This annual report presents an overview of Saint Louis Science Center audience data gathered through a variety of evaluation studies conducted during 2015. This report includes information on the Science Center's general public audience demographics and visitation patterns, gives an overview of visitors' comments about their Science Center experience, summarizes major trends observed in the Science Center's tool for tracking educational programs, and presents highlights from a Membership study, a formative evaluation of a new Makerspace exhibition, and program evaluation of a workshop for the
In this article, The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) shares the programs and publications it developed to advance E-STEM—the integration of environmental education into STEM.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kristen Kunkle
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Project SYSTEMIC (A Systems Thinking Approach to STEM Ecosystem Development in Chicago) will apply systems thinking to a community-level STEM ecosystem development effort in one of Chicago's largest and most distressed neighborhoods. The project aims to broaden participation of African American and low-income Chicago Public School students (preK-12) in STEM learning opportunities. The proposed model of collaborative change for this project builds on the work of two coordinated collective impact initiatives--the Chicago STEM Pathways Cooperative and Austin Coming Together, a network of local organizations committed to improving educational and economic outcomes for the community. A key feature of this project is that it adds innovative, interactive, visual problem structuring and solving strategies to highlight and uncover the systemic interdependencies that contribute to the BP challenge for African American youth. The project will convene a series of workshops to engage community stakeholders in the mapping of the STEM ecosystem. A broad and representative cross-section of community stakeholders will design and develop evidence-based STEM ecosystem organizing and implementation strategies. Key outcomes anticipated from this project are the development of a shared understanding, agenda, activities, and commitment to collectively address the underlying challenges of STEM access and participation for African American youth. The goal of this community-driven project is to develop a viable system model that elevates neighborhood voices, historically excluded from the problem-solving table and decision-making processes, to leverage existing assets, build local capacity, increase messaging and awareness of the value of STEM, identify needed new programs, and develop coordination/resource sharing mechanisms across partners to support implementation. The evaluation of this project will be grounded in systems thinking and culturally-responsive approaches that seek to understand the diverse perspectives of stakeholders while measuring progress toward project goals. Evaluation data will be used to assess the problem structuring process, to evaluate the organizational strategy designed to address the structured problem, and to support adaptive learning among stakeholders.
Flying Higher will develop a permanent hands-on exhibit that conveys the fundamentals of flight, technology, materials science, and NASA’s role in aeronautics for learners ages 3-12 years and their parents/caregivers and teachers. The exhibit, public programs, school and teacher programs, and teacher professional development will develop a pipeline of skilled workers to support community workforce needs and communicate NASA’s contributions to the nation and world. An innovative partnership with Claflin University (an historically black college) and Columbia College (a women’s liberal arts college) will provide undergraduate coursework in informal science education to support pre-service learning opportunities and paid employment for students seeking careers in education and/or STEM fields. The projects goals are:
1) To educate multi-generational family audiences about the principles and the future of aeronautics; provide hands-on, accessible, and immersive opportunities to explore state-of-the-art NASA technology; and demonstrate the cultural impact of flight in our global community.
2) To provide educational standards-based programming to teachers and students in grades K–8 on NASA-driven research topics, giving the students opportunities to explore these topics and gain exposure to science careers at NASA; and to offer teachers support in presenting STEM topics.
3) To create and implement a professional development program to engage pre-service teachers in presenting museum-based programs focused on aeronautics and engineering. This program will provide undergraduate degree credits, service learning, and paid employment to students that supports STEM instruction in the classroom, explores the benefits of informal science education, and encourages post-graduate opportunities in STEM fields.
This report is the result of a project to investigate through a sociocultural lens whether girls-only, informal STEM experiences have potential long-term influences on young women's lives, both in terms of STEM but also more generally. The authors documented young women's perceptions of their program experiences and the ways in which they influenced their future choices in education, careers, leisure pursuits, and ways of thinking about what science is and who does it. This report includes the questionnaire used in the study.
