As providers of informal STEM education, including libraries, grapple with the issue of offering inclusive programs and meeting the needs of their specific communities, potential program facilitators seek knowledge and guidance to develop and deliver effective STEM programming for underserved populations. Key questions that might be asked include: Have best practices been identified for effectively engaging underserved audiences? What key strategies, if any, have emerged from previous informal science education efforts that can inform new program development? Over the past 10 to 20 years
The Self-Reliance Foundation (SRF) Conociendo Tu Cuerpo (Know Your Body) Hispanic Community Health Sciences Education project is an initiative designed to introduce Hispanic students and families to biomedical science and health education resources, and increase their participation levels in these fields. The educational goals of the project are to: (1) Encourage Hispanic undergraduate students to pursue careers in biomedicine and science through a mentoring program at the university level; (2) Inspire an interest in biomedical science among Hispanic elementary-age students and parents through community outreach activities; (3) Inform Hispanic parents about biomedical science education standards and academic requirements for pursuing biomedical and science related careers; and (4) Inform and inspire Hispanic students and their families about the biomedical sciences and related careers through a series of daily nationally broadcast Spanish-language radio capsules, and a nationally syndicated Spanish newspaper column. Conociendo Tu Cuerpo (Know Your Body) includes several key components: A model, Washington, D.C., area coalition of informal science, health, community, education, and media organizations that will publicize and provide hands-on health science activities at community festivals and other community settings; Hispanic undergraduate student health-science fellows to be trained and provided experience in facilitating health science activities; and nationally broadcast Spanish-language radio capsules that will cover topics in areas of biomedicine, research, education, and health-science careers. Parents and students will be able to access additional information about biomedical science opportunities and Hispanic role models in the biomedical sciences through the project's Conociendo Tu Cuerpo website and the bilingual 800 telephone help line promoted by 147 participating radio stations and 102 newspapers nationwide. The project will be supported at the national level through collaboration with the Hispanic Radio Network and the Pacific Science Center. The Washington, D.C., collaborative will include the Capital Children's Museum, local Spanish language radio stations, area universities, and health and community organizations. Development Associates, the largest American education and evaluation consulting corporation, will evaluate the project.
Individuals are at an increased risk to drop out of the STEM pipeline if they are female or Latino, and during certain periods including high school. Families are a potential untapped resource of support for high school students. Based on the expectancy-value model, we examined if a variety of parental behaviors predicted students’ ability self-concepts in and value they placed on biology, chemistry, and physics. Self-report surveys were collected from 988 9th grade Latino boys, Latina girls, Caucasian boys, and Caucasian girls. The findings suggest that, as early as the beginning of high
This paper, commissioned as part of a consensus study on successful out-of-school STEM learning from the National Research Council's Board on Science Education, explores evidence-based strategies developed in out-of-school time STEM programs for successfully engaging youth from underrepresented demographics in STEM learning.
To improve science education for culturally and linguistically diverse students, schools and communities can create “mutual benefit partnerships” to identify and address local problems. Through the example of the Chicago River Project, Bouillion and Gomez illustrate how such partnerships can connect formal learning contexts with the rich ways communities experience science outside of school.
This longitudinal study examined factors that contribute to the persistence of underrepresented racial minority (URM) undergraduates in STEM fields. The primary source of data came from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s 2004 The Freshman Survey (TFS) and 2008 College Senior Survey (CSS). The sample included 3,670 students at 217 institutions who indicated on the TFS that they intended to major in a STEM field, 1,634 of whom were underrepresented minority (URM) students. Findings indicate that Black and Latino undergraduates were significantly less likely to persist in STEM
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mitchell ChangJessica SharknessSylvia HurtadoChristopher Newman
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Based on nearly two decades of museum programming for low-income Hispanic and African American girls at the Miami Science Museum, this extension service project employs a train-the-trainers approach to build a network of museum-based Extension Agents dedicated to helping informal science educators attract the interest and support the persistence of minority girls, grades 6-12, currently underrepresented in STEM studies. Led by the Miami Science Museum, the collaboration brings together an experienced group of institutions with representation from the informal science, gender research, and engineering communities. In addition to the Museum, the Expert Project Team consists of key staff from the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), and SECME Inc. (formerly the Southeastern Consortium of Minorities in Engineering), who serve as the conduit for the participation of minority engineering professional organizations. An advisory/research panel of researchers in gender in STEM, whose work complements those of the project investigators, works closely with the Expert Project Team to prepare Extension Agents from ten geographically dispersed museums, who in turn provide a range of training and peer mentoring services to the practitioner community of informal science educators in science-rich institutions nationwide. Participating museums include: Connecticut Science Center (Hartford, CT), New York Hall of Science (New York, NY), Maryland Science Center (Baltimore, MD), Miami Science Museum (Miami, FL), COSI (Columbus, OH), St. Louis Science Center (St. Louis, MO), Louisville Science Center (Louisville, KY), Sci-Port (Shreveport, LA), Explora (Albuquerque, NM), and California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco, CA).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Judy BrownLaura Huerta MigasMichele Williams
Overview of Clever Together/Juntos somos ingeniosos and Evaluation: As part of the National Science Foundation funded "Sustainability: Promoting Sustainable Decision Making in Informal Education" project, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and its partners developed a bilingual (Spanish/English) exhibition. The goal of this and other project deliverables was to promote sustainable decision making by building skills that allow participants to weigh their choices and choose more sustainable practices. Clever Together/Juntos somos ingeniosos is a permanent, bilingual exhibition at
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Oregon Museum of Science and IndustryRenee B. Curtis
Overview of Sustainability
Events and Evaluation: As part of the National Science Foundation funded Sustainability: Promoting Sustainable Decision Making in Informal Education project, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) project team designed and hosted seven events between September 2011 and July 2014. In line with the overall project goals: Participants will 1) capture the big idea, “We can cultivate a more sustainable community by building skills and making decisions that maximize positive impacts,” 2) practice skills necessary for making more sustainable choices that consider
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Oregon Museum of Science and IndustryRenee B. Curtis