U.S. strength in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines has formed the basis of innovations, technologies, and industries that have spurred the nation’s economic growth throughout the last 150 years. Universities are essential to the creation and transfer of new knowledge that drives innovation. This knowledge moves out of the university and into broader society in several ways – through highly skilled graduates (i.e. human capital); academic publications; and the creation of new products, industries, and companies via the commercialization of scientific
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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
On November 2-3, 2015, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), hosted the 2015 NSF Maker Summit, in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Planned in response to a Call to Action issued by the White House after the June 2014 White House Maker Faire, the summit was attended by more than 50 individuals representing five different segments of the Maker community. Its goals were to forge connections across the Maker Movement, envision the future of Making for engineering and education communities, and identify how Makerspaces can be
Scientists intermittently appear on television news as experts to inform and comment on current events. This study explores whether their appearance adds a critical measure of substantiated arguments and balanced judgements to public affairs reporting. An explorative analysis of a representative sample of news broadcasts from five public broadcasters in Western Europe in 2006 and 2007 suggests that this is to some extent the case. The implications of these findings for the deliberative quality of TV news are discussed, and a typology of scientific experts in the general news items is proposed.
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Richard van der WurffPiet VerhoevenMaite Gadellaa
Guglielmo Maglio is Manager of Exhibitions at the science centre “Città della Scienza” of Naples. With “Città della Scienza” he took part in the creation of “Decide”, which he appreciates for its ability to create an informal atmosphere favouring discussion. As concerns the involvement of scientists and policy-makers in the debate, though desirable, it sometimes may influence negatively the spontaneity of the debate among non-experts. In the participants, the main differences can be ascribed to personal experience, rather than to other factors such as age, nationality or social groups. Though
The America After 3PM survey is the nation’s most comprehensive household survey of how children spend the hours after school and asks parents and guardians of school-age children in the United States about availability and access to after-school programs. The 2014 survey, which followed prior surveys conducted in 2004 and 2009, reveals that over the past decade, the number of children in after-school programs has grown from 6.5 million to more than 10 million. Parents of an additional 19.4 million children would enroll their children in a program if one were available to them.
STEM Pathways is a collaboration between five Minnesota informal STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education organizations—The Bakken Museum, Bell Museum of Natural History, Minnesota Zoo, STARBASE Minnesota, and The Works Museum—working with Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and advised by the Minnesota Department of Education. STEM Pathways (logo shown in Figure 1) aims to provide a deliberate and connected series of meaningful in-school and out-of-school STEM learning experiences to strengthen outcomes for students, build the foundation for a local ecosystem of STEM
The science education community is buzzing about STEM learning ecosystems, ecologies of learning, and ecological perspectives on learning. You may not know it, but if your teaching involves building on young people’s prior knowledge or making connections between the science curriculum and science in the broader world, your work may already reflect aspects of ecological learning theories. At the heart of an ecological perspective on learning is the need to make connections across formal, informal, and everyday learning. So, what are STEM learning ecologies all about, and how can science
Connected Science Learning is a journal around which all science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) educators can gather. The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) have partnered on this National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded project to leverage our extensive combined reach across the formal and informal STEM educator communities. NSTA represents about 50,000 K–12 science educators, while ASTC member science centers and museums are in communities across the globe, reaching 100 million visitors per year, many of whom are
Today institutional and project leaders are faced with two critical dilemmas: (1) building the capacity to respond to the increasing evaluation and accountability demands of funders and stakeholders; and (2) managing the complexities of interconnected, multifaceted, ongoing institutional and cross-institutional work. These challenges require leaders to go beyond traditional approaches to professional development and consider the complex ways that systems of professionals communicate, interact, and evolve. This report draws from three years of research as part of the National Science Foundation
Over the past ten years, investments in infrastructure for informal STEM education and science communication have resulted in significant growth in the number and variety of resources and depth of expertise available to members of the STEM research community wishing to develop outreach, engagement and broader impacts activities. This report/white paper recounts some of the developments that led to the existing synergy between Informal STEM Education (ISE), science communication, and STEM research, provides examples of infrastructure and resources that support this work, and identifies areas of
Science, politics, industry, media, state-run and private organisations, private citizens: everyone has their own demands, their own heritage of knowledge, thoughts, opinions, aspirations, needs. Different worlds that interact, question one another, discuss; in one word: they communicate. It is a complicated process that requires professionals «who clearly understand the key aspects of the transmission of scientific knowledge to society through the different essential communication channels for multiple organizations». The purpose of this commentary is to cast some light upon the goals, the
The knowledge deficit model with regard to the public has been severely criticized in the sociology of the public perception of science. However, when dealing with public decisions regarding scientific matters, political and scientific institutions insist on defending the deficit model. The idea that only certified experts, or those with vast experience, should have the right to participate in decisions can bring about problems for the future of democracies. Through a type of "topography of ideas", in which some concepts from the social studies of science are used in order to think about these
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Alessandro Luis PiolliMaria Conceicao da Costa