RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
Many urgent environmental challenges, from soil degradation and water pollution to global climate change, have deep roots in how complex systems impact human well-being, and how humans relate to nature and to each other. Learning In and From the Environment through Multiple Ways of Knowing (LIFEways) is based on the premise that Indigenous stewardship has sustained communities on these lands since time immemorial. This project is collaboratively led by the Indigenous Education Institute and Oregon State University’s STEM Research Center, in partnership with Native Pathways and the Reimagine Research Group, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, World Forestry Center, and a national park network in the Pacific Northwest. The aim of this partnership is to deepen the informal learning field’s understanding of how Indigenous ways of knowing are currently or can be included in outdoor learning environments such as parks, nature preserves, and tribal lands. The project will share practices that center Indigenous worldviews to build awareness of their value and enhance STEM learning in outdoor settings. These approaches engage Native community members in continuing their traditional knowledge and practices, and help non-Native audiences learn from the dynamic interrelationships of the environment in authentic, respectful ways.
Conventional outdoor education is mostly grounded in Western concepts of “conservation” and “preservation” that position humans as acting separately from nature. This Research in Service to Practice project will identify “wise practices” that honor Indigenous ways of knowing, and investigate current capacities, barriers and opportunities for amplifying Indigenous voices in outdoor education. A team of Native and non-Native researchers and practitioners will draw upon Indigenous and Western research paradigms. Methods include Talk Story dialogues, a landscape study using national surveys, case studies, and a Circle of Relations to interpret and disseminate research findings. LIFEways will also document partnership processes to continue to build on the Collaboration with Integrity framework between tribal and non-tribal organizations (Maryboy and Begay, 2012). Findings from the LIFEways project will be shared broadly through a series of webinars, local and national meetings, conferences, and publications.
This project is designed to support collaboration between informal STEM learning (ISL) researchers, designers, and educators with sound researchers and acoustic ecologists to jointly explore the role of auditory experiences—soundscapes—on learning. In informal STEM learning spaces, where conversation advances STEM learning and is a vital part of the experience of exploring STEM phenomena with family and friends, attention to the impacts of soundscapes can have an important bearing on learning. Understanding how soundscapes may facilitate, spark, distract from, or even overwhelm thinking and conversation will provide ISL educators and designers evidence to inform their practice. The project is structured to reflect the complexity of ISL audiences and experiences; thus, partners include the North Park Village Nature Center located in in a diverse immigrant neighborhood in Chicago; Wild Indigo, a Great Lakes Audubon program primarily serving African American visitors in Midwest cities; an after-school/summer camp provider, STEAMing Ahead New Mexico, serving families in the rural southwest corner of New Mexico, and four sites in Ohio, MetroParks, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and the Center of Science and Industry.
Investigators will conduct large-scale exploratory research to answer an understudied research question: How do environmental sounds impact STEM learning in informal learning spaces? Researchers and practitioners will characterize and describe the soundscapes throughout the different outdoor and indoor exhibit/learning spaces. Researchers will observe 800 visitors, tracking attraction, attention, dwell time, and shared learning. In addition to observations, researchers will join another 150 visitors for think-aloud interviews, where researchers will walk alongside visitors and capture pertinent notes while visitors describe their experience in real time. Correlational and cluster analyses using machine learning algorithms will be used to identify patterns across different sounds, soundscapes, responses, and reflections of research participants. In particular, the analyses will identify characteristics of sounds that correlate with increased attention and shared learning. Throughout the project, a team of evaluators will monitor progress and support continuous improvement, including guidance for developing culturally responsive research metrics co-defined with project partners. Evaluators will also document the extent to which the project impacts capacity building, and influences planning and design considerations for project partners. This exploratory study is the initial in a larger research agenda, laying the groundwork for future experimental study designs that test causal claims about the relationships between specific soundscapes and visitor learning. Results of this study will be disseminated widely to informal learning researchers and practitioners through workshops, presentations, journal articles, facilitated conversations, and a short film that aligns with the focus and findings of the research.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Martha MersonJustin MeyerDaniel Shanahan
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) will collaborate with four community organizations serving Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) audiences to research and develop a novel outdoor makerspace that engages families in STEM learning. A makerspace is a place where people work together on creative, interest driven projects. In working with BIPOC families, the project addresses three forms of historical (and present day) exclusion of community participants, including participation in the design of informal learning experiences, participation in such activities, and overall engagement in STEM. The project aims to develop activities that foster STEM learning using natural materials in an outdoor makerspace, informed through robust collaboration with local communities. This project will result in an outdoor makerspace at SMM that will include 3-4 settings (approximately 2500 square feet total) that house and support multiple making activities in an outdoor context. The proposed work will contribute to advancing knowledge through exploring how BIPOC families define learning in makerspaces and how younger children can be fully engaged in family learning. The project will share the inclusive design and community collaboration practices developed through this work with other museums, maker educators, and other community organizations that can develop or expand their own outdoor makerspaces in ways that will respect and reflect BIPOC families’ perspectives.
