Welcome 2014

The Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) co-principal investigators, staff and advisors wish all in the STEM education communities- informal, formal and everything in-between a productive, rewarding new year.

In our January newsletter, we include pieces that follow up on or are related our major initiatives. The Portal to the Public program has participated in and informed our Broader Impacts and Informal Science Education (ISE) initiative as their PoP network grows to include a variety of ISE institutions, programs and projects that are partnering with scientists and STEM-based professionals. The exciting news about InformalScience.org users’ access to the EBSCO Education Research Complete database and the upcoming online forum on the 21st Century Learning in Natural History Settings are the latest developments in our Practice-and-Research and Web Infrastructure initiatives.

Finally, our report from the field on the six projects that came together in Palo Alto last month to share and compare their approaches to assessing the outcomes of informal STEM learning experiences follows on the CAISE Evaluation Capacity Building initiative in June 2013, where common measures, sharing and access, professional development and advocacy and value were among the issues that rose to the top of what we expect will be continuing discussions among ISE evaluators, researchers, practitioners, funders and other stakeholders. CAISE will continue to track, support and disseminate work related to all of our initiatives through our online resources and communication channels throughout the year.