The goals of this proposal are: 1) to provide opportunities for underrepresented students to consider careers in basic or clinical research by exciting them through an educational Citizen Science research project; 2) to provide teachers with professional development in science content and teaching skills using research projects as the infrastructure; and 3) to improve the environments and behaviors in early childcare and education settings related to healthy lifestyles across the state through HSTA students Citizen Science projects. The project will complement or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs. It will encourage interactive partnerships between biomedical and clinical researchers,in-service teachers and early childcare and education facilities to prevent obesity.
Specific Aim I is the Biomedical Summer Institute for Teachers led by university faculty. This component is a one week university based component. The focus is to enhance teacher knowledge of biomedical characteristics and problems associated with childhood obesity, simple statistics, ethics and HIPAA compliance, and the principles of Citizen Science using Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). The teachers, together with the university faculty and staff, will develop the curriculum and activities for Specific Aim II.
Specific Aim II is the Biomedical Summer Institute for Students, led by HSTA teachers guided by university faculty. This experience will expose 11th grade HSTA students to the biomedical characteristics and problems associated with obesity with a focus on early childhood. Students will be trained on Key 2 a Healthy Start, which aims to improve nutrition and physical activity best practices, policies and environments in West Virginia’s early child care and education programs. The students will develop a meaningful project related to childhood obesity and an aspect of its prevention so that the summer institute bridges seamlessly into Specific Aim III.
Specific Aim III is the Community Based After School Club Experiences. The students and teachers from the summer experience will lead additional interested 9th–12th grade students in their clubs to examine their communities and to engage community members in conducting public health intervention research in topics surrounding childhood obesity prevention through Citizen Science. Students and teachers will work collaboratively with the Key 2 a Healthy Start team on community projects that will be focused on providing on-going technical assistance that will ultimately move the early childcare settings towards achieving best practices related to nutrition and physical activity in young children.
The NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program of Emory University endeavors to use an over-arching theme of citizen science principles to:
develop an innovative curriculum based on citizen science and experiential learning to evaluate the efficacy of informal science education in after-school settings;
promote biomedical scientific careers in under-represented groups targeting females for Girls for Science summer research experiences;
train teachers in Title I schools to implement this citizen science based curriculum; and
disseminate the citizen science principles through outreach.
This novel, experiential science and engineering program, termed Experiential Citizen Science Training for the Next Generation (ExCiTNG), encompasses community-identified topics reflecting NIH research priorities. The curriculum is mapped to Next Generation Science Standards.
A comprehensive evaluation plan accompanies each program component, composed of short- and/or longer-term outcome measures. We will use our existing outreach program (Students for Science) along with scientific community partnerships (Atlanta Science Festival) to implement key aspects of the program throughout the state of Georgia. These efforts will be overseen by a central Steering Committee composed of leadership of the Community Education Research Program of the Emory/Morehouse/Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta Clinical Translational Science Institute (NIH CTSA), the Principal Investigators, representatives of each program component, and an independent K–12 STEM evaluator from the Georgia Department of Education.
The Community Advisory Board, including educators, parents, and community members, will help guide the program’s implementation and monitor progress. A committee of NIH-funded investigators, representing multiple NIH institutes along with experienced science writers, will lead the effort for dissemination and assure that on-going and new NIH research priorities are integrated into the program’s curriculum over time.
Techbridge Girls’ mission is to help girls discover a passion for science, engineering, and technology (SET). In August 2013, Techbridge Girls was awarded a five-year National Science Foundation grant to scale up its afterschool program from the San Francisco Bay Area to multiple new locations around the United States. Techbridge Girls began offering afterschool programming at elementary and middle schools in Greater Seattle in 2014, and in Washington, DC in 2015.
Education Development Center is conducting the formative and summative evaluation of the project. To assess the implementation
Techbridge Girls’ mission is to help girls discover a passion for science, engineering, and technology (SET). In August 2013, Techbridge Girls was awarded a five-year National Science Foundation grant to scale up its afterschool program from the San Francisco Bay Area to multiple new locations around the United States. Techbridge Girls began offering afterschool programming at elementary and middle schools in Greater Seattle in 2014, and in Washington, DC in 2015.
