Youth Panel: Neurodivergent Learners' Perspectives on Co-Design, Their Roles, and Its Importance  

• Teon Edwards, TERC: Broadening Participation in Informal STEM Learning for Autistic Learners and Others through Virtual Reality

• Sinead O’Brien and Elizabeth Kilgallon: Promoting Engagement in Informal STEM Learning as a Path to Employment for Autistic Adolescents

• Daniel Lougen, Landmark (graduated)   

• Gerald Belton, Landmark (graduated)  

• Ibrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki, TERC  

• Nick Bruzzese 

Session Description: Guided by the ethos “nothing about us without us”, the EdGE team at TERC has been working with neurodivergent co-designers to create inclusive informal STEM learning experiences. As part of this AISLproject, EdGE designers and researchers and Landmark College learners co-designed the VR STEM game Europa Prime, helping to shape all aspects of the experience, including gameplay and aesthetics, and ensuring the sensory, attention, and social aspects were appropriate for a broad audience of learners. Another group of co-designers has been working on a museum maker experience that introduces youth to the brain and to simple BCI devices that allow them to build interactions with signals from the brain. Both projects aim to increase the number of neurodivergent youth aware of and interested in STEM and careers in STEM. 

In this Youth Panel, you’ll hear directly from some of the neurodivergent learners who have been involved in these co-design processes.  

Diverse Approaches to Rural Engagement

• Amanda Bastoni, CAST: STEM Pathways for Rural Youth: Developing STEM Identity Through the Outdoors

• Marisa Wolsky, WGBH Educational Foundation and Marvin Jeter: Fostering Joint Parent/Child Engagement in Preschool Computational Thinking by Leveraging Digital Media, Mobile Technology, and Library Settings in Rural Communities

• David Gagnon: Expedition VRctica: Utilizing Public Library Systems To Engage Rural and Latinx Communities in Polar Research

Session Description: This presentation will focus on the barriers and creative strategies that researchers experienced and developed in trying to engage rural youth in research. Participants will learn about three different projects all focused on the experience of rural youth and families with approaches as varied as computational thinking, outdoor recreation economy, and virtual reality.

Concurrent Session 3

Workshop: Beyond Broadening Participation

Speakers: Evelyn Valdez-Ward and Rob Ulrich, Reclaiming STEM Institute

Session Description: This workshop is centered around the Academic Wheel of Privilege. This innovative model dissects twenty identity types across seven crucial categories, revealing the complex interplay of privilege within academia and research settings. As we explore the concentric rings, participants will gain profound insights into their roles within projects and the broader academic landscape. Participants will learn to navigate workspaces with heightened self-awareness, understand the nuanced ways in which our identities influence their contributions, and work towards more inclusive and impactful academic collaborations.

REVISE Listening Session: Building a Community of Community Practioners 

Speakers: Selene Gonzalez-Carillo, REVISE/Witarita, Diane Miller, REVISE/Detroit Zoological Society, Verónika Núñez, Adelante Mujeres 

Happily Ever After: Bringing a Project to Closure

Speakers: Martha Merson and Andee Rubin, TERC; Amanda Bastoni, CAST; Jessica Roberts, Georgia Institute of Technology

Session Description: This panel is designed as a catalyst for discussing the end game of an AISL funded project. Over the course of a couple years, plans can change. Resources intended for dissemination may have been deployed on other aspects of the project. With perspectives from different PIs, the session will focus on how AISL project leaders can bring their important project work to closure

Session Slides

Community-Based Research & Partnerships 

• Breanne Litts, Utah State University: CAREER: Broadening Perspectives of Science, Technology, and Culture Through Community-Driven Design of Place-Based Storytelling Experiences

• Maria Anderson-Coto, University of California, Irvine: Stimulating STEM in the City: Co-Designing with Latine Families to Promote Informal STEM Learning​

• Margarita Jimenez-Silva, University of California Davis: Comunidad de Ciencia: Building Latina STEM Interest through Community Cultural Wealth and Familial Problem-Based Learning

• Gale Stanley and Lynn Hodge, University of Tennessee: Mathematizing, Visualizing, and Power (MVP): Appalachian Youth Becoming Data Artists for Community Learning

Session Description: This session will showcase four projects and delve into how to cultivate and sustain authentic community partnerships. Presenters will discuss place-based storytelling, co-creating alongside the community, and strategies for recruiting and retaining program participants.

Family STEM Learning in Dynamic Ways & Contexts

• Bradley Morris, Kent State University: Food for Thought: Igniting, Engaging, and Measuring Family STEM Learning Using a Food Lab
• Scott Pattison, TERC and Julie Allen, Head Start: Head Start on Engineering
• Cindy Gravillie, Mary Gould Mountain West Equity Collaborative/Saint Louis University: STEM Ecologies of Learning for Families: Supporting Intergenerational Learning through University-Prison Partnerships
• Sandra Sheppard, WNET, NY Public Media Yolanda House: Using Media and Texting to Foster STEM Learning in Low-Income and Latinx Families

Session Slides

Session Description: Food science, equity in engineering, prison partnerships, and texting - you do not want to miss this session! Presenters will share a diverse array of perspectives on family learning in STEM as well as strategies, activities, and approaches to transformative engagement.

