CAISE Receives NSF Award for Informal STEM Learning Resource Center

Members of CAISE team and External Review Board

The Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) has received a new five-year award from the National Science Foundation Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program to serve as a resource center for informal STEM education and to explore common challenges and potential synergies with the expanding field of science communication. CAISE’s work will focus on enhancing connectivity, creating and disseminating resources, and building capacity for evaluation and measurement, research and practice and broadening participation in these professional communities. Project Director Jamie Bell will be joined by a leadership team that includes Bronwyn Bevan (University of Washington), Kevin Crowley (University of Pittsburgh), Cecilia Garibay (Garibay Group), and Martin Storksdieck (Oregon State University). CAISE co-PIs, staff and task force leaders will conduct activities that involve cross-community professionals in convenings, online forums and resource generation for the advancement of both fields. The team has also engaged Inverness Research to regularly convene an External Review Board (ERB) to advise the project on strategies and methodologies for measuring its impact. ERB members include Sue Allen from the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, Kevin Brown from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, Louis Gomez from UCLA, Laura Huerta Migus from the Association of Children's Museums, Bruce Lewenstein from Cornell University and Patrick Shields from the Learning Policy Institute. Stay tuned to the InformalScience.org website and monthly CAISE newsletters for news about our plans to launch broadening participation and evaluation and measurement work in the coming year.