Education Development Center is conducting the formative and summative evaluation of the project. To assess the implementation
In 2017, Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) conducted a summative evaluation of Design Squad Global (DSG). DSG is produced and managed by WGBH Educational Foundation. WGBH partnered with FHI 360, a nonprofit human development organizations working in 70 countries, to implement DSG around the globe.
In the DSG program, children in afterschool and school clubs explored engineering through hands-on activities, such as designing and building an emergency shelter or a structure that could withstand an earthquake. Through DSG, children also had the chance to work alongside a partner club from another
The ACCEYSS (Association of Collaborative Communities Equipping Youth for STEM Success) Network and Model project, an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot, at Texas State University is forming a university-community partnership between interdisciplinary researchers (ACCEYSS research team), faith leaders and other community partners to implement an innovative model that prepares underrepresented and underserved youth to pursue undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees. The inaugural ACCEYSS network will include Texas State University, San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District, San Marcos Youth Service Bureau, City of San Marcos-Office of the City Manager, Hays County Youth Initiative, the Calaboose African American History Museum, and several local faith-based organizations. Many historic advancements have been made through the efforts and activities of faith and community leaders uniquely poised to motivate and galvanize community-based action. A collaboration among these academic institutions, social/cultural organizations, and faith partners to work with the families and youth of underrepresented/underserved populations will be an essential asset for generating new perspectives and ideas for improving STEM academic and career outcomes related to broadening participation in the scientific enterprise.
During this launch pilot, the ACCEYSS research team and network will collaborate to design and develop the ACCEYSS model as a culturally-relevant, blended-learning strategy that integrates online and in-person STEM enrichment activities (e.g., summer institute, afterschool clubs) that are aligned with the Science and Engineering Practices and Disciplinary Core Ideas Dimensions of the K-12 Next Generation Science Education Standards. The collective impact framework will be used to build diverse capacity, leverage asset-based community development, and sustain mutually reinforcing non-exclusive policies and practices for STEM diversity and inclusion. Additionally, in this launch pilot, a multifaceted design-based research approach will be utilized to support middle and high school students' interest in and pursuit of STEM studies.
The Society for Science and the Public’s Advocate Grant Program provides selected Advocates with funding, resources, and information. Advocates include classroom teachers, school and district administrators, university professors, and informal science educators in community-based programs. The role of the Advocate is to support three or more underserved middle or high school students in the process of advancing from conducting a scientific research or engineering design project to entering a scientific competition. Advocates receive a stipend of $3,000; opportunities to meet and interact with
This project will coordinate and focus existing educational elements with the common goal of increasing the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM degree programs and the STEM workforce. This goal will help the US maintain its leadership in science and engineering innovation while supporting the expansion of the talent pool needed to fuel economic growth in technical areas. The program will feature an assessment system that addresses both social influence factors and the transfer of STEM skills with the aim of identifying the reasons that underrepresented minorities leave the STEM pipeline. By including both curricular and extracurricular elements of the STEM pipeline, ranging from middle school through college, the program will be able to respond quickly to findings from the assessment component and take proactive steps to retain STEM students and maintain their self perception as future scientists or engineers.
