Despite new governmental initiatives aiming to engage the general public in policymaking related to nuclear energy, little is known about how expert stakeholders involved in the decision-making process perceive such activity. This study examines how a series of social, cognitive and communication factors influences expert stakeholders’ attitudes toward public participation in policy decisions related to nuclear energy. Specifically, using data from a survey of 557 experts identified through content analyses of public meeting records, we find that among those perceiving public opinion as being
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Nan LiLeona Yi-Fan SuXuan LiangDominique BrossardDietram Scheufele
The Richmond Public Library will create The Richmond Digital Health Literacy Project to provide low-income residents with tools and skills needed to access online information to improve their health. Participants will learn how to gain access to digital reference materials, e-books, mobile library offerings, and other resources. The project will bring together groups of participants around the topic of health information to develop customized online health curricula, provide training to 180 low-income residents in digital health literacy, and supply free broadband and wireless antennae to public computer centers. These activities will enable participants to develop skills and access relevant digital content to improve the health and the overall quality of life of Richmond residents.
The University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the University of North Carolina, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and 4-H are collaborating to provide professional development to 180 4-H leaders and other informal science educators, and engage 1,400 middle school youth in using research-grade robotic telescopes and data analysis tools to explore the Universe. Youth participating in 4H-based out-of-school programs in Wisconsin, West Virginia and North Carolina are learning about the universe and preparing for STEM careers by conducting authentic astronomy research, completing astronomy-related hands-on modeling activities, interacting with astronomers and other professionals who are part of the Skynet Robotic Telescope Network, and interacting with other youth who part of the Skynet Junior Scholars virtual community. The project is innovative because it is providing a diverse community of 4-H youth (including sight- and hearing-challenged youth and those from underrepresented groups) with opportunities to use high-quality, remotely located, Internet-controlled telescopes to explore the heavens by surveying galaxies, tracking asteroids, monitoring variable stars, and learn about the nature and methods of science. Deliverables include (1) online access to optical and radio telescopes, data analysis tools, and professional astronomers, (2) an age-appropriate web-based interface for controlling remote telescopes, (3) inquiry-based standards-aligned instructional modules, (4) face-to-face and online professional development for 4-H leaders and informal science educators, (5) programming for youth in out-of-school clubs and clubs, (6) evaluation findings on the impacts of program activities on participants, and (7) research findings on how web-based interactions between youth and scientists can promote student interest in and preparedness for STEM careers. The evaluation plan is measuring the effectiveness of program activities in (1) increasing youths' knowledge, skills, interest, self-efficacy, and identity in science, including youth who are sight- and hearing-impaired, (2) increasing educators' competency in implementing inquiry-based instruction and their ability to interact with scientists, and (3) increasing the number of Skynet scientists who are involved in education and public outreach.
Rockman et al (REA), a San Francisco-based research and evaluation firm, conducted the external evaluation for Youth Radio's DO IT! program, which was funded by the National Science Foundation. Building upon Youth Radio's previous Science and Technology Program, the DO IT! initiative consisted of three primary components that promoted STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning by training underserved youth in cutting-edge digital technologies: (1) Brains and Beakers: Young people hosted a line-up of investigators and inventors for demo-dialogues at Youth Radio's studios
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Rockman et al | Youth RadioKristin BassJulia Hazer
This Science Learning+ Planning Project will develop a prototype assessment tool (based on a mobile technology platform) to map STEM learning experiences across different learning ecologies (e.g. science centers, mass media, home environment) and to develop research questions and designs for a Phase 2 Science Learning+ proposal. The tool will focus on the impact of the learning ecologies on knowledge, interest, identity and reasoning rather than emphasize learning in a specific content area. The proposing team will develop and conduct a small scale usability study during the planning period, which will inform what is proposed in the Phase 2 research. A key focus of the planning period will be to identify and develop the theoretical constructs (i.e., outcomes) to be measured by the prototype App. As a starting point, the project will start with four of the six strands identified in Learning Science in Informal Environments (National Research Council, Bell et al., 2009): (1) interest triggered by a STEM experience; (2) understanding scientific knowledge; (3) engaging in scientific reasoning; and (4) identifying with the scientific enterprise. Discussion among the project partners during the planning process will revolve around how these strands should be measured in the Phase 2 research across ecologies. The measurement tool will assess the goal(s) that people set as they engage in STEM learning within each ecology and will measure the individuals' duration and level of engagement. The project will strive to utilize measures that: (1) are nonobtrusive; (2) are embedded in STEM experiences; (3) can be used across ecologies; (4) can be scaled for other ecologies than the ones examined in Phase 2 research; and (5) will be easy to use by researchers and practitioners.
