This paper describes an NSF-funded study which explored the relationship between female-responsive exhibit designs and girls’ engagement. Across three participating science centers, 906 museum visitors ages 8 to 13 were observed at 334 interactive physics, math, engineering, and perception exhibits. We measured girls’ engagement based on whether they chose to use or return to the exhibits, opted to spend more time at them, or demonstrated deeper engagement behavior. Findings suggest that the design strategies identified in our previously developed Female-Responsive Design Framework can inform
The Sustainability Teams Empower and Amplify Membership in STEM (S-TEAMS), an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot project, will tackle the problem of persistent underrepresentation by low-income, minority, and women students in STEM disciplines and careers through transdisciplinary teamwork. As science is increasingly done in teams, collaborations bring diversity to research. Diverse interactions can support critical thinking, problem-solving, and is a priority among STEM disciplines. By exploring a set of individual contributors that can be effect change through collective impact, this project will explore alternative approaches to broadly enhance diversity in STEM, such as sense of community and perceived program benefit. The S-TEAMS project relies on the use of sustainability as the organizing frame for the deployment of learning communities (teams) that engage deeply with active learning. Studies on the issue of underrepresentation often cite a feeling of isolation and lack of academically supportive networks with other students like themselves as major reasons for a disinclination to pursue education and careers in STEM, even as the numbers of underrepresented groups are increasing in colleges and universities across the country. The growth of sustainability science provides an excellent opportunity to include students from underrepresented groups in supportive teams working together on problems that require expertise in multiple disciplines. Participating students will develop professional skills and strengthen STEM- and sustainability-specific skills through real-world experience in problem solving and team science. Ultimately this project is expected to help increase the number of qualified professionals in the field of sustainability and the number of minorities in the STEM professions.
While there is certainly a clear need to improve engagement and retention of underrepresented groups across the entire spectrum of STEM education - from K-12 through graduate education, and on through career choices - the explicit focus here is on the undergraduate piece of this critical issue. This approach to teamwork makes STEM socialization integral to the active learning process. Five-member transdisciplinary teams, from disciplines such as biology, chemistry, computer and information sciences, geography, geology, mathematics, physics, and sustainability science, will work together for ten weeks in summer 2018 on real-world projects with corporations, government organizations, and nongovernment organizations. Sustainability teams with low participation by underrepresented groups will be compared to those with high representation to gather insights regarding individual and collective engagement, productivity, and ongoing interest in STEM. Such insights will be used to scale up the effort through partnership with New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS).
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Amy TuiningaAshwani VasishthPankaj Lai
Physical science and engineering remain the least diverse of all STEM fields---with regard to women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities---across all levels of STEM education and training. SCI-STEPS is an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot that will address this persistent challenge by developing a complete end-to-end pipeline (or system of pathways) from the beginning of college to the PhD, and then into the workforce. Many isolated efforts to broaden participation have shown promise, but they have not produced big enough impact. SCI-STEPS represents a concerted set of coordinated interventions---consciously facilitated, systemically linked, and purposefully disseminated. SCI-STEPS represents a broad regional network among major research universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, comprehensive universities, community colleges, national labs, and major scientific organizations. The goal of the network is to ensure that underrepresented individuals in the physical sciences and engineering can get from their starting point in STEM higher education---freshmen at 2-year or 4-year college---through the higher education pathways leading to an appropriate terminal degree and employment in the STEM workforce.
Women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities collectively represent the majority of college-age individuals entering higher education with an expressed interest in physical science and engineering. A growing body of research indicates that academic and social integration may be even more influential than academic abilities for retention of students. Thus, interventions aimed at stemming the losses of these individuals must ultimately be aimed at changing the system---including unwelcoming institutional climates, racial/ethnic/gender stereotyping, a lack of mentors with whom to identify, and evaluation methods that emphasize conformity over individual capabilities---rather than changing the individual. The SCI-STEPS pilot focuses effort on institutional readiness for implementation of best practice interventions at four key junctures: (i) college freshman to sophomore; (ii) undergraduate to graduate; (iii) PhD to postdoc; and (iv) postdoc to workforce.The pilot will proceed in three steps: (1) a planning phase, (2) development of an initial end-to-end pathways model with four Juncture Transition teams, and (3) scale-up of the SCI-STEPS "network of networks" with all initial partners. By addressing these objectives through a collective impact framework and embedded research, this pilot will demonstrate how best-practice interventions at each pathway juncture can be dovetailed and scaled up across a broad range of institutional types and across a large but distinct geographical area. Addressing these objectives will thus also serve to advance Broadening Participation efforts at a national scale, by suggesting the forms of institutional partnerships and best-practices that may inform other alliances in other STEM disciplines and/or different regional areas.