The program proposes to assess, unite and coordinate elements in the New Mexico STEM pipeline with the ultimate goal of increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in the STEM workforce. The need to grow a diverse science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce is recognized throughout the State of New Mexico, and beyond, by both the public and private sectors. The project develops a crosscutting assessment system that addresses both social influence factors and the skills component of STEM education. The project develops a collective impact framework aimed at increasing the participation of underrepresented minorities in the STEM workforce and implements a common assessment system for students in the 6-20+ STEM pipeline. This assessment system will address both social influence factors and the transfer of STEM related skills with the aim of building a research base to investigate why students from underrepresented minorities leave the STEM pipeline. The output from this research will drive the development of a set of best practices for increasing retention and a scheme for improving the integration of minority students into the STEM community. The retention model developed as part of the program will be shared with the STEM partners through a series of workshops with the goal of developing a more coordinated approach to the retention of underrepresented minorities. The program focuses on a small set of STEM programs with existing connections to the College of Engineering.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Steven StochajPatricia SullivanLuis Vazquez
This is an Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research supporting research in Smart and Connected Communities. The research supported by the award is collaborative with research at the University of Colorado. The researchers are studying the use of technologies to enable communities to connect youth and youth organizations to effectively support diverse learning pathways for all students. These communities, the youth, the youth organizations, formal and informal education organizations, and civic organizations form a learning ecology. The DePaul University researchers will design and implement a smart community infrastructure in the City of Chicago to track real-time student participation in community STEM activities and to develop mobile applications for both students and adults. The smart community infrastructure will bring together information from a variety of sources that affect students' participation in community activities. These include geographic information (e.g., where the student lives, where the activities take place, the student transportation options, the school the student attends), student related information (e.g., the education and experience background of the student, the economic status of the student, students' schedules), and activity information (e.g., location of activity, requirements for participation). The University of Colorado researchers will take the lead on analyzing these data in terms of a community learning ecologies framework and will explore computational approaches (i.e., recommender systems, visualizations of learning opportunities) to improve youth exploration and uptake of interests and programs. These smart technologies are then used to reduce the friction in the learning connection infrastructure (called L3 for informal, formal, and virtual learning) to enable the student to access opportunities for participation in STEM activities that are most feasible and most appropriate for the student. Such a flexible computational approach is needed to support the necessary diversity of potential recommendations: new interests for youth to explore; specific programs based on interests, friends' activities, or geographic accessibility; or programs needed to "level-up" (develop deeper skills) and complete skills to enhance youths' learning portfolios. Although this information was always available, it was never integrated so it could be used to serve the community of both learners and the providers and to provide measurable student learning and participation outcomes. The learning ecologies theoretical framework and supporting computational methods are a contribution to the state of the art in studying afterschool learning opportunities. While the concept of learning ecologies is not new, to date, no one has offered such a systematic and theoretically-grounded portfolio of measures for characterizing the health and resilience of STEM learning ecologies at multiple scales. The theoretical frameworks and concepts draw together multiple research and application domains: computer science, sociology of education, complexity science, and urban planning. The L3 Connects infrastructure itself represents an unprecedented opportunities for conducting "living lab" experiments to improve stakeholder experience of linking providers to a single network and linking youth to more expanded and varied opportunities. The University of Colorado team will employ three methods: mapping, modeling, and linking youth to STEM learning opportunities in school and out of school settings in a large urban city (Chicago). The recommender system will be embedded into youth and parent facing mobile apps, enabling the team to characterize the degree to which content-based, collaborative filtering, or constraint based recommendations influence youth actions. The project will result in two measurable outcomes of importance to key L3 stakeholder groups: a 10% increase in the number of providers (programs that are part of the infrastructure) in target neighborhoods and a 20% increase in the number of youth participating in programs.