BIPOC families will join museum staff as contributors in the development and iteration of an outdoor makerspace and collaborators in the development of generalized design principles and dissemination of the research. Visitor-captured video of engagement in the outdoor makerspace, surveys, and memos from design meetings with community partners serve as the foundation for the process of aligning design and development of outdoor informal science education spaces with community needs and values. All research activities will be guided by a culturally responsive research framework and use strategies to ensure the multicultural validity such as video meaning-making with family research participants and member-checking instruments, data analyses, and findings with Design Partners. Project research will address three questions: (1) What are the characteristics of family learning in an outdoor nature-situated makerspace, including how BIPOC families identify and describe STEM learning and how outdoor spaces can be built to support BIPOC families’ perspectives? (2) How can the space be built to support multi-age families to engaged in making, including a focus on what design elements support preschool learner’s engagement and sustained participation by other family members? and (3) How do the design principles for making with widely available materials translate from indoor to outdoor spaces and materials? Research findings, design principles and community engagement guides will be widely disseminated to researchers, designers, program developers, informal science institutions and community organizations.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is in many of our everyday activities—from unlocking phones to running Internet searches to parking cars. Yet, most instruction on how AI works is only in computer science courses. The unique role that AI plays in making decisions that affect human lives heightens the need for education approaches that promote public AI literacy. Little research has been done to understand how we can best teach AI in informal learning spaces. This project will engage middle school age youth in learning abouts AI through interaction with museum exhibits in science and technology centers. The exhibits employ embodied interactions and creative making activities that involve textiles, music making, and interactive media. The research will build on three exhibit prototypes that teach about concepts including bias in data in machine learning, AI decision-making processes, and how AI represents knowledge. Female-identifying and Title 1 youth will be recruited as participants during the exhibit design iterations and testing. The 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
Researchers will explore two key research questions: 1) How can the design of interactive museum exhibits encourage interest development in and learning about AI among learners without a Computer Science background by using embodiment and creative making? and 2) How do embodied interaction and creative making mediate learning about AI in informal learning environments? The project will take a design-based research approach, iteratively building on existing exhibit prototypes and testing them in-situ with learners. Data sources and modes of analysis will include retrospective surveys to assess interest, content knowledge gain, creativity, learning talk analysis of audio recordings, and coding of embodied movements in video recordings. Learning talk analysis will identify instances of joint sensemaking during naturalistic interactions with our exhibit to reveal connections between sensemaking talk; learners' behaviors and embodied actions during real-time collaborative knowledge building; and outcomes in knowledge, interest, and creativity measures as elicited in retrospective surveys. The final set of exhibits will be rigorously evaluated with over 500 museum visitors. The key contributions of this work will include a set of rigorously tested exhibits, publicly available exhibit designs, a set of design guidelines for developing AI literacy museum exhibits, and an improved understanding of the relationship between AI-related learning and interest development, embodiment, and creativity.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brian MagerkoDuri LongJessica Roberts
The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago will conduct a research study that measures a sense of belonging for museum guests, helping museums identify and address social exclusion issues. Project activities include developing and testing a survey instrument with museum visitors along with a comparison group of non-museum goers, culminating in the production of the final instrument, a user's guide, and a template to analyze findings. The project will involve nine museums of various types, sizes, audience demographics, and geographic locations collaborating to collect and analyze data and then share the project results with the broader museum community. Project activities will result in an increase in museum staff's awareness of their audience's sense of inclusion, leading to museums that are more responsive and relevant to their communities.
