As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. There are few empirical studies of sustained youth engagement in STEM-oriented making over time, how youth are supported in working towards more robust STEM related projects, on the outcomes of such making experiences among youth from historically marginalized communities, or on the design features of making experiences which support these goals. The project plans to conduct a set of research studies to develop: a theory-based and data-driven framework for equitably consequential making; a set of related individual-level and program-level cases with exemplars (and the associated challenges) that can be used by researchers and practitioners for guiding the field; and an initial set of guiding principles (with indicators) for identifying equitably consequential making in practice. The project will result in a framework for equitably consequential making with guiding principles for implementation that will contribute to the infrastructure for fostering increased opportunities to learn among all youth, especially those historically underrepresented in STEM.
Through research, the project seeks to build capacity among STEM-oriented maker practitioners, researchers and youth in the maker movement around equitably consequential making to expand the prevailing norms of making towards more transformative outcomes for youth. Project research will be guided by several questions. What do youth learn and do (in-the-moment and over time) in making spaces that work to support equity in making? What maker space design features support (or work against) youth in making in equitably consequential ways? What are the individual and community outcomes youth experience in STEM-making across settings and time scales? What are the most salient indicators of equitably consequential making, how do they take shape, how can these indicators be identified in practice? The project will research these questions using interview studies and critical longitudinal ethnography with embedded youth participatory case study methodologies. The research will be conducted in research-practice partnerships involving Michigan State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and 4 local, STEM- and youth-oriented making spaces in Lansing and Greensboro that serve historically underrepresented groups in STEM, with a specific focus on youth from lower-income and African American backgrounds.
This one-year Collaborative Planning project seeks to bring together an interdisciplinary planning team of informal and formal STEM educators, researchers, scientists, community, and policy experts to identify the elements, activities, and community relationships necessary to cultivate and sustain a thriving regional early childhood (ages 3-6) STEM ecosystem. Based in Southeast San Diego, planning and research will focus on understanding the needs and interests of young Latino dual language learners from low income homes, as well as identify regional assets (e.g., museums, afterschool programs, universities, schools) that could coalesce efforts to systematically increase access to developmentally appropriate informal STEM activities and resources, particularly those focused on engineering and computational thinking. This project has the potential to enhance the infrastructure of early STEM education by providing a model for the planning and development of early childhood focused coalitions around the topic of STEM learning and engagement. In addition, identifying how to bridge STEM learning experiences between home, pre-k learning environments, and formal school addresses a longstanding challenge of sustaining STEM skills as young children transition between environments. The planning process will use an iterative mixed-methods approach to develop both qualitative and quantitative and data. Specific planning strategies include the use of group facilitation techniques such as World Café, graphic recording, and live polling. Planning outcomes include: 1) a literature review on STEM ecosystems; 2) an Early Childhood STEM Community Asset Map of southeast San Diego; 3) a set of proposed design principles for identifying and creating early childhood STEM ecosystems in low income communities; and 4) a theory of action that could guide future design and research. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments.