The National Partnerships for Afterschool Science (NPASS) Project was led by The Center for Science Education (CSE) at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) in Newton, MA in partnership with the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) in Berkeley, CA, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NPASS project approach relied on a professional development training and mentorship model to build the capacity of community-based organizations (CBOs) to lead high-quality, hands-on science and engineering activities in their afterschool programming. An overarching project research question
The objective of this project is to provide a complete package of KIDSPACE hands-on science experiences to small and developing science centers across the country through the National KIDSPACE Partnership Program. This project will allow twelve (12) selected science centers to implement a complete, proven education package geared toward young children at a fraction of the cost of starting one from scratch. This project will provide comprehensive training to a large core of educators within the science center field, and will support continued research into the informal science education of young children through an original Research Study and the formation of a national User's Group. Best of all, this project will generate a wellspring of invaluable science-play connections for hundreds of thousands of children to tale with them into adulthood.
The Fusion Science Theater National Training and Dissemination Program builds on the success of the Fusion Science Theater (FST) planning grant (DRL 07-32142). Madison Area Technical College, in collaboration with the Institute for Chemical Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the American Chemical Society (ACS) and area science centers and museums will create a national program to disseminate the FST model which directly engages children in playful, participatory, and inquiry-based science learning of chemistry and physics topics. The primary target audience is children aged 4-11, while undergraduate chemistry students, faculty, and formal and informal educators comprise the secondary professional audience. The project will result in the development of a robust, creative, and highly visible national dissemination program. The National Training and Dissemination Program includes three deliverables. First, a Distance Performance Training Program will be developed to teach groups of undergraduate students, faculty, and educators how to perform FST Science Investigation (SI) Shows. The Training Program includes a Performance Training Package and a 3-day Performance Training Workshop. The Performance Training Package will be comprised of training videos, performances videos, scripts, rehearsal schedules, and training exercises. These materials will be pilot tested while training representatives of five groups from around the country to perform SI Shows during the Performance Training Workshop at Madison Area Technical College in summer 2012. Participants will be selected from ACS undergraduate groups, outreach specialists, and museum professionals. Workshop participants then return to their home institutions and lead their groups through the improved Performance Training Package delivered via Moodle, with support from FST team members and social networking tools. The second deliverable is the FST Methods Workshop. The Methods Workshop is designed to teach formal and informal educators to use selected methods (Investigation Question, Embedded Assessment, and Act-It-Out) in their outreach efforts and classroom teaching. Four workshops will be presented at national meetings and at the invitation of colleges, universities, and science centers. Follow-up with workshop participants will be mediated through an online forum to encourage experimentation, modification, and dissemination of a second generation of FST activities. The final project deliverable is the development and implementation of a Promotion and Recruitment Plan to connect professional audiences with FST. The Distance Performance Training Program and workshops will be evaluated using mixed methods, while embedded assessment will be utilized to measure the impact on youth participants attending SI shows to determine the overall effectiveness the Distance Performance Training. This project is designed to have important impacts on STEM education and society. The proposed dissemination program brings innovative models and methods into the hands of informal science education practitioners who can use them to engage local audiences and enhance their own teaching and communication practices. Finally the project offers likely benefits for society through the creation and dissemination of innovative practices to combat science illiteracy, diminishing pools of scientists and engineers, lack of understanding about the nature of science, and the achievement gap that exacerbates these problems. This project could be transformative in informal science education as SI Shows use theater to engage audiences in multiple aspects of science learning. It is anticipated that this project will reach up to 2,500 individuals in public and professional audiences.
EDC and the Lawrence Hall of Science propose an intensive, innovative mentoring and professional development model that will build the capacity of community-based organizations (CBOs) to deliver high-quality science and engineering curricula to children in after-school programs. The program's goal is to alleviate two consistent problems of after-school STEM providers: high turnover rate and the ability to lead/teach high quality science activities. The project will put in place a broad network of trainers in three regions of the country, leveraging the expertise and collaboration of two well-established and trusted national informal education networks. The extensive collaboration involves 14 organizations total including nine science centers (of varying sizes), three state 4-H agencies, the National 4-H Council and EDC. The primary audience for this project is the trainers (science center, 4-H, others) who currently (or may in the future) train CBO staff. EDC, LHS, and three "mentor" science centers will supervise these trainings and develop the new PD resources designed to improve the quality of training that CBO staff receive from these and other trainers. The National 4-H Council will help coordinate training and dissemination of products through the 4-H national network Goodman Research Group will conduct formative and summative evaluations of the project. DELIVERABLES: This project will deliver: 1) a model of prolonged training and support to build the capacity of CBOs to lead high quality science and engineering curricula with children; 2) a mentoring model to support and supervise trainers who work directly with CBOs; and 3) professional development tools and resources designed to improve the quality of training delivered to CBO staff. STRATEGIC IMPACT: This project will impact the national after-school professional development field by (a) demonstrating a model for how science-center, 4-H, and other trainers can build the capacity of CBOs to improve the way they lead science and engineering projects with children, (b) nurturing a cadre of mentor institutions to assist others to adopt this capacity-building and professional-development model, and (c) developing professional development tools and resources that improve the quality of training delivered by trainers to CBO staff. COLLABORATIVE PARTNERS: The three "mentor" institutions are: (1) the Lawrence Hall of Science, (2) the Science Museum of Minnesota, and (3) the Boston Children's Museum. The six science centers include (1) COSI Toledo in Toledo, OH; (2) Headwaters Science Center in Bemidji, MN; (3) Providence Children's Museum in Providence, RI; (4) Rochester Museum and Science Center in Rochester, NY; (5) River Legacy Living Science Center in Arlington, TX; and (6) Explora in Albuquerque, NM. The three 4-H partners include (1) 4-H New Hampshire, (2) 4- H Minnesota, and (3) 4-H California.
