the issues that contribute to the underrepresentation of persons with disabilities and to develop, apply and assess interventions. In addition, they will support local and regional efforts to recruit and retain students with disabilities into computing and assist them in institutionalizing and replicating their programs. The alliance will work with other Alliances and organizations that serve women and underrepresented minorities to make their programs accessible to students with disabilities. Finally they will collect and publish research and implementation data to enhance scientific and technological understanding of issues related to the inclusion of people with disabilities in computing.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Richard LadnerLibby CohenSheryl BurgstahlerWilliam McCarthy
The National Science Festival Network project, also operating as the Science Festival Alliance, is designed to create a sustainable national network of science festivals that engages all facets of the general public in science learning. Science Festivals, clearly distinct from "science fairs", are community-wide activities engaging professional scientists and informal and K-12 educators targeting underrepresented segments of local communities historically underserved by formal or informal STEM educational activities. The initiative builds on previous work in other parts of the world (e.g. Europe, Australasia) and on recent efforts in the U.S. to create science festivals. The target audiences are families, children and youth ages 5-18, adults, professional scientists and educators in K-12 and informal science institutions, and underserved and underrepresented communities. Project partners include the MIT Museum in Cambridge, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, and the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. The deliverables include annual science festivals in these four cities supported by year-round related activities for K-12 and informal audiences, a partnership network, a web portal, and two national conferences. Ten science festivals will be convened in total over the 3 years of the project, each reaching 15,000 to 60,000 participants per year. STEM content includes earth and space science, oceanography, biological/biomedical science, bioinformatics, and computer, behavioral, aeronautical, nanotechnology, environmental, and nuclear science. An independent evaluator will systematically assess audience participation and perceptions, level/types of science interest stimulated in target groups, growth of partnering support at individual sites, and increasing interactions between ISE and formal K-12 education. A variety of qualitative and quantitative assessments will be designed and utilized. The project has the potential to transform public communication and understanding of science and increase the numbers of youth interested in pursuing science.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Loren ThompsonJeremy BabendureBen Wiehe
Project LIFTOFF works with local, regional, and national partners to engineer statewide systems for Informal Science Education that inspire: YOUTH to pursue STEM education and careers through increased opportunities for quality, hands-on STEM learning. AFTERSCHOOL STAFF to facilitate STEM learning experiences that contribute to the overall STEM education and aspirations of youth in their programs. PROGRAM ADMINISTRATORS to encourage and support staff in the integration of STEM enrichment into the daily programming. STATE LEADERS to sustain and expand afterschool learning opportunities so that all students have access to engaging STEM experiences outside of the regular school day. Project LIFTOFF is dedicated to the development of the following essential elements of statewide systems for informal science education:
Access to appropriate STEM Curriculum for youth of all ages, abilities, and socio-cultural backgrounds that meets the needs and interests of individual community programs
Systematic STEM Professional Development that matches individual skills in positive youth development with abilities to facilitate discovery and science learning
A diverse Cadres of Trainers who will deliver the professional development, technical assistance and curriculum dissemination in their local communities
Authentic Evaluation of informal science efforts that determine the impacts on youth aspirations and the capacity of youth programs to provide quality STEM experiences
Local STEM education leadership to identify the ways in which collaborative education efforts can advance the development of 21st Century Skills and the preparedness for STEM workforce and higher education
Partnerships in support of youth development and informal science education that convene local, regional, and statewide organizations and stakeholders
To advance national initiatives and states' sySTEM engineering efforts, LIFTOFF coordinates an annual convening, the Midwest Afterschool Science Academy, that brings together national informal science experts, system leaders and youth development professionals to elevate the levels of science after school. The 5th MASA will be in the spring of 2014 in Kansas City, MO
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Missouri AfterSchool NetworkJeff Buehler
This Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) is a collaboration among Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California—Santa Barbara, and the Museum of Science—Boston with participation by Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), the University of Basel (Switzerland), the University of Tokyo (Japan), and the Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and the Sandia National Laboratories. The NSEC combines "top down" and "bottom up" approaches to construct novel electronic and magnetic devices with nanoscale sizes and understand their behavior, including quantum phenomena. Through a close integration of research, education, and public outreach, the Center encourages and promotes the training of a diverse group of people to be leaders in this new interdisciplinary field.
