In the spring of 2014, the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net) Public Impacts evaluation team conducted a summative study of NanoDays, a nationwide festival of educational programs about nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. In 2014, NanoDays took place from March 29th – April 6th, 2014. The Network’s goals for NanoDays events led to the following summative evaluation questions: 1. What is the projected public reach of NanoDays events in 2014? 2. Are ‘mature’ NanoDays events successful in providing an engaging experience and promoting learning of nano concepts for
The University of Alaska Fairbanks will partner with the National Optical and Astronomy Observatory, the University of Alaska Museum of the North, and the University of Washington-Bothell to bring biomaterials, optics, photonics, and nanotechnology content, art infused experiences, and career awareness to art-interested girls. This full scale development project, Project STEAM, will explore the intersections between biology, physics, and art using advanced technologies at the nano to macro scale levels. Middle school girls from predominately underrepresented Alaskan Native, Native American (Tohono O'odham, Pascula Yaqui) and Hispanic groups, their families, teachers, and Girl Scout Troop Leaders in two site locations- Anchorage, Alaska and Tucson, Arizona will participate in the project. Centered on the theme "Colors of Nature," Project STEAM will engage girls in science activities designed to enhance STEM learning and visual-spatial skills. Using advanced technologies, approximately 240 girls enrolled in the Summer Academy over the project duration will work with women scientist mentors, teachers, and Girl Scout Troop Leaders to create artistic representations of natural objects observed at the nano and macro scale levels. Forty girls will participate in the Summer Academy in year one (20 girls per site- Alaska and Arizona). In consequent years, approximately180 girls will participate in the Academy (30 girls per site). Another 1,500 girls are expected to be reached through their Girl Scout Troop Leaders (n=15) who will be trained to deliver a modified version of the program using specialized curriculum kits. In addition, over 6,000 girls and their families are expected to attend Project STEAM Science Cafe events held at local informal science education institutions at each site during the academic year. In conjunction with the programmatic activities, a research investigation will be conducted to study the impact of the program on girls' science identity. Participant discourse, pre and post assessments, and observed engagement with the scientific and artistic ideas and tools presented will be examined and analyzed. A mixed methods approach will also be employed for the formative and summative evaluations, which will be conducted by The Goldstream Group. Ultimately, the project endeavors to increase STEM learning and interest through art, build capacity through professional development, advance the research base on girls' science identity and inspire and interest girls in STEM careers.
The Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, in collaboration with several informal science education and other cultural and business organizations in San Diego, Chicago, and Worcester, MA are implementing a research and development project that investigates a range of possible approaches for stimulating the development of 21st Century creativity skills and innovative processes at the interface between informal STEM learning and methods for creative thinking. The goal of the research is to advance understanding of the potential impacts of creative thinking methods on the public's understanding of and engagement with STEM, with a focus on 21st Century workforce skills of teens and adults. The goal of the project's development activities is to experiment with a variety of "innovation incubator" models in cities around the country. Modeled on business "incubators" or "accelerators" that are designed to foster and accelerate innovation and creativity, these STEM incubators generate collaborations of different professionals and the public around STEM education and other STEM-related topics of local interest that can be explored with the help of creative learning methodologies such as innovative methods to generate creative ideas, ideas for transforming one STEM idea to others, drawing on visual and graphical ideas, improvisation, narrative writing, and the process of using innovative visual displays of information for creating visual roadmaps. Hosting the project's incubators are the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership (San Diego), the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) and the EcoTarium (Worcester, MA). National partners are the Association of Science-Technology Centers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Americans for the Arts. Activities will include: the formation and collaborative processes of three incubator sites, a research study, the development of a creative thinking curriculum infused into science education, professional development based on the curriculum, public engagement events and exhibits, a project website and tools for social networking, and project evaluation. A national advisory council includes professionals in education, science, creativity, and business.