Indigenous Voices on Multiple Ways of Knowing in STEM

• Hanford McCloud, Juan Carlos Chavez, Blue Marble Space Institute of Science: STEM for Youth in Native Communities

• Jaymee Davis Kimela Keahiolalo: ʻĀINA-IS: Leveraging Community-Based Organizations to Develop and Study Native Hawaiian Ethos-Driven (ʻĀINA-BASED) Environmental Science Activities

Session Description: Join us for an Indigenous led session that will highlight AISL projects that focus on how to best work with local tribal communities and reckon with living in a system that has a history of racism and colonization embedded in rituals of daily living and thought. Presenters will share insights into their approach of bringing the two knowledges together for increasing Indigenous STEM representation while concurrently celebrating contributions from Western knowledge.

Concurrent Session 4

Ask a Community Organizer: Building Equitable, Trustful & Sustainable  Relationships

Speakers: Daniel Aguirre, Pueblo Collab, Selene Gonzalez-Carillo, REVISE/Witarita 

Session Description: Grassroots organizing, relationship building, and community engagement practitioners hold direct knowledge for how transactional and at times, harmful, scientific research and outreach can be. During this session, you will have an opportunity to hear valuable lessons two organizers have earned in their careers and how you may be able to avoid some difficult lessons. Attendees will have an opportunity to workshop some of the existing challenges you may be facing or discuss a planned approach for your own upcoming community facing efforts

Fishbowl Discussion: Considerations, Challenges, and Successes for Equitable Scaling

Speakers: Stephen Alkins, REVISE/TERC, Tara Cox, National Girls Collaborative Project, Emily Early, National Girls Collaborative Project; Erin Stafford, Education Development Center; April Caldwell, Girls Inc., NYC

Session Description: Scaling informal STEM education (ISE) programs is a complex undertaking and the focus of many AISL projects, both past and present. Yet, most knowledge and frameworks for scaling are derived from research in formal school settings and do not consider the unique opportunities and challenges of the informal STEM learning landscape, especially regarding equity. Join this critical conversation by participating in a moderated fishbowl discussion to consider principles for equitable scaling and share how they align with or challenge your projects and work.

Evaluating Equity: Measuring Impact of Equity-Oriented Efforts

Speakers:Evelyn Valdez-Ward & Rob Ulrich, Reclaiming STEM Institute

Session Description: Participants will explore how to apply the culturally relevant evaluation approach in their own programs, acknowledging their inherent limitations and explore alternative methodologies. This workshop offers an opportunity for participants to refine their approach in measuring the impact of equity-oriented initiatives, and center their participants needs. Participants will gain invaluable insights and practical tools to advance their organization's commitment to inclusivity and social justice through evaluation methods

STE(A)M Blending the Arts and Science Engagement

• Rebecca Stenberg, Lauren Vogelstein, New York University: Choreographing Science

• Dionne Champion and Foloshade Solomon, TERC: Using the Lenses of Physics and Dance to Investigate Learning, Engagement, and Identity Development for Black and Latinx Youth

• Sheri Vasinda, Oklahoma State University and Elizabeth Murray: One Community, One Challenge: Pop-up STEAM Makerspaces

• Amanda Dickes, Gulf of Maine Research Institute: Leveraging the Power of Reflection and Visual Representation in Middle- Schoolers' Learning During and After an Informal Science Visit

Session Description: Come to this session to join four presenters in exploring strategies and experiences in blending the arts in STEM through dance, physics, digital notebooks, and pop-up maker spaces. Presenters will share how embracing a diversity of approaches can lead to more creative problem-solving, improved decision-making, and a richer project experience overall. Participants are welcome to share successes and pitfalls that may support others in developing inclusive engagements.

Cultivating Black & Brown STEM Identity

• Alison Legg, University of Pittsburgh,  Priya Mohabir, and David Bild: The STEM PUSH Network: Establishing a Novel Accreditation Model for Pre-College STEM Programs

• Renee Lyons, Clemson University Science Outreach Center and Gail Awan: Using Storytelling and a Justice-oriented STEM Afterschool Club as Critical Tools for Cultivating African American Youths' STEM Identities

• Tra’Naya Gross and Jay Gillen, Baltimore Algebra Project: Youth-Directed Math Collaboratories and Mathematical Identity

Session Description: Come to this presentation which will showcase three different perspectives on how the experiences of black and brown youth shape their STEM identity. In this session presenters will discuss how STEM programs are engaging youth of color and how these experiences can also be leveraged for reducing barriers to college admission. The session will also explore how youth voice is positioned in crafting STEM programs in storytelling and explore the development of math identities.

Decolonizing Science? Film for Dialogue

• Kendall Moore, Amelia Moore, University of Rhode Island

• Martha Merson, TERC

Session Description: "Decolonizing Science?" is the working title for a feature length documentary about western science, with its logics rooted in colonization, and how some aspects of that are being dealt with in places such as museums, etc. The film shows how faculty and staff at museums, archives, universities, and other institutions are reckoning with collections, naming, and other traces and structures based on racist ideas and extractive practices. During the session, the filmmaker and project team will talk about the premise of the film, show excerpts, and engage the audience in discussion. The project team is keen to hear reactions from the ISE community and to open critical discussions about how the film could be used around the country as a resource to jumpstart difficult conversations among colleagues, partners, and community members.