The goal of our project is to develop strategies that effectively engage autistic adolescents in informal STEM learning opportunities that promote the self-efficacy and interest in STEM careers that will empower them to seek out career opportunities in STEM fields.
The research aims are to:
1. Identify evidence-based strategies to engage autistic youth in informal STEM learning opportunities that are well matched to their attentional profiles:
Hypothesis 1: Pedagogical strategies vary in how engaging they are for people with diverse attentional profiles; people with more focused
Hero Elementary is a transmedia educational initiative aimed at improving the school readiness and academic achievement in science and literacy of children grades K-2. With an emphasis on Latinx communities, English Language Learners, youth with disabilities, and children from low-income households, Hero Elementary celebrates kids and encourages them to make a difference in their own backyards and beyond by actively doing science and using their Superpowers of Science. The project embeds the expectations of K–2nd NGSS and CCSS-ELA standards into a series of activities, including interactive games, educational apps, non-fiction e-books, hands-on activities, and a digital science notebook. The activities are organized into playlists for educators and students to use in afterschool programs. Each playlist centers on a meaningful conceptual theme in K-2 science learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Joan FreeseMomoko HayakawaBryce Becker
Astronomy has been an inherently visual area of science for millenia, yet a majority of its significant discoveries take place in wavelengths beyond human vision. There are many people, including those with low or no vision, who cannot participate fully in such discoveries if visual media is the primary communication mechanism. Numerous efforts have worked to address equity of accessibility to such knowledge sharing, such as through the creation of three-dimensional (3D) printed data sets. This paper describes progress made through technological and programmatic developments in tactile 3D
Science Hunters is an outreach project which employs the computer game Minecraft to engage children with scientific learning and research through school visits, events, and extracurricular clubs. We principally target children who may experience barriers to accessing Higher Education, including low socioeconomic status, being the first in their family to attend university, and disability (including Special Educational Needs). The Minecraft platform encourages teamwork and makes science learning accessible and entertaining for children, irrespective of background. We employ a flexible approach
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Laura HobbsCarly StevensJackie HartleyCalum Hartley
Supported by the National Science Foundation, the Global Soundscapes! Big Data, Big Screens, Open Ears project employs a variety of informal learning experiences to present the physics of sound and the new science of soundscape ecology. The interdisciplinary science of soundscape ecology analyzes sounds over time in different ecosystems around the world. The major components of the Global Soundscapes project are an educator-led interactive giant-screen theater show, group activities, and websites. All components are designed with both sighted and visually impaired students in mind. Multimedia
The overall purpose of the Kinetic City (KC) Empower project was to examine how informal science activities can be made accessible for students with disabilities. The premise of this project was that all students, including those with disabilities, are interested in and capable of engaging in science learning experiences, if these experiences are accessible to them. Drawing on resources from Kinetic City, a large collection of science experiments, games, and projects developed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the project researched and adapted five after
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Bob HirshonLaureen SummersBabette MoellerWendy Martin
Creating Museum Media for Everyone is an NSF-funded collaborative project of the Museum of Science, the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media, Ideum, and Audience Viewpoints, to further the science museum field's understanding of ways to research, develop, and evaluate digital interactives that are inclusive of all people. As a part of this effort to enable museums to integrate more accessible media into their exhibits to make them more welcoming and educational for visitors with disabilities as well as general audiences, this paper provides an overview of approaches to media accessibility
Kinetic City After School is a project supported by a prior NSF award that has produced over 80 activities in areas typical of after school activities such as computer games/simulations, hands-on activities, active play, and art and writing. This pathways project, KC Empower, will redesign and test five activities of the 80 activities currently developed by Kinetic City using a new approach to increase the representation of children and youth with disabilities in informal science settings. The project will test how universal design principles can be integrated with new technologies, not available when most after school STEM content was created, to address the needs of students with disabilities. The technologies used in the redesign include advanced mobile platforms and applications; search engines that sift through audio, image and video files; gaming input devices that respond to body movements; and information restructuring that allows multiple representations of content. The project will test how universal design guidelines will work with new technologies, in the short-term providing hands-on activities more accessible to students with disabilities, while increasing access for all students. The project is expected to lead to a full scale development project that will update all modules in Kinetic City After School. The target audience is 3rd - 5th grade students. The hypothesis of the project is that designing for disability can strengthen activities designed to increase science knowledge. Rather than making accommodations for persons with disabilities, it is the environment and design that are disabled, and it is better educational practice to rethink the activity from the point of view of all learners, including those with disabilities. Thus the use of universal design will address how best to present material for all users while influenced by the challenges presented by disabled users. The project includes the Coalition for Science After School, the Center for Applied Special Technology and the Afterschool Alliance.