EvalFest (Evaluation Use, Value, and Learning through Festivals of Science and Technology) will test innovative evaluation methods in science festivals that are being held across the country and assess in what ways and how effectively they are used. Morehead Planetarium and Science Center (at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) and the University of California, San Francisco, in collaboration with over twenty science festivals, will (1) investigate whether a multisite evaluation approach is an effective model for creating common metrics for informal STEM education, (2) develop common methods to measure the effects of Festivals, (3) create a query-able database of 50,000 Festival attendees to share with the informal STEM learning field, and (4) document whether these efforts also result in new knowledge related to informal STEM education. The project will develop the Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) system and query-able database for the festival community. EFMs are systems, including processes and software, that enable groups (such as the festival network) to collect, organize, analyze and share data. The EFM system will be designed to integrate data across sites and to allow users to extract data of interest. The project will refine evaluation tools currently used within the Science Festival Alliance that assess self-reported festival learning, and the effects of festival attendance, motivation, and future science participation. It will collect economic impact data and longitudinal festival attendee data. The project will also develop some new evaluation tools such as secret shopper observational protocols. Data from festival attendees will be collected onsite at participating festivals.
Families and school-aged constituents at 30 urban, inner-city neighborhood community-based organizations and teachers and students in earth science classes in 40 middle schools. Intent: This project will prepare neighborhood and community leaders in Philadelphia to use simple but effective observation tools and NASA’s educational web content to help their inner-city Philadelphia neighbors learn about space science and technology – and about their city and themselves – by knowledgably exploring the sky. Project Goals: 1. Create multiple opportunities for inner-city children, adults and families to observe and learn about the solar system through neighborhood and city-wide events. 2. Equip CBO’s with the knowledge, skills and materials they need to make space science-related events and activities a sustained part of programming for their constituents. 3. Stimulate interest and engagement in NASA’s missions and resources among residents of traditionally underserved, inner-city neighborhoods through astronomy experiences and NASA’s websites. 4. Create and strengthen collaborative ties between The Franklin Institute, CBO’s, city residents, and local amateur astronomers. Programs/Products produced: 1. Repeatable ‘Galileoscope’ workshops and activities in 30 CBO’s 2. Solar observing activities for 30 CBO’s and 40 middle schools. 3. School assembly-type audience interactive program about observational astronomy for use in schools and community organizations. 4. Recurring neighborhood star parties facilitated through on-going partnerships with local amateur astronomy clubs. 5. Participation in city-wide star party as part of the annual Philadelphia Science Festival.
This Pathways Project connects rural, underserved youth and families in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho to STEM concepts important in sustainable building design. The project is a collaboration of the Palouse Discovery Science Center (Pullman, WA), Washington State University and University of Idaho, working in partnership with rural community organizations and businesses. The deliverables include: 1) interactive exhibit prototype activities, 2) a team cooperative learning problem-solving challenge, and (3) take-home materials to encourage participants to use what they have learned to investigate ways to make their homes more energy-efficient and sustainable. The project introduces youth and families to the traditionally difficult physics concept of thermal energy, particularly as it relates to sustainable building design. Participants explore how building materials and their properties can be used to control all three types of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. The interactive exhibit prototypes are coupled with an Energy Efficient Engineering Challenge in which participants, working in cooperative learning teams, use information learned from the exhibit prototype activities to retrofit a model house, improving its energy efficiency. The project components are piloted at the Palouse Discovery Science Center, and then travel to three underserved rural/tribal communities in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Front-end and formative evaluation studies will demonstrate whether this model advances participant understanding of and interest in STEM topics and careers. The project will yield information about ways that other ISE practitioners can effectively incorporate cooperative learning strategies in informal settings to improve the transferability of knowledge gained from exhibits to real-world problem-solving challenges, especially for rural and underserved audiences. This project will also provide the ISE field with: 1) a model for increasing the capacity of small, rural science centers to form collaborative regional networks that draw on previously unused resources in their communities and provide more effective outreach to the underrepresented populations they serve, and 2) a model for coupling cooperative learning with outreach exhibits, providing richer experiences of active engagement.