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Bradley MorrisJohn DunloskyGreat Lakes Science CenterUniversity of LimerickIdeaStream (UK)Irish Independent newspaper
Young people's participation in informal STEM learning activities can contribute to their academic and career achievements, but these connections are infrequently explicitly recognized or cultivated. More systemic approaches to STEM education could allow for students' experiences of formal and informal STEM learning to be aligned, coordinated, and supported across learning contexts. This Science Learning+ planning project brings together stakeholders in two digital badge systems--one in the US and one in the UK--to plan for a study to identify the specific structural features of the systems that may allow for the alignment of learning objectives across institutions. Digital badge systems may offer an inventive solution to the challenge of connecting and building on youth's STEM-related experiences in multiple learning contexts. When part of a defined system, badges could be used to represent and communicate evidence of individual learning, as well as provide youth and educators with evidence-supported indicators for other activities in the system that might be interesting or valuable. Properly designed and supported badge systems could transmit critical information within a network of informal STEM programs and schools that (1) recognize context-dependent, interest-driven learning and (2) provide opportunities to explore those interests across multiple settings. This project advances the field of informal STEM learning in two ways. First, the project documents and analyzes the processes by which two small groups of informal science education organizations and schools negotiate the meaning and value of badges, as proxies for learning objectives, and how they decide to recognize badges awarded by other institutions. This process builds capacity within the target systems while also beginning to identify the institutional, cultural, and material capacity issues that facilitate or constrain the alignment process. Second, the project conducts a pilot study with a small number of youth in the US and UK to investigate factors associated with an individual youth's likelihood of: a) identifying badges of interest; b) connecting the activities of various badge systems to each other and to non-badging institutions, such as school or industry; c) determining which badges to pursue; and d) persisting in a particular badge pathway. Findings from this pilot study will help identify institution- and individual-level factors that might be associated with advancing student interest and progression in STEM fields. Deepening and validating the understanding of those factors and their relative impact on student experiences and outcomes will be the focus of investigations in future studies.
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James DiamondNew York City Hive Learning NetworkMOUSEDigitalMeKatherine McMillan
Researchers and practitioners in the US and the UK, organized by Twin Cities Public Television in collaboration with co-PIs from Indiana University and the University of Bradford in the UK, will develop a research agenda focused on understanding how participation by youth in various online environments, called "affinity spaces," can promote and enable new approaches to informal STEM learning. Affinity spaces provide opportunities for youth to develop deep interest and engagement in specific topics as well as to interact in groups with others who share common interests. By focusing on affinity spaces, this Science Learning+ project will contribute to the collective understanding of how digital media supports STEM learning. Of particular interest is the potential of these spaces to offer multiple interest-driven trajectories, opportunities to learn with others, and paths toward becoming authentic participants in the discussions. Specifically, the collaborators will: (1) produce a literature review on affinity spaces and informal science learning; (2) organize and convene a two-day workshop to review and refine primary research questions; and (3) produce a white paper summarizing outcomes. Affinity spaces have the ability to connect millions of learners. Developing a research agenda to learn how these spaces can involve youth in experiences across the entire spectrum of STEM disciplines promises to reveal new ways to enhance and enrich the entire ecosystem of informal science learning. In addition, the project will enhance the international research and education infrastructure by facilitating collaborations among researchers in the U.S. and the UK who work at the frontiers of social media and learning.
