This project will teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts to preschoolers by creating a mobile app to guide families through sequenced sets of videos and hands-on activities, building on the popular PBS KIDS series Work It Out Wombats!
DATE:
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marisa WolskyJanna KookJessica Andrews
The Michigan Science Center will purchase a portable planetarium that will bring planetarium shows to more than 2,000 children through its Traveling Science Program. The museum plans to take the programs to 10 schools and 8 libraries in Metro Detroit and 6 libraries in northern Michigan. They will deliver the portable planetarium shows in coordination with the museum’s long-standing “Scopes in the City” program, which allows people to use telescopes to see the night sky. The program also will expose students to Michigan’s growing aerospace industry and help increase their interest in earth and space science.
Imagination Station, Toledo’s Science Center, will implement Toledo Tinkers: Through a Child’s Eyes — a new initiative to address barriers to STEM education and promote a lifelong love of those subjects. An outreach curriculum and a mobile tinkering lab will help children ages 11–13 and their families establish personal connections with making and tinkering. Pilot programs will include the Maker Club — a 12-session out-of-school program for students from Boys and Girls Clubs of Toledo and other community-based organizations — as well as Tinkering Takeovers, which is a drop-in tinkering program for families at branch libraries. A community exhibition will showcase the diversity of the Toledo community and its rich history of making and tinkering, using the work of participating children.
The Children’s Museum will collaborate with six Hartford Public Library branches, three Hartford Family Centers, and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center to provide hands-on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) - based programs to over 1,000 local 3 to 14-year old children and their care givers. Program design and development will include planning for field trips to the museum. All participants will be given age-specific, supplemental STEAM materials to continue their learning activities at home, and families can attend more than one week of library programs, or more than three Saturdays of family center programs. The goal will be to help urban Hartford youths find new pathways toward responsible citizenry and fiscal stability.
The Discovery Center, operated by the United States Space Foundation, will partner with the Pikes Peak Library District to implement Small Steps, Giant Leap: STEM Adventures for Little Space Explorers, a free early literacy program designed for children ages 3-6 that seeks to engage the target audience of low-income and military families, populations currently underserved by the Discovery Center. The program is an interactive storytelling experience with an associated hands-on craft that occurs twice monthly, once in person and once virtually, and is designed to enable early learners to grow in literacy via the lenses of science and space exploration while developing vital social skills and self-esteem.
The Whaling Museum & Education Center will expand its educational programming to benefit underserved and high-risk students in grades 2 to 5, as well as their teachers and families. The museum will develop, implement, market, and evaluate core components of its programming to reach nearly 3,000 students and 50 teachers. Museum educators will present hands-on activities in nearby schools, using real and replica artifacts and other learning materials. They will also deliver workshops for teachers at the museum to help them incorporate primary resources from the museum's collection into their curricula. A family day event will showcase what students learned from the in-class visit through displays of art projects and science posters. Other project activities will include free afterschool library programs exploring STEAM and history topics and an increase in the number of scholarships to the museum's summer camp program.
Sciencenter will use a co-development process to strengthen rural engagement with hands-on and inquiry-based STEM for families and children. The museum will initiate the project in partnership with Moravia Central School District and Groton Public Library. The project team will also collaborate with advisors who have expertise in reaching rural audiences. Project activities will increase the museum's understanding of rural communities' needs around STEM. The museum will work with additional rural partners to develop activities and programs that meet identified needs. An external evaluator will track project progress and measure results. This evaluator will also train the museum's staff on data collection and recording methods. Data analysis throughout the project will support changes in programs and activities as needed.
Clark Planetarium will partner with the Salt Lake County Library System to extend STEM education for adolescent audiences throughout the regional community. The planetarium will create STEM classes in up to 18 different county libraries, with up to four library activity sessions each week. With each activity session, the project will engage middle school and high school aged participants in hands-on science, technology, and engineering activities that explore complex concepts and principles through simulations of robotic missions. Each visit will engage learners in STEM-focused activities that emphasize group work such as building robots, collecting and analyzing data, and solving problems. Over the span of three years, the project will reach over 7,700 teens. The Utah Education Policy Center will use observation, program records, and a brief online survey to measure the program's impact on STEM interest and improvement in confidence, attitudes, and behavioral intentions around STEM.
The Brookfield Zoo will launch the Zoo Explorers Club to provide underserved middle school students with free informal STEM education in public libraries and community centers in majority African American and Latino neighborhoods in Chicago, Cicero, and Melrose Park, Illinois. The program will consist of two four-week units per year, themed around STEM topics of interest to sixth-eighth graders. Students will participate in informal sessions that include hands-on science experiments, outdoor observations, craft projects, or animal experiences designed with the varied learning styles of middle school students in mind. Students will also participate in a free field trip to a zoo, nature center, museum, or other destination related to the unit topic. The curriculum will be designed to facilitate science learning through inquiry for up to 180 students per year, and empower young people to see themselves as agents of conservation solutions.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
The project is building a nationwide online coaching/mentoring program for out of school educators in rural settings.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
The project scales up an award-winning coaching model:
Informal educators come together in small groups to share videos of their own interactions with youth
A coach helps them share feedback based on their use of key skills (e.g. how to ask youth purposeful questions).
With support from rural communities and their libraries in the Four Corners Region in the Southwestern U.S., We are Water creates a place to meet and share stories about water, and explore and learn about water together. Designed for rural, Indigenous, and Latinx communities, stories, community voices and multiple ways of knowing are highlighted and woven throughout the exhibit and programs.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.