This broader implementation project will create a professional network of individuals and institutions increasing their capacity to develop, implement, and evaluate the impact of large scale community science festivals. The project builds on a previous award that supported the implementation of science festivals in Cambridge, MA; San Francisco, San Diego, and Philadelphia. Each festival reached 50-70,000 attendees, many of them families from low-income, ethnic communities. Festival organizers and participants include science center practitioners, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) researchers, STEM related businesses, public television STEM producers, universities, K-12 schools, and government and foundation stakeholders. The summative evaluation indicated significant impacts on participant's STEM interest, learning, and connections to STEM resources in their community. The number of science festivals across the country is increasing. Consequently this new project will create a professional network with numerous benefits to professionals in the Informal Science Education (ISE) field and other stakeholders including: timely access to information, knowledge and experience related to science festivals; rich relationships to draw on when facing challenges; credibility of the festival concept; ability to partner with multiple festivals and magnify the reach of existing ISE institutions and program; diffusion of knowledge and innovation; and collective intelligence and inclusive consultation. It is expected that the network will involve supporting approximately 50 science festivals during the grant period. A business plan will be developed for long term sustainability of the network and the subsequent growth of science festivals. This is a collaborative proposal with 4 project partners who have distinct roles in creating and sustaining the network: MIT, University of California at San Francisco, University of North Carolina/Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, and The Franklin Institute. MIT's project deliverables include hosting the central management and administrative functions of the network and providing conferences, workshops, individual mentoring of new science festival champions, maintaining the network website, etc. UCSF will develop tools, resources, and linkages to increase participation of scientists in festivals. UNC/Morehead Planetarium and Science Center will provide expertise in statewide festival organizing. The Franklin Institute will help network participants build capacity for engaging low-income families with programming examples, community asset analysis tools, and webinars. This multi-hub approach is a new innovative strategy for creating and sustaining the first ever professional network for science festival organizers. The project evaluation will focus on the network\'s vibrancy, connectivity and effect. Network vibrancy impact data will be collected on how members share goals, enhance leadership, and expand geographic and model diversity. Network connectivity evaluation will study the strength and growth of the relationships within the SFA network. Network effects will study the ways the Science Festival Alliance (SFA) network is achieving science festival organizational capacity looking at increases in the number of science festivals, geographic spread, science festival innovations, and the presence of a SFA sustainability plan. This project will add new knowledge about the impact of networks on the development and impact of science festivals throughout the country.
The goal of "Communicating STEM -- Applying the Science of Science Communication to Natural History Media Products in Development/Production" is to bring standard methodology for media product development/production into better alignment with evidence-based best practices for science communication. Presentations in the professional development science strand at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival (JHWFF) conference will be curated to demonstrate how adhering to research-based communication strategies has been proven to increase knowledge retention in a lay audience and decrease instances of audience bias. The strand will present emerging methods for assessing media impact beyond simply the number of viewers, as well as in depth case studies examining evidence for measurable benefits to adopting science communication strategies. By establishing an international cohort of interdisciplinary professionals, and by recruiting ongoing engagement through dissemination of project deliverables through partner organizations and university programs, JHWFF will increase opportunities for cross-industry collaboration and provide media producers, STEM professionals and science communication experts with the resources and network necessary for informed, effective public outreach through natural history and science media products. This conference strand is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning 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. Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival (JHWFF) is a premier international industry conference for natural history media professionals. This project will establish a cross-industry, interdisciplinary professional development science strand in the upcoming 2015 JHWFF conference. The goal is to advance interdisciplinary collaborations between STEM professionals, science communication experts, media producers, and students/early career professionals. The strand will explore examples of successful science/media collaborations, and increase discourse on best practices for public engagement at the intersection of STEM research, empirically-proven communication methods, and media content for diverse audiences. The project is divided into two phases: Phase I involves the work at the conference; Phase II will provide free online access to edited videos of program sessions made broadly available through partner organizations and institutions, and promoted via social networking, cohort groups, and online blogs. The collaborating organizations (American Association for the Advancement of Science, LifeOnTERRA, and Participant Media), complemented by a broad group of expert advisors, will extend the capacity of the project, facilitate access to stakeholders, and recruit broader participation in both phases of the project. Dr. Louis Nadelson, Director of the Center for the School of the Future at Utah State University, will conduct external evaluation.