The X-Tech program will bring together the Exploratorium and staff at five Beacon Centers to create an innovative technology program using STEM and IT activities previously tested at the Exploratorium. At each X-Tech Club, two Beacon Center staff and two Exploratorium Youth Facilitators will work with 20 middle school students each year for a total of 300 participants. Youth Facilitators are alumni of the Exploratorium's successful Explainer program and will receive 120 hours of training in preparation for peer mentoring. Each site will use the X-Tech hands-on curriculum that will focus on small technological devices to explore natural phenomenon, in addition to digital imaging, visual perception and the physiology of eyes. Parental involvement will be fostered through opportunities to participate in lectures, field trips and open houses, while staff at Beacon Centers will participate in 20 hours of professional development each year.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Vivian AltmannDarlene LibreroVirginia WittMichael Funk
Media MashUp (MMU) was an IMLS funded project (LG-07-08-0113 ) designed to help libraries build capacity for offering computer-based programs for youth. These programs were designed to help foster 21st Century literacy skills. The program focused on the Scratch programming language (http://scratch.mit.edu/), but also used other creative freeware programs (i.e., Audacity, Picasa, SAM animation, ArtRage). MMU was a partnership among six library systems from around the country and The Science Museum of Minnesota. Three staff members from each library participated in the program: two librarians or
Rhode Island Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (RI-ITEST) is a comprehensive ITEST project for high school students and teachers. The goal of RI-ITEST is to prepare students from diverse backgrounds for careers in information technologies by engaging them in exciting, inquiry-based learning activities that use sophisticated computational models in support of a revolutionary science curriculum. It advances science education by enhancing the Physics First initiative in Rhode Island through the use of NSF funded student materials based on molecular modeling and promotes IT education by teaching modeling skills and providing students with career and vocational information on the use of computational models. The project provides over 120 hours of credit-bearing activities for 100 teachers and full support for classroom implementation. RI-ITEST is developing an optimal placement of the interactive materials from CC's Science of Atoms and Molecules project in the Physics First courses in Rhode Island; developing IT materials that are coordinated with the student materials that emphasize modeling skills and the career and vocational dimensions of computational modeling; preparing100 diverse Rhode Island science teachers in two cohorts to offer a course in the Physics-Chemistry-Biology sequence; developing materials and supports for using molecular dynamics and related IT materials for teachers in Rhode Island and elsewhere who are not ITEST participants; generating evidence for the effectiveness of the IT-enhanced project materials for increasing student learning and changing student attitudes about science, mathematics, and technology careers; reaching parents, guidance counselors, school administrators, and business partners with information about the project, student productions, and evidence for effectiveness; disseminating materials and findings to other teachers, programs, and districts nationwide.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Daniel DamelinGerald KowaiczykJames Magyar
Maine is a rural state with unequal access to computers and information technology. To remedy this, the Maine laptop program supplies iBooks to every seventh and eighth grade student in the state. The goal of EcoScienceWorks is to build on this program and develop, test and disseminate a middle school curriculum featuring computer modeling, simple programming and analysis of GIS data coupled with hands-on field experiences in ecology. The project will develop software, EcoBeaker: Maine Explorer, to stimulate student exploration of information technology by introducing teachers and students to simple computer modeling, applications of simulations in teaching and in science, and GIS data manipulation. This is a three-year, comprehensive project for 25 seventh and eighth grade teachers and their students. Teachers will receive 120 contact hours per year through workshops, summer sessions and classroom visits from environmental scientists. The teachers' classes will field test the EcoScienceWorks curriculum each year. The field tested project will be distributed throughout the Maine laptop program impacting 150 science teachers and 17,000 middle school students. EcoScienceWorks will provide middle school students with an understanding of how IT skills and tools can be used to identify, investigate and model possible solutions to scientific problems. EcoScienceWorks aligns with state and national science learning standards and integrates into the existing middle school ecology curriculum. An outcome of this project will be the spread of a field tested IT curriculum and EcoBeaker: Maine Explorer throughout Maine, with adapted curriculum and software available nationally.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Walter AllanEric KlopferEleanor Steinberg
The Cryptoclub: Cryptography and Mathematics Afterschool and Online is a five-year project designed to introduce middle school students across the country to cryptography and mathematics. Project partners include the Young Peoples Project (YPP), the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and Eduweb, an award-winning educational software design and development firm. The intended impacts on youth are to improve knowledge and interest in cryptography, increase skills in mathematics, and improve attitudes towards mathematics. The secondary audience is leaders in afterschool programs who will gain an increased awareness of cryptography as a tool for teaching mathematics and adopt the program for use in their afterschool programs. Project deliverables include online activities, online cryptography adventure games, interactive offline games, a leader\'s manual, and training workshops for afterschool leaders. The project materials will be developed in collaboration with YPP staff and pilot tested in Year 3 at local afterschool programs and YPP sites in Chicago in addition to four national sites. Field testing and dissemination occurs in Year 4 at both local sites in Chicago and national locations such as afterschool programs, science centers, and community programs. Six 3-day training workshops will be provided (2 per year in Years 3-5) to train afterschool leaders. It is anticipated that this project will reach up to 11,000 youth, including underserved youth in urban settings, and 275 professional staff. Strategic impact resulting from this project includes increased awareness of cryptography as a STEM topic with connections to mathematics as well a greater understanding of effective strategies for integrating and supporting web-based and offline activities within informal learning settings. The Cryptoclub project has the potential to have a transformative impact on youth and their understanding of cryptography and may serve as a national model for partnerships between afterschool and mentoring programs.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Janet BeissingerSusan GoldmanDaria TsoupikovaBonnine Saunders