This project supports the development of technological fluency and understanding of STEM concepts through the implementation of design collaboratives that use eCrafting Collabs as the medium within which to work with middle and high school students, parents and the community. The researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Franklin Institute combine expertise in learning sciences, digital media design, computer science and informal science education to examine how youth at ages 10-16 and families in schools, clubs, museums and community groups learn together how to create e-textile artifacts that incorporate embedded computers, sensors and actuators. The project investigates the feasibility of implementing these collaboratives using eCrafting via three models of participation, individual, structured group and cross-generational community groups. They are designing a portal through which the collaborative can engage in critique and sharing of their designs as part of their efforts to build a model process by which scientific and engineered product design and analysis can be made available to multiple audiences. The project engages participants through middle and high school elective classes and through the workshops conducted by a number of different organizations including the Franklin Institute, Techgirlz, the Hacktory and schools in Philadelphia. Participants can engage in the eCrafting Collabs through individual, collective and community design challenges that are established by the project. Participants learn about e-textile design and about circuitry and programming using either ModKit or the text-based Arduino. The designs are shared through the eCrafting Collab portal and participants are required to provide feedback and critique. Researchers are collecting data on learner identity in relation to STEM and computing, individual and collective participation in design and student understanding of circuitry and programming. The project is an example of a scalable intervention to engage students, families and communities in developing technological flexibility. This research and development project provides a resource that engages students in middle and high schools in technology rich collaborative environments that are alternatives to other sorts of science fairs and robotic competitions. The resources developed during the project will inform how such an informal/formal blend of student engagement might be scaled to expand the experiences of populations of underserved groups, including girls. The study is conducting an examination of the new types of learning activities that are multiplying across the country with a special focus on cross-generational learning.
This multiplatform media and science center project is designed to engage audiences in humanity's deepest questions like the nature of love, reality, time and death in both scientific and humanistic terms. Project deliverables include 5 hour-long radio programs for broadcast on NPR stations, public events/museum exhibits at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, kiosks in venues throughout the city, and a social media engagement campaign. The audience of the project is large and diverse using mass media and the internet. But the project will specifically target young, online, and minority audiences using various strategies. The project is designed to help a diverse audience understand the impact of new scientific developments as well as the basic science, technology, engineering and math needed to be responsible, informed citizens. Innovative elements of the project include the unique format of the radio programs that explore complex topics in an engaging and compelling way, the visitor engagement strategy at the Exploratorium, and the social media strategy that reaches niche audiences who might never listen to the radio broadcasts, but find the podcasts and blogs engaging. The Exploratorium will be opening a new building in 2013 and will include exhibits and programs that are testing grounds for this project. This is a new model that aligns the radio content with exhibitions, social media, and in person events at the Exploratorium, providing a unique holistic approach. The project is designed to inspire people to think and talk about science and want to find out more. The evaluation will measure the impacts on the targeted audiences reached by each of the key delivery methods. Data will be collected using focus groups; intercept interviews with people in public places, and longitudinal panels. The focus will be on 5 targeted audiences (young adults, families with children, non-NPR listeners, underrepresented minorities, and adults without college experience). This comprehensive evaluation will likely contribute important knowledge to the field based on this multiple-platform collaborative model.
QUEST Beyond Local is a consortium of six public media providers across the country coming together in a unique collaborative structure to foster widespread STEM literacy for general audiences; support formal and informal education outcomes in the sciences; and revive ailing science and environment journalism in the face of its rapid decline. QUEST Beyond Local is built on the success of the local, cross-editorial QUEST model, in which media making professionals from multiple disciplines--radio, television, web, and especially education--collaborate to distribute high-quality content to general and underserved audiences. Two years ago, KQED (serving Northern California) introduced a capacity-building effort with five other public media stations serving markets across the nation: Seattle (KCTS), Wisconsin (WPT/WPR), Nebraska (NET), Cleveland (ideastream), and North Carolina (UNC-TV). On the heels of this pilot process, QUEST Beyond Local will expand production in all markets and focus its multimedia efforts around the theme "Science of Sustainability" so as to achieve maximum effect on critical STEM outcomes in formal and informal education settings, and to foster science/environment literacy among a wide general audience. QUEST Beyond Local is defined by an organizationally and technologically innovative model of content creation: a newsroom structured according to a hub and spoke model; with common branding, technical, and style guidelines; and with a central coordinating and editorial office liaising between local production teams. Under the guidance of this central office, the collaborative seeks to create content with both local authority and national relevance. Building on existing media impact research, and previous research and evaluation of QUEST, research firm Rockman et al will apply evaluation theory to determine: (1) the structures and strategies to a successful STEM collaborative that contribute to a greater understanding of and engagement in science and environment topics; and (2) determine the interests, priorities, and media consumption habits of local and national STEM audiences. Primary project deliverables include three diverse multimedia packages for general and professional audiences, focusing on three main themes and anchored in STEM disciplines. In total, the three packages will include: 18 television segments; 6 half-hour television programs; 20 radio reports; 18 "web extras" (slide shows, maps, etc.); 12 web-based videos; 144 blog posts; 18 education "explainers"; 5 educator trainings; and a comprehensive distribution and social media campaign. All efforts will be supported by at least 18 science community partners, including zoos, museums, aquariums, research centers, and others. Through these efforts, the collaborative seeks to repair the systemic damage done by years of neglect to science/environment journalism--particularly the marked decline in this type of coverage over the last decade. This decline is perhaps related to the observed disconnect between the public and scientific knowledge, despite a demonstrated public appetite for science content and educators' reported desire for more resources and professional development opportunities focused on STEM topics. At a time when an evolving workforce and economy increasingly demand STEM skills and environmental literacy, QUEST Beyond Local will contribute resources to address these challenges.
