The goal of the National Science Foundation?s Research Coordination Network (RCN) program is to advance a field or create new directions in research or education by supporting groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, geographic and international boundaries. This RCN will bring together scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of equity and interdisciplinary making in STEM education. Making is a culture that emphasizes interest-driven learning by doing within an informal, peer-led and creative social environment. Hundreds of maker spaces and maker-oriented classroom pedagogies have developed across the country. Maker spaces often include digital technologies such as computer design, 3-D printers, and laser cutters, but may also include traditional crafts or a variety of artist-driven creations. The driving purpose of the project is to collectively broaden STEM-focused maker participation in the United States through pursuing common research questions, sharing resources, and incubating emergent inquiry and knowledge across multiple working sites of practice. The network aims to build capacity for research and knowledge, building in consequential and far-reaching mechanisms to leverage combined efforts of a core group of scholars, practitioners, and an extended network of formal and informal education partners in urban and rural sites serving people from groups underrepresented in STEM. Maker learning spaces can be particularly fruitful spaces for STEM learning toward equity because they foster interest-driven, collective, and community-oriented learning in making for social and community change. The network will be led by a team of multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary researchers from different geographic regions of the United States and guided by a steering committee of prominent researchers and practitioners in making and equity will convene to facilitate network activities.
Equitable processes are rooted in a commitment to understand and build on the skills, practices, values, and knowledge of communities marginalized in STEM. The research network aims to fill in gaps in current understandings about making and equity, including the many ways different projects define equity and STEM in making. The project will survey the existing research terrain to develop a dynamic and cohesive understanding of making that connects to learners' STEM ideas, communities, and historical ways of making. Additionally, the network will collaboratively develop central research questions for network partners. The network will create a repository for ethical and promising practices in community-based research and aggregate data across sites, among other activities. The network will support collaboration across a multiplicity of making spaces, research institutions, and community organizations throughout the country to share data, methodologies, ways of connecting to local communities and approaches to robust integration of STEM skills and practices. Project impacts will include new research partnerships, a dissemination hub for research related to making and equity, professional development for researchers and practitioners, and leveraging collective research findings about making values and practices to improve approaches to STEM-rich making integration in informal learning environments. The project is funded by NSF's Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of settings. 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.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
In this article we describe a model designed for rural settings that uses community-based “STEM Guides” as human brokers to engage isolated 10- to 18-year-old youth in STEM. The STEM Guides connect youth with opportunities that already exist in their communities, including after-school programs, clubs, camps, library activities, special events, contests, and competitions. STEM Guides also introduce youth and their families to virtual opportunities, such as citizen science monitoring, and statewide experiences, such as the Maine State Science Fair.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jan MokrosJennifer AtkinsonSue AllenAlyson SaundersKate Kastelein
This article describes the research and development of an NSF-funded, five-year experimental program to strengthen informal (out-of-school) STEM learning by youth in five rural communities. The central component of the model was a cadre of community members known as ‘STEM Guides’ who were hired to work as brokers between youth and the STEM learning resources potentially available to them. These STEM Guides were respected adults with credible connections to youth, flexible schedules, the ability to travel within the community, and enthusiasm for identifying local STEM resources. The Guides were
This document is the final summative evaluation report written by EDC, the external evaluator of the STEM Guides project. The report concludes that the project was highly ambitious, with many dynamic and evolving pieces. It was deemed successful as a model of brokering connections between students aged 10-18 and STEM resources and opportunities in rural Maine communities. The STEM Guides program contributed to the increase in STEM awareness within each community, as well as connecting youth with interesting and relevant STEM experiences.
The employment demands in STEM fields grew twice as fast as employment in non-STEM fields in the last decade, making it a matter of national importance to educate the next generation about science, engineering and the scientific process. The need to educate students about STEM is particularly pronounced in low-income, rural communities where: i) students may perceive that STEM learning has little relevance to their lives; ii) there are little, if any, STEM-related resources and infrastructure available at their schools or in their immediate areas; and iii) STEM teachers, usually one per school, often teach out of their area expertise, and lack a network from which they can learn and with which they can share experiences. Through the proposed project, middle school teachers in low-income, rural communities will partner with Dartmouth faculty and graduate students and professional science educators at the Montshire Museum of Science to develop sustainable STEM curricular units for their schools. These crosscutting units will include a series of hands-on, investigative, active learning, and standards-aligned lessons based in part on engineering design principles that may be used annually for the betterment of student learning. Once developed and tested in a classroom setting in our four pilot schools, the units will be made available to other partner schools in NH and VT and finally to any school wishing to adopt them. In addition, A STEM rural educator network, through which crosscutting units may be disseminated and teachers may share and support each other, will be created to enhance the teachers’ ability to network, seek advice, share information, etc.
This project will engage community members and youth in 13 rural, tribal, and Hispanic communities in the Four Corners Region of the south western U.S. with the science and cultural assets of water. Water is a significant and scarce resource in this geographic area. The Four Corners Region experiences low annual precipitation and high year-to-year fluctuations in water availability. Thus, water is a topic of great interest to community members, whose lives are shaped by water-related events such as drought, flood, and wildfires. Rural tribal, and Hispanic communities are often underserved with respect to science programming; their public libraries often function as the local science center. The project's inter-disciplinary team will develop, deploy, research, and evaluate an interactive traveling exhibit for small libraries, designed around regional water topics and complemented by interactive programming and community engagement events. Additionally, the team will build local capacity by fostering a community of practice among the host librarians, including participation through a support system--the STAR Library Network--to increase their science programming.
