The Harvard Museums of Science and Culture will improve the ability of middle school teachers to use museum-based digital resources to support classroom instruction aligned with state and national science standards. Working with advisory teachers from five collaborating school districts, the museum will co-create classroom activities, based on digital resources from its collections, along with associated teacher professional development programs at three sites across urban and rural Massachusetts. The project will provide schools with access to classroom-ready resources that successfully support student learning. Teachers will learn how to use these materials, integrate them into their teaching, and enhance their skills to teach science content and practice. External evaluators will assess the project's effectiveness by measuring teacher implementation of the digital resources in the classroom, requests for information and assistance, and changes in teachers' confidence and comfort levels.
This Smart and Connected Community (SCC) project will partner with two rural communities to develop STEMports, an innovative Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning game for workforce development. The game's activities will take players on localized Augmented Reality (AR) missions to both engage in STEM learning challenges and discover emerging STEM careers in their community, specifically highlighting innovations in the fields of sustainable agriculture and aquaculture, forest products, and renewable energy. Community Advisory Teams (CATs) and co-design teams, including youth, representatives from the targeted emerging STEM economies, and decision-makers will partner with project staff to co-design STEMports that reflect the interests, cultural contexts, and envisioned STEM industries of the future for each community.
The project will: (a) design and pilot an AR game for community STEM workforce development; (b) develop and adapt a community engagement process that optimizes community networking for co-designing the gaming application and online community; and (c) advance a scalable process for wider applications of STEMports. This project is a collaboration between the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance and the Field Day Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to both build and research the co-designing of a SCC based within an AR environment. The project will contribute knowledge to the informal STEM learning, community development, and education technology fields in four major ways:
Deepening the understanding of how innovative technological tools support rural community STEM knowledge building as well as STEM identity and workforce interest.
Identifying design principles for co-designing the STEMports community related to the technological design process.
Developing social network approaches and analytics to better understand the social dimensions and community connections fostered by the STEMport community.
Understanding how participants' online and offline interactions with individuals and experiences builds networks and knowledge within a SCC.
With the scaling of use by an ever-growing community of players, STEMports will provide a new AR-based genre of public participation in STEM and collective decision making. The research findings will add to the emerging literature on community-wide education, innovative education technologies, informal STEM learning (especially place-based learning and STEM ecosystems), and participatory design research.
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.
Development of an interactive, multimedia atlas exploring the people, places, and events that shaped key moments in California agriculture.
The Animated Atlas of California Farming History will encourage public thought and dialogue around key historical moments in the development of an industry that has shaped the way America—and the world—eats. The atlas will create a series of online maps that deepen user engagement with an existing set of stories that dig into what may seem like a straightforward subject to uncover often surprising tales of human triumph, loss, ingenuity, abuse and connection. Discovery funding will focus a broad group of scholars on: 1) selecting the best digital platform, 2) designing an engaging user interface, 3) exploring the feasibility of illustrating “alternative” histories using digital mapping programs and 4) identifying digital team members who will build a prototype atlas. Our digital project team will craft a design plan for producing maps that reveal how stories affected the California landscape and spark vibrant public discussion about how that landscape might have looked differently.
In October 2017, the PBS NewsHour team produced a week and a half of opioid-related content, including several online explainers, which presented the opportunity for a natural experiment for the Experiments in Transmedia project.
Knology (formerly New Knowledge Organization Ltd.) conducted a two-wave research study to advance understanding of the youth audience’s knowledge and news consumption on the topic.
The first wave of the study, conducted in September 2017, provides a baseline. The content aired in October 2017, and the second wave of the study, conducted in November 2017, asked a
Ruff Family Science is a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that aims to foster joint media engagement and hands-on science exploration among diverse, low-income parents and their 4- to 8-year-old children. Building on the success of the PBS series FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman, the project leverages FETCH’s funny and charismatic animated host, along with its proven approach to teaching science, to inspire educationally disadvantaged families to explore science together. The project is utilizing a research and design process to create resources that meet the needs of families
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. Informal STEM educational activities have proliferated widely in the US over the last 20 years. Additional research will further validate the long-term benefits of this mode of learning. Thus, elaborating the multitude of variables in informal learning and how those variables can be used for individual learning is yet to be defined for the circumstances of the learners. Thus, the primary objective of this work is to produce robust and detailed evidence to help shape both practice and policy for informal STEM learning in a broad array of common circumstances such as rural, urban, varying economic situations, and unique characteristics and cultures of citizen groups. Rather than pursuing a universal model of informal learning, the principal investigator will develop a series of comprehensive models that will support learning in informal environments for various demographic groups. The research will undertake a longitudinal mixed-methods approach of Out of School Time/informal STEM experiences over a five-year time span of data collection for youth ages 9-19 in urban, suburban, town, and rural communities. The evidence base will include data on youth experiences of informal STEM, factors that exert an influence on participation in informal STEM, the impact of participation on choices about educational pathways and careers, and preferences for particular types of learning activities. The quantitative data will include youth surveys, program details (e.g. duration of program, length of each program session, youth/facilitator ratio, etc.), and demographics. The qualitative data will include on-site informal interviews with youth and facilitators, and program documentation. 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.