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. The project will collaboratively design, test and study effective and efficient ways to develop embedded assessments (EAs) of citizen science (CS) volunteer scientific inquiry skills in order to better understand the impact of these CS experiences on volunteer scientific inquiry abilities. EAs are assessment activities that are integrated into the learning experience and allow learners to demonstrate their competencies in an unobtrusive way. The acquisition of scientific inquiry skills is an essential, even defining, characteristic of citizen science experiences that has a direct influence on data quality. Methods for assessing the direct impact of CS on volunteers' scientific inquiry skills are limited. The project will result in EA measures designed for use by diverse CS projects, strategies that CS projects can use to develop EA assessment tools, and research findings that document opportunities, supports and barriers of this innovative method across a range of CS contexts. Findings and initial resources will be shared with the broad array of stakeholders in CS through conferences, workshops, peer-reviewed publication, community websites and other relevant venues. The results of this work also have the potential to generalize to other informal science learning experiences that engage the public in science The project will address two research questions: (1) What processes are useful for developing broadly applicable EA methods or measures? and (2) What can we learn about gains in volunteers' scientific inquiry skills when citizen science organizations use EA? These will be addressed through design-based research focused on two streamlining strategies. For the reframing data validation strategy, six leaders from five established citizen science projects will conduct secondary analyses of their existing databases to uncover the skill gains of CS volunteers that are currently unexplored in their data. For the common measure strategy, ten CS projects will collaborate to create and test common EA measures of select identification-based skills. Data will be gathered through meeting notes, participant interviews and action plans, and volunteer skill gains to capture process and products of each strategy. Data will be analyzed using grounded theory, multiple process techniques, multilevel models, and repeated-measures analysis of variance. The design-based-research framework will significantly expand project impacts by jump-starting evaluation of the participating CS projects and by producing initial resources for two distinct EA strategies that have the potential to dramatically alter practice and impact citizen science efforts to ultimately enable more people to learn by contributing to the science endeavor. The project will directly equip the 15 participating citizen-science projects with authentic performance tools to assess the quality of their programing, which will expand their understanding of CS volunteer skills and help them better recruit and support their varied audiences (including rural, low-income and tribal communities).
In this case study, we highlight the work of the Bay Area STEM Ecosystem, which aims to increase equity and access to STEM learning opportunities in underserved communities. First, we lay out the problems they are trying to solve and give a high level overview of the Bay Area STEM Ecosystem’s approach to addressing them. Then, based on field observations and interviews, we highlight both the successes and some missed opportunities from the first collaborative program of this Ecosystem. Both the successes of The Bay Area STEM Ecosystem--as well as the partners’ willingness to share and examine
How do afterschool programs view their local public libraries? Are they working with them, and in what ways? These are the questions that the Afterschool Alliance, along with its partners at the Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) and the American Library Association, wanted to answer. Overall, our goal is to build bridges between the afterschool and library fields, so that both can share knowledge and resources to better serve our youth. While our work together has primarily focused on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education through
Scientific institutions are increasingly embracing values of inclusivity and public engagement, but how do these two dimensions intersect? Science festivals have rapidly expanded in recent years as an outgrowth of these values, aiming to engage and educate the public about scientific topics and research. While resources invested in public engagement by scientists, universities, and governments are admirable in principle; this study indicates that their ambition to broaden the reach of science may be going unrealized in practice. Using data from three major UK science festivals, we demonstrate
The importance of increasing and widening participation in post-compulsory science and informal science learning (ISL) spaces is widely recognized—particularly for working-class and minority ethnic communities. While there is a growing understanding of the intersection of femininity with class, ethnicity, and science learning across formal and informal settings, there has been little work on how masculinity may shape urban boys’ science (non)participation and (dis)engagement. This article analyzes performances of masculinity enacted by 36 urban, working-class boys (from diverse ethnic
The National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB) is a nationally recognized high school academic competition that provides a forum for talented students to excel in science, mathematics and technology and introduces team members, their teacher/coaches, schools and communities to ocean sciences as an interdisciplinary field of study and a possible future career path. Established by the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education in 1998 (the Year of the Ocean), the program operates within a supportive learning community framework that involves the ocean research community in pre-college education and stimulates broad interest in and excitement about science and the oceans. The basic model for NOSB is that of a two-tiered timed competition in which pairs of four-student teams answer multiple-choice, short-answer and critical thinking questions within multiple categories related to the oceans. Each fall, over 400 participating high schools prepare their teams for 25 regional ocean sciences bowl competitions held across the United States in February and early March. Winners of these Regional Bowls advance to the national finals in late April. The current structure layers a rich array of year-round academic elements onto the basic competition framework and offers a range of program enhancements including summer internships and scholarships for NOSB alumni and opportunities for teacher professional development. Four regional bowls currently receive additional funding to expand recruitment efforts and provide mentoring and field trip experiences for students from racial, ethnic and economic groups underrepresented in the ocean sciences. CORE proposes to continue to administer and manage the National Ocean Sciences Bowl for the next five years (April 2007-March 2012). Funds are requested to add two new sites and expand the diversity initiative. To improve the credentials of the nation's teachers and informal educators, the proposal seeks funding for coach and regional coordinator professional development including a focus on the fundamental principles and concepts of ocean literacy recently developed by the ocean education community. An additional new element is a longitudinal study of educational and career paths that will assess the role that the program plays in encouraging talented students to enter the pipeline into ocean science careers and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) professions. By supporting and promoting the program's unique educational and experiential opportunities, all NOSB partners and sponsors contribute to helping our nation better prepare K-12 students in science and technology and identify and cultivate future scientists and technical experts.
