The PEAR Institute: Partnerships in Education and Resilience at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School conducted a year-long study of the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance (TRSA). Funded by the Overdeck Family Foundation, STEM Next Opportunity Fund, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, this study is the first of its kind among 68 national and international STEM Ecosystems.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristin Lewis-WarnerPatricia AllenGil Noam
An in-depth case study of one of America’s first STEM Learning Ecosystems in Tulsa, Oklahoma, conducted by researchers at The PEAR Institute: Partnerships in Education and Resilience, finds that strong leadership, deep partnerships, and data-informed methods have led to the creation of diverse, high-quality, STEM-rich learning opportunities for Tulsa’s youth. Additionally, these efforts improved the capacity of STEM educators through high-quality professional development and supported youth pathways to STEM careers by increasing mentoring opportunities for STEM professionals.
These findings
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristin Lewis-WarnerPatricia AllenGil Noam
This guide grows out of the research project “Evidence-based Science Communication with Policymakers” conducted by the four authors and sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the Rita Allen Foundation. In order to write these recommendations, we spent over a year studying science communication with policymakers from several vantage points. We reviewed hundreds of scholarly works on the topic published in over a dozen fields as well as numerous practical guides written by scientific societies. We interviewed both Democratic and Republican Congressional policymakers, including 22
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth SuhayEmily CloydErin HeathErin Nash
“Reclaiming Digital Futures” is a free guide and associated website for youth organizations to use as they integrate digital learning into their programming and practices. The report is available at DigitalLearningPractices.org.
The report and the associated DigitalLearningPractices.org site contain a cross-section of resources to aid organizations and educators in developing quality programming that integrate technology and youth development. Rather than focusing on efforts to help youth become fluent and skilled in uses of technology simply for the sake of meeting predetermined standards
This is a summary description of the 2018 Summer Science Camp offered by the Morgridge Institute for Research at the Discovery Building on the UW-Madison campus. The camp has been offered annualy since 2007, and the 2018 evaluation produced some specific ideas for improving the camp. Since 2007, more than 300 students from rural Wisconsin high schools have attended the camp. This population has less access to the many educational advantages that regular internet access affords their urban counterparts. The science camp team is exploring how to carry out a study of camp alumni.
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
How do we support continued engagement in creative production, even after youth leave our events and programs? As youth development educators and learning scientists interested in supporting long-term, interest driven learning around digital media, we took a crack at this problem, and we hope the lessons we share in this design case study might advance the ways that informal education organizations could think about promoting learning pathways that span contexts. The report we share here documents a series of design experiments that Mouse and Hive Research Lab collaborated on within the
In this research study, we explore the ways that youth engage in “interest signaling”, actions youth undertake that communicate their needs in ways that motivate adults and peers to mobilize resources to support them. We highlight how interest signaling is a key factor driving the process of brokering – signals are critical mechanisms for adults to understand what youth interests and expertise are, and, thus, be able to act as effective learning brokers. Through observing after-school digital media-making programs, and interviews we conducted with focal youth, program staff, and other support
This article makes a case for the importance of brokering future learning opportunities to youth as a programmatic goal for informal learning organizations. Such brokering entails engaging in practices that connect youth to events, programs, internships, individuals and institutions related to their interests to support them beyond the window of a specific program or event. Brokering is especially critical for youth who are new to an area of interest: it helps them develop both a baseline understanding of the information landscape and a social network that will respond to their needs as they
This paper explores the construction of hybrid spaces through the observation of middle school children engaged in short science projects in an informal science learning programme. Hybrid spaces are not just physical structures, but refer to contexts, relationships and knowledges developed by children as their social worlds and identities merge with the normative expectations of school science. Hybrid spaces have been characterised in three different ways: as a convergent space between academic and traditionally marginalised knowledges and discourses; as a navigational space, or a way of
A science-based companion guide to 46 feature films—including HIDDEN FIGURES, THE MARTIAN, PRIMER, and THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT. Each film received development or distribution support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation because of its scientific content. The guide indexes each film by scientific subject matter and provides supplemental science content, meant to encourage audiences inspired by films to explore the scientific subject matter further. It also includes links to how to watch the film. The guide is available to access online or download as a PDF.
The Sloan Science & Film Teacher's Guide indexes by scientific subject matter over 50 short fiction films funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, that can be streamed for free anytime. The Guide offers an introduction, teaching framework, study questions, and additional resources. Each film is correlated with Next Generation Science Standards as well as New York City Science Standards. The Guide can be viewed online or downloaded as a PDF.