Madison Area Technical College will refine and evaluate the effectiveness of Fusion Science Theater (FST), a combination of theater, science demonstrations, and participatory components, as an ISE teaching model, to test its transferability through development and trials of an exportable version (Science-in-a-Box), and to recruit appropriate partners nationally in preparation for a larger scale implementation and evaluation. A Fusion Science Theater event utilizes the collaborative effort of applied expertise in science, theater and education. These events support playful interactions as characters engage the emotions of the audience. The Act-It Out sequences invite children and parents to become involved in modeling scientific concepts, thus creating an environment where learning is the product of social interaction and kinesthetic, affective and interpersonal learning. To provide proof-of-concept that this a transferable model, an independent, interdisciplinary team from the University of Wisconsin, Madison Biotechnology Center will produce their own FST event that will be evaluated and compared to an existing FST program. The Madison Children's Museum will partner as a venue for the event and provide expertise in the planning process. The ultimate project resulting from this planning would include workshops to train collaborative teams from around the country in the principles and practices of FST, promotion of cross-disciplinary collaboration among professionals, and honing of an evaluation design for FST events. The trained teams would then produce FST events that reach children, their parents and the general public. The planning grant project design includes activities necessary to further test, verify and document Fusion Science Theater events. It provides a proof of concept of model effectiveness and transferability. It also initiates, develops and assesses ways to train other groups to implement the model and publicizes the model to national professional networks to spread the work and recruit site teams.
Michigan Technological University will collaborate with David Heil and Associates to implement the Family Engineering Program, working in conjunction with student chapters of engineering societies such as the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the Society of Hispanic Professionals (SHP) and a host of youth and community organizations. The Family Engineering Program is designed to increase technological literacy by introducing children ages 5-12 and their parents/caregivers to the field of engineering using the principles of design. The project will reach socio-economically diverse audiences in the upper peninsula of Michigan including Native American, Hispanic, Asian, and African American families. The secondary audience includes university STEM majors, informal science educators, and STEM professionals that are trained to deliver the program to families. A well-researched five step engineering design process utilized in the school-based Engineering is Elementary curriculum will be incorporated into mini design challenges and activities based in a variety of fields such as agricultural, chemical, environmental, and biomedical engineering. Deliverables include the Family Engineering event model, Family Engineering Activity Guide, Family Engineering Nights, project website, and facilitator training workshops. The activity guide will be pilot tested, field tested, and disseminated for use in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Strategic impact will result from the development of content-rich engineering activities for families and the dissemination of a project model that incorporates the expertise of engineering and educational professionals at multiple levels of implementation. It is anticipated that 300 facilitators and 7,000-10,000 parents and children will be directly impacted by this effort, while facilitator training may result in more than 27,000 program participants.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Neil HutzlerEric IversenChristine CunninghamJoan ChaddeDavid Heil
Fusion Science Theater (FST) uses elements of playwriting to make informal science education more engaging as well as educational. FST shows incorporate an overarching scientific question that is asked and then answered by a series of participatory exercises and demonstrations. The shows also use “embedded assessment” of learning, which asks children to “vote their prediction” both before and after these activities. The FST National Training and Dissemination Program had three major goals: (1) To develop and implement a Performance Training Program to train professional audiences to perform
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Madison Area Technical CollegeJoanne Cantor