This project develops and examines place-based learning using mobile augmented reality experiences for rural families where museums and science centers are scarce yet where natural resources are rich with outdoor trails, parks, and forestlands. The collaborative research team, with members from rural libraries, outdoor learning centers, learning scientists at Penn State University, and rural communities in Pennsylvania, will develop augmented reality and mobile learning resources for families and children aged from 4 to 12. The goal is to help people see what is not visible in real-time in order to learn about life and earth sciences based on local watersheds, trees, and seasonal cycles that are familiar and relevant to rural communities. To accomplish this goal, the project team will create scientifically meaningful experiences for rural families and children in their out-of-school time through three iterations of research and design. Although there is evidence that augmented reality can support learning, little empirical research has been conducted to determine what makes one type of augmented learning experience more effective than others in outdoor learning spaces. This project will produce research findings on the utility of augmented reality for science learning with families and youths outdoors. This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants
Through a four-year design-based research study, researchers will investigate three research questions. (1) How can outdoor learning experiences be enhanced with augmented reality and digital resources in ways that make science more visible and interesting?; (2) How do different forms of augmentations on trails and in gardens support science learning? 3) What social roles do children and parents play in supporting each other's science learning and connections to rural communities? Data collection includes video-recordings of children and families in the outdoors, learning analytics of people's behavior, and interviews with rural families. The project's research design will allow for the development of theory, which supports rural families learning science within and about their communities. At the end of the project, the team will offer generalizable design principles for technologically-enhanced informal learning for outdoor displays, gardens, and trails.
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.
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 derive a nationwide online coaching/mentoring program for out of school educators in rural settings. The program builds on a Noyce Foundation pilot project. The issue to be addressed is that educators in rural settings are challenged in a multitude of ways due to isolation. This project will try to find ways to alleviate some of the consequences of isolation through resource sharing, knowledge sharing, and unique techniques for communicating with students. Partners in this effort are the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, the National AfterSchool Association, Development Without Limits, and the Maine State Library.
By using widely-available technologies, this project will bring fully online instructional coaching in STEM to out-of-school educators who live too remotely to attend ongoing in-person workshops. The project team will achieve this by adapting a highly promising coaching program where groups of educators video-record their own work with youth, practice key skills, and meet regularly to discuss their work. The project will: (a) test technical challenges to achieve fully virtual implementation; (b) design and adapt a specific STEM-skill curriculum to align with different levels of need; (c) customize the model to work with rural librarians; and (d) integrate the work into existing state and national accreditation systems.
Lineage is a comprehensive educational media and outreach initiative that will engage individuals and families in learning about deep time and evolution, helping audiences come to newfound understandings of the connections between the past, present, and future of life on Earth. The project is a partnership between Twin Cities PBS (TPT) and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and is linked to the opening of that museum's new Deep Time Fossil Hall in June 2019. The project includes a two-hour film for national broadcast on PBS, and a 20-minute short version for exhibition in science centers. The documentaries will show how scientists, using paleontology, genetics, earth science and other disciplines, can reconstruct in detail the origins of living animals like birds and elephants, revealing their ancient past as well as evidence of ecological change that can inform our understanding of Earth today. Extensive educational outreach will include the creation of "Bone Hunter," an innovative VR (Virtual Reality) game designed for family co-play that engages multiple players in the process of paleontology as they piece together a fossil in a digital lab. Bone Hunter and other collaborative educational activities will be deployed at Family Fossil Festivals that will attract multi-generational learners. One such Festival will take place at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., while others will be based at geographically diverse institutions that serve underserved rural as well as urban communities. Lineage is a collaboration between national media producers, noted learning institutions and researchers, including Twin Cities Public Television, the Smithsonian Institution / National Museum of Natural History, Schell Games, the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI), and Rockman et al. One of the project's primary innovations is its exploration of new learning designs for families that use cutting-edge technologies (e.g. the Bone Hunter virtual reality game) and collaborative multi-generational learning experiences that advance science knowledge and inquiry-based learning. An external research study conducted by ILI will investigate how intergenerational co-play with physical artifacts compared to virtual artifacts influences STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) learning and engagement. The findings will lead to critical strategic impacts for the field, building knowledge about ongoing innovation in the free choice learning space. The project's external evaluation will be conducted by Rockman et al and evaluative findings, as well as the educational materials derived from the project, will be widely disseminated through partnerships with professional and educator groups. Clips from the Lineage film and related learning resources will be hosted on PBS LearningMedia, so educators can incorporate these resources into their classrooms, and students and lifelong learners can explore and discover on their own. The project outcomes will have broad impact on public audiences, deepening and advancing knowledge and understanding about important scientific concepts, and promoting continued, family-based collaborative learning experiences to expand and deepen STEM knowledge. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning.