Three-dimensional digital models are increasingly prevalent in preserving tangible and intangible aspects of Indigenous material heritage. Yet, there are no comprehensive, clearly laid-out best practices that can guide researchers, Indigenous communities, and museum personnel in designing ethically sound and socially engaged 3D heritage preservation projects. The use of 3D technologies for heritage preservation and providing public access to digital 3D collections is well-established in the European context. While there have been several robust efforts on digitizing European national heritage, in the U.S. context, the focus often involves work with Indigenous heritage, instantly placing 3D projects into a post-colonial research paradigm with a complex set of ethical ramifications. This research examines emerging thoughts from the European context and connects them with best practices in digital Indigenous data management to identify practices that contribute to cultures of academic integrity that are inclusive of all stakeholder voices. This work fosters ethical cultures of STEM through the development of a comprehensive Responsible Conduct of Research guiding document that can be adapted to address culture-specific Indigenous perspectives as well as project-specific challenges in future 3D heritage preservation endeavors.
Project goals are accomplished through workshops and virtual collaborations that bring together researchers, Indigenous community members, and heritage preservation professionals with previous experience in the responsible management, protection, and sharing of Indigenous digital data and the use of 3D technology for heritage preservation. The collaboratively produced guidelines outline ethical considerations that can be used in developing: 1) partnerships with origin/descendant communities, 2) institution- and collection-specific museum policies on using 3D technology, 3) Tribal policies for culturally appropriate use of 3D technologies, and 4) training material and curriculum that integrates with other research compliance regulations pertaining to heritage preservation. The project explores the questions that have emerged through previous experiences using 3D technologies to preserve Indigenous ancestral heritage. These questions include the factors contributing to developing ethically sound 3D heritage preservation projects; the practices useful in 3D projects to foster a culture of integrity that equally engages academic and Indigenous perspectives; consideration for what constitutes Responsible Conduct of Research in using 3D technologies to preserve Indigenous cultural heritage; and addressing practice-based questions that contribute to understanding ethical challenges in digitally preserving and presenting Indigenous heritage. The project situates 3D modeling and heritage representation as part of the larger discourse on decolonizing core methodologies in museum management and anthropological collection practices. Results from this work can be adapted to training future researchers and digital heritage management professionals and creating meaningful partnerships in heritage documentation. This research cultivates cultures of academic integrity by informing heritage management policy on the critical importance of heritage ethics for the creation and management of 3D digitization projects involving Indigenous collections. This award is funded by the Directorate of Geosciences and the Directorate of Education and Human Resources.
This project addresses a longstanding problem in informal science education: how to increase the likelihood of consequential science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning from short duration experiences such as field trips. Although informal learning experiences can greatly contribute to interest in and knowledge of science, there is a shared concern among educators and researchers that students may have difficulty recalling and using scientific information and practices emphasized during these experiences, even though doing so would further their science learning. Nonetheless, science learning is rarely, if ever, a "one-shot deal." Children acquire knowledge about science cumulatively across different contexts and activities. Therefore, it is important that informal science learning institutions identify effective practices that support the consolidation of learning and memory from exhibit experiences to foster portable, usable knowledge across contexts, such as from informal science learning institutions, to classrooms, and homes. To this end, this Research in Service to Practice project seeks to harness the power and potential of visual representations (e.g., graphs, drawings, charts, maps, etc.) for enhancing learning and encouraging effective reflection during and after science learning experiences. The project promises to increase learning for the 9,000+ 5th and 6th grade students from across the rurality and growing diversity of the state of Maine who annually participate in LabVenture, a 2.5-hour exploration of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem at Gulf of Maine Research Institute. The research will provide new and actionable informal science learning practices that promote engagement with visual representations and reflection, and science understandings that can be applied broadly by informal science institutions. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) and the Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) programs. It supports the AISL program goals to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. It supports the DRK-12 program goal of enhancing the learning and teaching of STEM by preK-12 students and teachers.
The project is grounded in the idea that visual representations, including drawings, can both enhance science learning and encourage reflection on doing science that can support extension of that learning beyond a singular informal science experience. The project uses design-based research to address the following research questions: (1) Does reflection during an informal science learning experience promote students’ retention and subsequent use of science information and practices that are part of the experience? (2) Does interpreting and constructing visual representations, such as drawings, improve students’ understanding and retention of information, and if so, how and when? and (3) Does combining visual representations and narrative reflections confer benefits on students’ science learning and engagement in science practices both during the informal learning experience, and later in their classrooms and at home? These questions will be pursued in collaboration with practitioners (both informal educators and classroom teachers) and a diverse team of graduate and undergraduate student researchers. Approximately 600 student groups (roughly 3000 individual students) will be observed during the LabVenture experience, with further data collection involving a portion of these students at school and at home. The project will yield resources and video demonstrations of field-tested, empirically based practices that promote engagement with visual representations and reflection, and science understandings that can travel within students' learning ecosystem. In support of broadening participation, the undergraduate/graduate student researchers will gain wide understanding and experience connecting research to practice and communicating science to academic and nonacademic audiences.