This project is making novel use of familiar technology (smartphones and tablets) to address the immediate and pressing challenge of affordable, ongoing, large-scale museum evaluation, while encouraging museum visitors to engage deeply with museum content. Using a smartphone app, museum visitors pose questions to a 'virtual scientist' called Dr. Discovery (Dr. D). Dr. D provides answers and the chance to complete fun mini-challenges. The questions visitors ask are gathered in a large database. An analytics system analyzes these data and a password-protected website provides continuous, accessible evaluation data to museum staff, helping them make just-in-time tweaks (or longer term changes) to exhibit-related content (such as multimedia, lecture topics, docent training, experience carts, etc.) as current events and visitors' needs and interests change. The intellectual merit of this project is that it is building evaluation capacity among informal educators, advancing the fields of visitor studies, museum evaluation, informal science learning, and situated engagement, and is contributing to the development of novel evaluation techniques in museums. This project has many broader impacts: The Ask Dr. Discovery system is available to any venue that wishes to use or adapt it to their context. By enhancing the visitor experience and improving museum access to data for evaluation and data-driven decision making across the country, Ask Dr. Discovery has both a direct and indirect impact on museums and visitors of all types. This project is also training the next generation of STEM and education innovators by employing a diverse team of undergraduate students.
The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that will help in envisioning the next generation of learning technologies and advancing what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Development and Implementation (DIP) Projects build on proof-of-concept work that showed the possibilities of the proposed new type of learning technology, and project teams build and refine a minimally-viable example of their proposed innovation that allows them to understand how such technology should be designed and used in the future and answer questions about how people learn with technology. Although for years researchers have believed technology could afford anytime-anywhere learning, we still don't understand how learners behave differently across contexts, such as home, school, and in the community, and how to get youth to identify as learners across those contexts. This proposal aims to use mobile devices and strategically placed shared kiosks to 'scientize' youth in two low-income communities. Through strategic partnerships with community organizations, educators, and families, the innovation is to get primary and middle-school students engaging in scientific inquiry in the context of their neighborhoods. Research will help determine how the technology can best be deployed, but also answer important questions about how communities can provide support to help kids think like scientists and identify with science. This project will design and implement ubiquitous technology tools that include mobile social media and tangible, community displays (collectively called ScienceKit) that are deeply embedded into two urban neighborhoods, and demonstrate how such ubiquitous technologies and related cyberlearning strategies are vital to improve information flow and coordination across a neighborhood ecosystem, in order to create environments where children can connect their science learning across contexts and time (e.g. scientizing). A program called ScienceEverywhere comprised of partnerships between tightly connected neighborhood organizations with mentors, teachers, parents, and researchers will help learners develop scientifically literate practices both in and out of school, and will demonstrate students' learning to their communities. Research will consist of mixed methods studies of use of the tools, including iterative design-based research, ethnography, and the use of participant observers from the community; these will be triangulated with usage logs of the technologies and content analysis of microblogs by the learners on their identities and interests. Discourse analysis of interviews with focal learners will orient the qualitative work on identity development, and analysis using activity theory will inform the influences of the social practices and sociotechnical systems on learner trajectories. Formative evaluation will help shed light on if and how the sociotechnical system promotes STEM literacy and STEM identity development.