Ideas from social justice can help us understand how equity issues are woven through out-of-school science learning practices. In this paper, I outline how social justice theories, in combination with the concepts of infrastructure access, literacies and community acceptance, can be used to think about equity in out-of-school science learning. I apply these ideas to out-of-school science learning via television, science clubs and maker spaces, looking at research as well as illustrative examples to see how equity challenges are being addressed in practice. I argue that out-of-school science
Learn how to create opportunities for young people from low-income, ethnically diverse communities to learn about growing food, doing science, and how science can help them contribute to their community in positive ways. The authors developed a program that integrates hydroponics (a method of growing plants indoors without soil) into both in-school and out-of-school educational settings.
In this essay, Shirin Vossoughi, Paula Hooper, and Meg Escude advance a critique of branded, culturally normative definitions of making and caution against their uncritical adoption into the educational sphere. The authors argue that the ways making and equity are conceptualized can either restrict or expand the possibility that the growing maker movement will contribute to intellectually generative and liberatory educational experiences for working-class students and students of color. After reviewing various perspectives on making as educative practice, they present a framework that treats
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and workforce development in the US are critical for global competitiveness and national security. However, the U.S. is facing a decrease in entrants to the STEM workforce which is not shared evenly across demographics. Specifically, women, underrepresented minorities, and people with disabilities obtain STEM degrees and enter the STEM workforce at levels significantly below their demographic representation in the U.S. The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES) program supports models, networks, partnerships and research to ensure the broadening participation in STEM of women, members of racial and ethnic groups that have been historically underrepresented, persons of low socio-economic status, and people with disabilities. This conference focuses on collective impact as a strategy to address the broadening participation challenge. Collective impact is distinguished from collaboration in that the alliances require a backbone organization to succeed. The goal of this project is to organize a conference to inform backbone organizations toward broadening participation in STEM education and the workforce.
The conference takes place at the University of California, San Diego January 20-22, 2017 and brings together Project Investigators from the Design and Development pilots, along with stakeholders in broadening participation in STEM on a local, regional, and national scale. The overarching goal of the conference is to develop the knowledge base of participants in the application of the collective impact model, and the role of backbone organizations to address specific issues and transition points of the STEM pipeline. Conference participants include K-12, community college, and university representatives; leaders in graduate education, policy makers and private sector employers. The conference includes plenary sessions, flash presentations, and interactive workgroups engaged in the development of collective impact approaches to problems in Broadening Participation in STEM. Workgroups share their insights, and audience feedback is electronically curated via Twitter and Storify. To respond in real time to participant questions or insights this conference uses the innovative platform, IdeaWave, to solicit, sort and value ideas from the attendees before, during, and after the conference. Conference results are integrated into a final report to inform the NSF INCLUDES Alliances backbone organizations. The intellectual merit of the project is that it advances knowledge about the barriers to broadening participation in STEM education and the workforce, the collective impact model, and the role of the backbone organization to guide the vision and strategy, and support the activities, evaluation, and communication of the NSF INCLUDES Alliances. The broader impact of this project is that it benefits society by informing backbone organizations, which leads to broadening participation of the STEM workforce and ultimately increases U.S. global competitiveness and national security.