Developing and maintaining a diverse, innovative workforce in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (known as STEM) is critical to American competitiveness in the world, but national surveys report a current and future shortage of highly qualified STEM professionals in the US. One problem creating this shortage is that more than half of all college students who declare a major in STEM fields drop out or change their majors in the first two years of their post-secondary education. This problem is particularly acute for first generation college students. If we could increase the STEM degree completion rate by just 25%, we would make up 75% of the additional workforce needed over the next decade.
Our project aims to increase the STEM persistence of first generation college students and focuses on rural students in West Virginia. Project partners including scientists from National Labs, college faculty, local school system staff, informal educators, State Department of Education officials, and West Virginia college students will collaborate to develop summer and academic year activities that support young undergraduates majoring in STEM. Activities that we will pilot include early opportunities to do science research, academic year courses that develop science, math and communication skills, and the formation of Hometown STEM Ambassadors; undergraduate STEM students that encourage younger students back in their hometown schools. We will study the impact of these activities on students' persistence in STEM majors.
Our Project is called FIRST TWO: Improving STEM Persistence in the First Two Years of College (FIRST TWO).
Technical Details:
During the Development Launch Project, partners will create and pilot components of two courses that will confer college credit to students in two and four year schools. Each course will have as its center piece a research and development internship. By the end of the Project Development Pilot, FIRST TWO course modules will be integrated into courses the State, and be transferable between community colleges and four-year schools.
An innovative component of FIRST TWO is the creation of Hometown STEM ambassadors--students who participate in both courses will be prepared to mentor their peers, and also conduct outreach in their home school districts. They will make presentations to hometown K-12 students, and will discuss STEM college readiness issues with local education leaders. We believe reconnecting post-secondary students with their home communities and providing place-based relevance to their STEM education will have a positive impact on their persistence, as well as the added benefit of encouraging K-12 students to envision themselves as future STEM professionals.
FIRST TWO will:
- integrate early experience in STEM internships, online communities of practice and STEM skills development into a discovery-based "principles of research and development" college seminar for first year students;
- sustain engagement through a second service learning course, called STEM Leadership that will develop communication and mentoring skills and produce peer mentors who will mentor younger students, join in the efforts to change the STEM education experience at their schools, and conduct outreach in their hometown communities during the students? second year and third years.
- secure state-wide adoption and transferability of these courses, or course materials, and ultimately scale the program across the Appalachian region and to other states with large rural student populations.
- collaborate with National Labs to determine the feasibility of a National STEM Persistence Alliance partnering National Lab internship programs with 2 and 4-year schools who serve FGC students.