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Keivan StassunNicole JosephKelly Holley-BockelmannWilliam RobinsonRoger Chalkley
The Exhibit Designs for Girls’ Engagement (EDGE) project is a three-year Exploratorium-run, NSF-funded, research study aiming to identify the most important design attributes for engaging girls at STEM exhibits. We identified nearly 100 exhibit design attributes that had the potential for better engaging girls. To test those 100 attributes and their relationship to girls’ engagement, we studied more than 300 physics, engineering, math, and perception exhibits at the Exploratorium, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Arizona Science Center. The purpose of the EDGE research was to winnow
The University of Alaska Fairbanks will partner with the National Optical and Astronomy Observatory, the University of Alaska Museum of the North, and the University of Washington-Bothell to bring biomaterials, optics, photonics, and nanotechnology content, art infused experiences, and career awareness to art-interested girls. This full scale development project, Project STEAM, will explore the intersections between biology, physics, and art using advanced technologies at the nano to macro scale levels. Middle school girls from predominately underrepresented Alaskan Native, Native American (Tohono O'odham, Pascula Yaqui) and Hispanic groups, their families, teachers, and Girl Scout Troop Leaders in two site locations- Anchorage, Alaska and Tucson, Arizona will participate in the project. Centered on the theme "Colors of Nature," Project STEAM will engage girls in science activities designed to enhance STEM learning and visual-spatial skills. Using advanced technologies, approximately 240 girls enrolled in the Summer Academy over the project duration will work with women scientist mentors, teachers, and Girl Scout Troop Leaders to create artistic representations of natural objects observed at the nano and macro scale levels. Forty girls will participate in the Summer Academy in year one (20 girls per site- Alaska and Arizona). In consequent years, approximately180 girls will participate in the Academy (30 girls per site). Another 1,500 girls are expected to be reached through their Girl Scout Troop Leaders (n=15) who will be trained to deliver a modified version of the program using specialized curriculum kits. In addition, over 6,000 girls and their families are expected to attend Project STEAM Science Cafe events held at local informal science education institutions at each site during the academic year. In conjunction with the programmatic activities, a research investigation will be conducted to study the impact of the program on girls' science identity. Participant discourse, pre and post assessments, and observed engagement with the scientific and artistic ideas and tools presented will be examined and analyzed. A mixed methods approach will also be employed for the formative and summative evaluations, which will be conducted by The Goldstream Group. Ultimately, the project endeavors to increase STEM learning and interest through art, build capacity through professional development, advance the research base on girls' science identity and inspire and interest girls in STEM careers.
The Exhibit Designs for Girls' Engagement (EDGE) PI poster provides the background for the research, the research questions, the steps we are taking to answer those questions, our audience and deliverables, and the challenges we've faced in the first year.
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ExploratoriumToni DancstepVeronica Garcia-Luis
Project STEAM aims to inspire art-interested girls to enter STEM careers through a series of activities, including summer academies that explore the biology and physics of color, science café-style presentations that feature the overlap between art and science, and the development of “kits” that can be used in informal and formal venues (Girl Scouts, science centers, and K-12 classrooms). Project research explores two questions: 1) How does an art-focused approach (STEAM) to teaching science support engagement in scientific practices such as experimentation, observation, and communication of
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University of Alaska, FairbanksLaura Conner
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting held in Washington, DC. It discusses the second season of SciGirls, a multimedia project designed to encourage and empower more girls to pursue careers in STEM.
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Twin Cities Public TelevisionRita Karl
This poster provides an overview, program goals, evaluation plan, and research questions for the AISL project, Techbridge Broad Implementation: An Innovative Model to Inspire Girls in STEM Careers. The poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting.