This is an Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research supporting research in Smart and Connected Communities. The research supported by the award is collaborative with research at DePaul University. The researchers are studying the use of technologies to enable communities to connect youth and youth organizations to effectively support diverse learning pathways for all students. These communities, the youth, the youth organizations, formal and informal education organizations, and civic organizations form a learning ecology. The DePaul University researchers will design and implement a smart community infrastructure in the City of Chicago to track real-time student participation in community STEM activities and to develop mobile applications for both students and adults. The smart community infrastructure will bring together information from a variety of sources that affect students' participation in community activities. These include geographic information (e.g., where the student lives, where the activities take place, the student transportation options, the school the student attends), student related information (e.g., the education and experience background of the student, the economic status of the student, students' schedules), and activity information (e.g., location of activity, requirements for participation). The University of Colorado researchers will take the lead on analyzing these data in terms of a community learning ecologies framework and will explore computational approaches (i.e., recommender systems, visualizations of learning opportunities) to improve youth exploration and uptake of interests and programs. These smart technologies are then used to reduce the friction in the learning connection infrastructure (called L3 for informal, formal, and virtual learning) to enable the student to access opportunities for participation in STEM activities that are most feasible and most appropriate for the student. Such a flexible computational approach is needed to support the necessary diversity of potential recommendations: new interests for youth to explore; specific programs based on interests, friends' activities, or geographic accessibility; or programs needed to "level-up" (develop deeper skills) and complete skills to enhance youths' learning portfolios. Although this information was always available, it was never integrated so it could be used to serve the community of both learners and the providers and to provide measurable student learning and participation outcomes. The learning ecologies theoretical framework and supporting computational methods are a contribution to the state of the art in studying afterschool learning opportunities. While the concept of learning ecologies is not new, to date, no one has offered such a systematic and theoretically-grounded portfolio of measures for characterizing the health and resilience of STEM learning ecologies at multiple scales. The theoretical frameworks and concepts draw together multiple research and application domains: computer science, sociology of education, complexity science, and urban planning. The L3 Connects infrastructure itself represents an unprecedented opportunities for conducting "living lab" experiments to improve stakeholder experience of linking providers to a single network and linking youth to more expanded and varied opportunities. The University of Colorado team will employ three methods: mapping, modeling, and linking youth to STEM learning opportunities in school and out of school settings in a large urban city (Chicago). The recommender system will be embedded into youth and parent facing mobile apps, enabling the team to characterize the degree to which content-based, collaborative filtering, or constraint based recommendations influence youth actions. The project will result in two measurable outcomes of importance to key L3 stakeholder groups: a 10% increase in the number of providers (programs that are part of the infrastructure) in target neighborhoods and a 20% increase in the number of youth participating in programs.
This full scale research and development collaborative project between Smith College and Springfield Technical Community College improves technical literacy for children in the area of engineering education through the Through My Window learning environment. The instructional design of the learning environment results from the application of innovative educational approaches based on research in the learning sciences—Egan's Imaginative Education (IE) and Knowledge Building (KB). The project provides idea-centered engineering curriculum that facilitates deep learning of engineering concepts through the use of developmentally appropriate narrative and interactive multimedia via interactive forums and blogs, young adult novels (audio and text with English and Spanish versions), eight extensive tie-in activities, an offline teachers’ curriculum guide, and social network connections and electronic portfolios. Targeting traditionally underrepresented groups in engineering—especially girls—the overarching goals of the project are improving attitudes toward engineering; providing a deeper understanding of what engineering is about; supporting the development of specific engineering skills; and increasing interest in engineering careers. The project will address the following research questions: What is the quality of the knowledge building discourse? Does it get better over time? Will students, given the opportunity, extend the discourse to new areas? What scaffolding does the learning environment need to support novice participants in this discourse? Does the use of narrative influence participation in knowledge building? Are certain types of narratives more effective in influencing participation in knowledge building? Evaluative feedback for usability, value effectiveness, and ease of implementation from informal educators and leaders from the Connecticut After School Network CTASN) will be included. The evaluation will include documentation on the impact of narrative and multimedia tools in the area of engineering education. Currently, there is very little research regarding children and young teen engagement in engineering education activities using narrative as a structure to facilitate learning engineering concepts and principles. The research and activities developed from this proposed project contributes to the field of Informal Science and Engineering Education. The results from this project could impact upper elementary and middle-school aged children and members from underrepresented communities and girls in a positive way.
The Expanding Children’s Interest through Experiential Learning (EXCITE) Project will target K-8th students in expanded learning programs to increase ongoing NASA STEM informal education opportunities for organizations that serve primarily underrepresented and underserved student populations. The AERO Institute will leverage existing collaborations to build capacity of participating organizations in NASA inspired STEM activities. Major partners include Navajo Nation in Arizona, the Beyond the Bell branch of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and the Region 8 of the California After School Program housed in the Ventura County of Education. In addition, the EXCITE Learning Project plans to work with libraries to broaden the scope and impact of NASA’s Education materials and opportunities within underrepresented and underserved local communities. AERO Education specialists will train educators and librarians using the Train-the-Trainer approach. The training sessions will be filmed and made available online via the AERO website and its network on YouTube so that educators and librarians can refresh their understanding as needed.