This project creates a traveling exhibit and complementary programming around water topics. Through an exhibit co-design model, communities will provide input in the exhibit development, identify water topics that are critical to them, and engage the multi-generational audiences. The exhibit merges the captivating attraction of water with the underlying science content and community context, giving patrons the opportunity to explore these topics through active learning stations, informational panels, citizen science-based activities, and an interactive regional watershed model. Artistic representations of water will be developed by community groups and incorporated into the exhibit as a dynamic display element.
Project goals are to:
Spark interest in and increase understanding of water as a critical resource and cultural asset across rural, tribal, and Hispanic communities in the Four Corners Region.
Increase availability of and access to engaging programming for underserved rural, tribal, and Hispanic communities focusing on the science and cultural aspects of water in the Four Corners Region.
Build capacity for libraries to implement water-focused science programs, and increase available science learning and science communication resources tailored to these informal learning settings.
Foster a Community of Practice (CoP) for participating librarians to support the development of their programming and content knowledge.
Advance the body of research on informal learning environments and their role in developing community members' science ecosystems and science identities, particularly in library settings.
The project team will rigorously assess the extent to which program approaches and components stimulate patrons' interest in science, increase science knowledge, and support building a personal science identity. The model is based on the STEM Learning Ecosystems Framework. Robust evaluation will guide the program development through a front-end needs assessment and iterative revision cycles of implementation strategies.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
The STAR Library Network Phase 2 (STAR Net) brings inquiry-based STEM learning experiences to public libraries through six traveling exhibits, training for library staff and associated programming for library patrons, and a virtual community of practice for library staff and others interested in bringing STEM programming to libraries. In 2014, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a four-year grant to the Space Science Institute’s (SSI) National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) and its partners—the American Library Association (ALA), the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ginger FitzhughSarah ArmstrongSheila RodriguezVicky Coulon
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The STAR Library Network Phase 2 (STAR Net) brings inquiry-based STEM learning experiences to public libraries through six traveling exhibits, training for library staff and associated programming for library patrons, and a virtual community of practice for library staff and others interested in bringing STEM programming to libraries. In 2014, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a four-year grant to the Space Science Institute’s (SSI) National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) and its partners—the American Library Association (ALA), the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ginger FitzhughSarah ArmstrongSheila RodriguezVicky Coulon
This poster was presented at the 2019 NSF AISL Principal Investigators meeting.
The poster describes the Rural Activation and Innovation Network, in which four Arizona regions were selected for their uniqueness in geography and demographics to provide insights about barriers and solutions to implementing ISE experiences in rural communities.
This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by bringing together youth (grades 2-5), their families, librarians, and professional engineers in an informal environment centered on engaging youth with age-appropriate, technology-rich STEM learning experiences fundamental to the engineering design process. The overarching aim is to better understand how youth's learning preferences or dispositions relate to their STEM learning experiences. It also seeks to build community members' capacity to inspire and educate youth about STEM careers. The project team includes the Space Science Institute's (SSI) National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL), the University of Virginia (UVA) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). This team builds on the scope and reach of a prior NSF-funded project called the STAR Library Education Network (STAR_Net). As an extension of this prior work, Project BUILD will collaborate with 6 public libraries (3 urban and 3 rural) and their local ASCE Branches. Two libraries have been selected to serve as pilots: High Plains Public Library in Colorado and the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center in Florida. All partner libraries will develop a plan for recruiting participants from groups currently underrepresented in STEM professions. Project BUILD's specific aims are to 1) Engage underserved audiences, 2) Build the capacity of participating librarians and ASCE volunteers, 3) Increase interest and engagement in STEM activities for youth in grades 2-5 and their families, and 4) Conduct a comprehensive education research project. Program components include the following: 1) Community Dialogue Events, 2) a Professional Development Program for partner librarians and ASCE volunteers, and 3) Development of a Technology-rich Programming Kit and Circulating STEM Kit program. Two research questions will be addressed: 1) What common factors might identify youth who engage in project activities and what factors might differentiate between youth who continue with program engagement and those who do not? and 2) What programmatic factors (i.e. design and composition of program activities, library recruitment, librarian engagement, professional engineer engagement, etc.) might influence youth's initial and continued engagement in project activities as well as youth's reported future career interests? An external evaluation will investigate the quality of the project's process as well as its impact and effectiveness. Benefits to the participating libraries' communities, library and engineering professionals, and the education community will be achieved through 1) Community Dialogue events; 2) Library and Librarian Outreach; 3) ASCE Outreach; and 4) Publication of Research and Evaluation results.
Aligning for Impact: Computer Science Pathways Across Contexts [CS-PAC] is an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot. It broadens participation of students who are underrepresented in computer science by using the convening and policy-making power of the Georgia State Department of Education to coalesce school district leaders to implement K-12 computer science education. The project provides a national model for how to work toward systemic change. With the State Department of Education's coordination, several school districts will collaboratively seek improvements in their own student participation rates. The coordination of data reporting and analysis, resources, communications, and policy promote more equitable participation in computer science education. Research emerging from this project informs other states about how to collaboratively shape computer science education policy and policy implementation.
Using a Collective Impact approach to systemic change, the project creates sustainable institutional change at the community, state, and national levels. Qualitative and quantitative data provide descriptions about how to utilize alignment strategies within Collective Impact in three different contexts: rural, suburban, and urban. Outcomes utilize a regression discontinuity analysis to justify successful implementation as well as qualitative analysis of implementation efforts that were deemed most effective by all stakeholders. The project outputs directly affect over 88,000 students across five districts and indirectly affect over 1.7 million in Georgia alone. The culminating project goal is the development of a coherent framework for aligning K-12 computer science education pathways.