Inclusion, Disabilities, and Informal Science Learning, a report by the CAISE Access Inquiry Group, sets forth a framework for changing this inequity. This white paper offers a theoretical framework for thinking about inclusion of people with disabilities in informal science education (ISE), then reviews current practice in museums (broadly defined), in media and technology, and in youth and community programs. While "investigations located a number of projects, initiatives, and organizations that have sought greater inclusion of people with disabilities in ISE," the report concludes, "these
The Educational Film Center (EFC) is developing a science, engineering, and technology careers exhibit for distribution to science museums and technology centers. The core of the exhibit kiosk, with related career graphics surrounds, is SET/QUEST, an interactive multimedia program for both Macintosh and PC/Windows using CD-Rom as the full motion video source. Teens and preteens will enter an interactive exploration of thirty careers with first person video profiles of people in science and engineering; animated/reality video simulations of a work experience in these fields, decision screens, and a database of over 200 more science and math-based professions. The documentary profiles, database, and a personal interest career match component will also be developed in alternative media formats (video, audio, print) for broad distribution to community and youth education networks, schools, and libraries. Specific emphasis in this project is being placed on reaching and attracting female, minority, and disabled youth. A parent outreach component has been developed and will be implemented by the Directorate of Education & Human Resources Programs of AAAS. The concept of the parent effort is to work directly with and through the national offices of four major national organizations with different institutional community roots -- Science Museums, Public Libraries, Schools, and Community Based Organizations -- to involve parents and families with SET Project materials and to provide them with information with which they can foster their children's pursuit of science and math education and careers in these fields. Initial efforts will be conducted in 18 cities. The project is a collaborative endeavor among three organizations: The Educationa l Film Center which will be responsible for management and development/production of the software and documentary video profiles; The New York Hall of Science which will be responsible for the exhibit kiosk and graphics, will design and develop the student workbook and user installation print, will serve as the principal test site for the exhibit, and will advise on software, interactive multimedia design, and installation options; and COMAP which will be responsible for direct involvement of the Advisory Board, for selecting and hiring content consultants, for assuring the accuracy of the science and math content, for formative and summative evaluation, and for developing and preparing community leader and school users guides for publication. Stephen Rabin, President of EFC, will serve as PI for the project.
The Shared Signing Science Planning Project will develop a prototype of a web-based Signing Science Pictionary. The prototype will be piloted to families and caretakers of deaf and hard of hearing children to study the feasibility and effectiveness of the learning technology and identify the activities that are most effective in helping deaf children learn life science at informal science centers. The project team will also compile a dictionary of science terms with the intention of including the terms in a full version of the Pictionary. The final Pictionary will be comprehensive; including scientific terms from life, physical, Earth, and space science and will be presented in animated sign language accompanied by written explanations and pictorial illustrations. The project will also produce a video guide with a description of activities that parents can implement with their children. The planning project will result in a prototype with 100 life science terms of species found at the three informal science centers the children and parents will visit to test the prototype. These informal sites are hands-on and exploratory featuring marine organisms and a range of terrestrial flora and fauna to touch and interact with. To prepare for the site visits, parents and caretakers of deaf or hard of hearing children will be taught how to use the Pictionary with children through a Flash-based movie that introduces the interactive features and assists the parents in engaging with their children in three activities using the signing scientific vocabulary. The preparatory vocabulary work with the parents and children will lay the educational foundation for the visits to the informal science education sites. Families will test the initial project prototypes with deaf children using a control group for comparison. Pre-tests will be used to assess childrens' vocabulary before use of the Pictionary. Follow up tests will test knowledge of the new words and will include field observations of children in museums, zoos, and farms, where the new terms will come to life in corresponding exhibits. The results of the ongoing evaluation will be compiled into a guide for other developers of similar materials for the deaf community, and will impact the development of the final project. The project will broaden participation of an underserved audience in STEM learning and generate new knowledge about how to effectively integrate emerging learning technologies into exhibits and programs for deaf learners.The project team includes TERC and Vcom3D and collaborators from Gallaudet University Regional Center at Northern Essex Community College, the College of the Holy Cross, and the Learning Center for Deaf Children. Participating informal science education institutions are represented by the EcoTarium, Davis' Farmland, and the Stone Zoo. These partnerships provide the necessary expertise and support for the proposed project to have significant impact on advancing STEM learning in informal settings for children with hearing disabilities through the use of assistive learning technologies.