Finally, there are many studies that inquire into the factors that correlate with post-secondary retention in general, and with STEM attrition specifically but few that focus on rural students. FIRST TWO will fully articulate a rigorous educational research project aimed at advancing understanding of the factors affecting rural students' entry into and persistence in STEM career pathways. This research will study the impact FIRST TWO program components make on rural FGC students' persistence in STEM majors. Instruments will be developed and validated that test the components proposed in FIRST TWO interventions. As we scale the program to a larger Alliance, so will the research study scale, providing a unique opportunity to inform the education community about the rural students' experience.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sue HeatherlyKaren ONeilErica Harvey
One common barrier to STEM engagement by underserved and underrepresented communities is a feeling of disconnection from mainstream science. This project will involve citizen scientists in the collection, mapping, and interpretation of data from their local area with an eye to increasing STEM engagement in underrepresented communities. The idea behind this is that science needs to start at home, and be both accessible and inclusive. To facilitate this increased participation, the project will develop a network of stakeholders with interests in the science of coastal environments. Stakeholders will include members of coastal communities, academic and agency scientists, and citizen science groups, who will collectively and collaboratively create a web-based system to collect and view the collected and analyzed environmental information. Broader impacts include addressing the STEM barriers to those who reside in the coastal environment but who are underrepresented in STEM education, vocations and policy-making. These include tribal communities (racial and ethnic inclusion), fishery communities (inclusion of communities of practice), and rural communities without direct access to colleges or universities. This project will create a physical, a social, and a virtual, environment where all participants have an equal footing in the processes of "doing science" - the Coastal Almanac. The Almanac is simultaneously a network of individuals and organizations, and a web-based repository of coastal data collected through the auspices of the network. During the testing phase, the researchers will implement the "rules of engagement" through multiple interaction pathways in the growing Coastal Almanac network: increases in rigorous citizen science, development of specific community-scientist partnerships to collect and/or use Almanac data, development of K-12 programs to collect and/or use Almanac data. The proposed work will significantly scale up citizen science and community-based science programs on the West Coast, broadening participation by targeting members of coastal communities with limited access to mainstream science, including participants from non-STEM vocations, and Native Americans. The innovation of the Coastal Almanac is in allowing the process of deepening involvement in science, and through that process increasing agency of community members to be bona fide members of the science team, to evolve organically, in the manner dictated by community members and the situation, rather than a priori by the project team and mainstream science. The project has the potential in the long-term to increase participation in marine science education, workforce, and policy-making by underrepresented groups resident in the coastal environment. Contributions by project citizen scientists will also provide valuable data to mainstream science and to resource management efforts.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Julia ParrishMarco HatchSelina Heppell
This project had three objectives to build knowledge with respect to advancing Informal STEM Education:
Plan, prototype, fabricate, and document a game-linked design-and-play STEM exhibit for multi-generational adult-child interaction utilizing an iterative exhibit design approach based on research and best practices in the field;
Develop and disseminate resources and models for collaborative play-based exhibits to the informal STEM learning community of practice of small and mid-size museums including an interactive, tangible tabletop design-and-play game and a related tablet-based game app for skateboarding science and technology design practice;
Conduct research on linkages between adult-child interactions and game-connected play with models in informal STEM learning environments.
Linked to these objectives were three project goals:
Develop tools to enable children ages 5-8 to collaboratively refine and test their own theories about motion by exploring fundamental science concepts in linked game and physical-object design challenge which integrates science (Newton’s Laws of Motion) with engineering (iterative design and testing), technology (computational models), and mathematics (predictions and comparisons of speed, distance, and height). [Linked to Objectives 1 & 3]
Advance the informal STEM education field’s understanding of design frameworks that integrate game environments and physical exhibit elements using tangibles and playful computational modeling and build upon the “Dimensions of Success” established STEM evaluation models. [Linked to Objectives 1 & 2]
Examine methods to strengthen collaborative learning within diverse families through opportunities to engage in STEM problem-based inquiry and examine how advance training for parents influences the extent of STEM content in conversations and the quality of interactions between caregivers and children in the museum setting. [Linked to Objectives 1 & 3]
The exhibit designed and created as a result of this grant project integrates skateboarding and STEM in an engaging context for youth ages 5 to 8 to learn about Newton’s Laws of Motion and connect traditionally underserved youth from rural and minority areas through comprehensive outreach. The exhibit design process drew upon research in the learning sciences and game design, science inquiry and exhibit design, and child development scholarship on engagement and interaction in adult-child dyads.
Overall, the project "Understanding Physics through Collaborative Design and Play: Integrating Skateboarding with STEM in a Digital and Physical Game-Based Children’s Museum Exhibit" accomplished three primary goals. First, we planned, prototyped, fabricated, and evaluated a game-linked design-and-play STEM gallery presented as a skatepark with related exhibits for adult-child interaction in a Children's Museum.
Second, we engaged in a range of community outreach and engagement activities for children traditionally underserved in Museums. We developed and disseminated resources for children to learn about the physics of the skatepark exhibit without visiting the Museum physically. For example, balance board activities were made portable, the skatepark video game was produced in app and web access formats, and ramps were created from block sets brought to off-site locations.
Third, we conducted a range of research to better understand adult-child interactions in the skatepark exhibit in the Children's Museum and to explore learning of physics concepts during physical and digital play. Our research findings collectively provide a new model for Children's Museum exhibit developers and the informal STEM education community to intentionally design, evaluate, and revise exhibit set-up, materials, and outcomes using a tool called "Dimensions of Success (DOS) for Children's Museum Exhibits." Research also produced a tool for monitoring the movement of children and families in Museum exhibit space, including time on task with exhibits, group constellation, transition time, and time in gallery. Several studies about adult-child interactions during digital STEM and traditional pretend play in the Museum produced findings about social positioning, interaction style, role, and affect during play.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Deb DunkhaseKristen MissallBenjamin DeVane