This award is funded with support from NSF's program for Advancing Informal STEM Education.
This project develops a partnership between language researchers and Planet Word, a new museum devoted to language in Washington D.C., to engage museum visitors in scientific research and outreach. Interested museum visitors from all ages and backgrounds are invited to participate in behavioral research studies on a range of language-related topics. This "living language laboratory" of interactive studies includes accompanying educational demonstrations. These activities will lead to the development of infrastructure and best practices that will allow future language researchers to engage with the public at Planet Word and other similar sites.
The project enhances scientific understanding by engaging visitors in activities that expose them to active science about language as a part of their visit to the museum. For example, the research examines topics from understanding what makes certain American Sign Language signs more learnable, to why it is easier to understand people we know rather than strangers, to whether we think differently when we are reading a text message compared to reading more formal writing. In doing so, the project raises the profile of linguistics among the general public and promotes scientifically informed attitudes about language. The project also provides key opportunities to disseminate research findings of interest to the public and to promote greater interest in STEM topics among museum visitors, as well as student trainees and museum staff. The project creates educational and research opportunities for students, who will be trained in a hands-on course, and will gain first-hand experience with research and outreach in a museum setting. Through the collaborative partnership of researchers from University of Maryland, Howard University, and Gallaudet University, the project broadens participation of underrepresented minority students in the language sciences, seeking to diversify the pipeline of scholars continuing in careers in the language sciences and related STEM fields.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Charlotte VaughnYi Ting HuangDeanna GagnePatrick Plummer
Public outdoor spaces present opportunities for social experiences and learning. This Broader Implementation project will expand and evaluate a model that transforms urban public spaces into accessible and engaging environments for learning social science in outdoor public spaces. The model combines social science inquiry exhibits, place making and human facilitation of learning experiences in outdoor public areas. Project exhibits use the facilitated social interactions as both the content of and medium for the experiences. This project will adapt the existing exhibits and add new exhibits and facilitation techniques for testing in three different urban environments. Project research will explore the efficacy of these adaptations and revised facilitation techniques for the different settings in collaboration with civic partners at each site. The project will share the model and research findings widely through the Exploratorium website and publications for researchers, developers, and educators.
The team’s prior research showed that facilitators improved multiple learning outcomes with the current exhibits. Visitors acquired new social observation skills, reflected on their own experiences, perceptions, and actions, and increased their awareness for how social behavior, cognition, and emotion can be studied scientifically. Building on the prior research, the project will install the exhibition and test its efficacy in three different urban environments and explore the adaptations that are required for different settings with different civic partners. The project will use design-based research to develop a new theoretical model of facilitation strategies for supporting science learning in outdoor public spaces. For evaluation, the project will use mixed methods, including observations, interviews, surveys, and document review. Evaluation will assess success in attracting and engaging visitors; conveying social science concepts; prompting self-reflection of judgments and actions; and fostering empathy among those with different social identities. The project will assess the extent to which participants, particularly those from marginalized communities, experience feelings of belonging and inclusion. The project will be presented in three sites which represent the significant diversity, income levels, and urban environments of San Francisco. Facilitation strategies are being co-developed with Urban Alchemy, an organization that works within distressed urban communities in San Francisco. Project site partners and collaborators include the San Francisco Public Library, the Port of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Department of Parks and Recreation. The project will also measure partnership outcomes, through surveys and interviews, to look at the extent and ways the project integrates a co-creation model and develops an authentic, mutually beneficial, sustainable partnership. The project will generate and disseminate generalizable knowledge about the affordances of combining informal science learning, placemaking, and facilitation in a variety of free, outdoor STEM learning spaces in collaboration with local community groups. The project will also advance public understanding of the social and behavioral sciences.