This research and development project would inform and engage audiences (especially middle school age girls) about the fundamental research under investigation at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. A research plan and summative evaluation will fill a gap in what is known about the public's perception and understanding of the LHC/particle physics and include studies on girl's interest and engagement. Deliverables include a 40 minute giant screen film (3D/2D), full dome planetarium film, an interactive theater lobby exhibit, website, mobile app, materials and professional development workshops for educators. The giant screen film will use scientific visualizations and artistic interpretation to reveal compelling scientific stories recreating conditions following the Big Bang and the discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson. CERN is providing unprecedented access to the collider and particle detectors including filming inside the 17 mile long underground tunnel while it is closed for upgrades in 2013-2014. There are 8 partner science museums (7 with planetariums) that will show the film/exhibit and serve as sites for research, evaluation, and outreach to underserved audiences ( Adventure Science Center, Carnegie Science Center, The Franklin Institute, Liberty Science Center, OMSI, Orlando Science Center, the Smithsonian, and the St. Louis Science Center). Additional distribution/marketing channels include giant screen theaters, planetariums, DVD, and social social media. Launch is targeted for 2016. Learning outcomes will focus on increasing awareness and interest in the LHC and increasing young people's engagement and excitement about the nature of scientific discovery. The research on girl's engagement and interest in physics will fill a gap in field. The project deliverables are projected to reach large audiences through national distribution of the giant screen film, the planetarium show, the exhibit, 3D/2D Blu Ray and DVDs, and access on computers, tablets, and other mobile devices.
The New York Hall of Science, in collaboration with the Tufts Center for Engineering Education, the Learning Games Network, and New York City departments of education and of parks and recreation, is creating and testing two innovative science games to support student learning about frictional force and linear motion. SciGames integrates rigorous, highly motivating, data collection activities conducted in museum and playground settings, with in-depth data analysis and additional scientific investigation in the classroom. The primary goals of the SciGames project are to increase student motivation and interest in science and improve student learning about core physical science concepts. This exploratory project targets underrepresented urban students and their teachers from 20 schools in New York City (NYC) and through its partnership with NYC department of parks and recreation has great potential for scale-up throughout NYC, as well as dissemination to other urban communities. The SciGames model creates experiences for students that build on the positive, fun, free-choice learning characteristics of informal settings; promotes learning through repeated game-like experimentation and play; and supports students' sustained interest and learning in science classrooms where core concepts are formalized. The project is based on four design principles: (1) SciGames turns students' informal experiences into a game, (2) SciGames makes science content an integral part of game play, (3) SciGames generates data for further analysis during game play, and (4) SciGames, through the use of digital apps, supports students inquiring into data back in their classrooms. Researchers are developing the games using rigorous, well constructed, iterative cycles of design, development, testing, evaluation, and revision with different groups of NYC students and teachers. Pre and post data on students\' science learning and affect are being used to inform the design cycles. Over a two-year period, SciGames will produce two science games and associated digital apps, and a portable kit that supports game implementation, data collection and analysis. SciGames is an important experiment, combining the informal, engaging aspects of play with more formal science investigation to encourage and sustain the interest, participation, and learning of underrepresented students in STEM. This project has the potential to transform how we think of and structure science learning for middle school students.
The Franklin Institute and the Girl Scouts of the USA will develop, implement, and evaluate "Girls at the Center," a family outreach program that will foster girl-centered, learning within the context of the family. Partnerships will be promoted between local science and technology centers and Girl Scout Councils. It is a multi- component program that will increase girls' and their families' understanding of and interest in basic science principles and processes. Consisting of a series of family-oriented activities that coincide with the school year, science/technology centers will serve as the hosts. These museum-based activities will be supplemented by home-based activities. The activities will follow the constructivist theory of education and will cover a broad menu of scientific disciplines including ecology, energy, and human physiology as well as science careers opportunities. They will be linked to the requirements for the Girl Scout recognition (badges) program. It is building on the success of a previously NSF funded project "National Science Partnerships for Girls Scout Councils and Museum" and is expected to reach 75,050 girls and 112,575 adults in 25 sites across the US during the funding period. It will be institutionalized and will continue to operate in those sites as well as expand to other sites after the NSF-funded period.