This research project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and sssessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
Zoos and aquariums have been offering programming, events, and visit accommodations to autistic individuals for several years. While these efforts can provide great experiences, they are focused more on accommodation and the outward-facing guest experience than inclusion. Lack of inclusion features in design, programming, and representation amongst zoo and aquarium representatives, ultimately limits full inclusion and adds to a sense in autistic individuals of not belonging and not being welcomed. To develop a fully inclusive experience for autistic individuals, this project will develop an evidence-based framework of inclusive practices for zoos and aquariums and build a community of practice around inclusion broadly. The project brings together researchers from Oregon State University, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Researchers will create and investigate the extent and ways in which a research-informed framework and associated tools (i.e. case studies, discussion guides, self-guided audits, etc.) and strategies support science learning for autistic individuals, and help practitioners expand access and inclusion of autistic audiences beyond special events or the general visit experience by applying inclusive practices for programs, exhibit development, internships, volunteer opportunities, and employment. To maximize impact, the project will develop and expand a network of early adopters to build a community of practice around inclusive practices to develop fully inclusive zoo and aquarium experiences for all individuals.
The project will investigate 4 research questions: (1) In what ways and to what extent are zoos and aquariums currently addressing access and inclusion for autistic individuals? (2) How do staff in zoos and aquariums perceive their and their institution’s willingness and ability to address access and inclusion for autistic individuals? (3) What is a framework of evidence-based practices across the zoo and aquarium experience that is inclusive for autistic individuals, and what associated tools and strategies are needed to make the framework useful for early adopters? And (4) to what extent and in what ways does a research informed framework with associated tools and strategies engage, support, and enhance an existing community of practitioners already dedicated to addressing autistic audiences and promote inclusive practices at zoos and aquariums for autistic people? The project is designed as two phases: (1) the research and development of a framework of inclusive practices and tools for supporting autistic individuals and (2) expanding a network of early adopters to build a community of practice around inclusive practices and an overall strategy of implementation. The framework will be informed through a state of the field study across the zoo/aquarium field that includes a landscape study and needs assessment as well as a review of literature that synthesizes existing research across disciplines for developing inclusive practices for autistic individuals in zoos and aquariums. The team will also conduct online surveys and focus groups to gather input from various stakeholders including zoo and aquarium employees and practitioners, autistic individuals, and their social groups (e.g., family members, peers, advocacy organizations). The second phase of the study will focus on sharing the framework and tools with practitioners across the zoo/aquarium field for feedback and reflection to develop an overall strategy for broader implementation and expanding the existing network of zoo and aquarium professionals to build a community of practice dedicated to the comprehensive inclusion of autistic individuals across the full zoo and aquarium experience. The results will be disseminated through conference presentations, scholarly publications, online discussion forums, and collaborative partners’ websites. The project represents one of the first of its kind on autistic audiences within the zoo and aquarium context and is the first to look at the full experience of autistic patrons to zoos and aquariums across programs/events, exhibits, volunteering, internship, and employment opportunities. A process evaluation conducted as part of the project will explore how the approach taken in this project may be more broadly applied in understanding and advancing inclusion for other audiences historically underserved or marginalized by zoos and aquariums.
This Research in Service to Practice project is supported by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
The Accessible Oceans study will design auditory displays that support learning and understanding of ocean data in informal learning environments like museums, science centers, and aquariums. Most data presentations in these spaces use visual display techniques such as graphs, charts, and computer-generated visualizations, resulting in inequitable access for learners with vision impairment or other print-related disabilities. While music, sound effects, and environmental sounds are sometimes used, these audio methods are inadequate for conveying quantitative information. The project will use sonification (turning data into sound) to convey meaningful aspects of ocean science data to increase access to ocean data and ocean literacy. The project will advance knowledge on the design of auditory displays for all learners, with and without disabilities, as well as advance the use of technology for STEM formal and informal education. The study will include 425 participants but will reach tens of thousands through the development of education materials, public reporting, and social media. The study will partner with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Discovery Center, the Georgia Aquarium, the Eugene Science Center, the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired, and Perkins School for the Blind.
The project will leverage existing educational ocean datasets from the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative to produce and evaluate the feasibility of using integrated auditory displays to communicate tiered learning objectives of oceanographic principles. Integrated auditory displays will each be comprised of a data sonification and a context-setting audio introduction that will help to make sure all users start with the same basic information about the phenomenon. The displays will be developed through a user-centered design process that will engage ocean science experts, visually impaired students and adults (and their teachers), and design-oriented undergraduate and graduate students. The project will support advocacy skills for inclusive design and will provide valuable training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students in human-centered design and accessibility. The project will have foundational utility in auditory display, STEM education, human-computer interaction, and other disciplines, contributing new strategies for representing quantitative information that can be applied across STEM disciplines that use similar visual data displays. The project will generate publicly accessible resources to advance studies of inclusive approaches on motivating learners with and without disabilities to learn more about and consider careers in STEM.
This Pilots and Feasibility Studies project is supported 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.