This is the final evaluation report from RMC Research Corp. for the PES@LTERs project. Appendix includes instruments.
RMC Research designed evaluation activities to provide formative and summative feedback to Harvard Forest and the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (Hubbard Brook) on their plan to embed public engagement with science (PES) into the cultures and practices of Long-Term Ecological Research Sites (LTERs) in the northeastern US. The purpose of this project was to build PES mechanisms into long-term ecosystem studies that create on-going, open exchanges between scientists and
This report summarizes findings of an NSF conference grant designed to support the knowledge-building component of the 2019 Inclusive SciComm Symposium (ISCS). Specifically, this document describes symposium participants' motivations for attending the symposium, the symposium's effectiveness in achieving participants' desired outcomes, and participants' attitudes, behaviors, and self-efficacy related to critical dialogue, or difficult conversations across difference. The report also summarizes participants' perceived needs, challenges, and opportunities for advancing inclusive, equitable, and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sunshine MenezesHollie SmithKayon Murray-JohnsonHannah TrautmannMehri Azizi
This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).
Despite the rich scientific evidence of adaptations and their evolutionary basis, there are concerning public misconceptions about evolution, processes of natural selection, and adaptations in the biodiverse world. Such misconceptions begin early. Younger elementary school children are often resistant to the idea that one “kind” of animal could descend from a completely different kind of animal, and they see features as having always existed. Other misconceptions lead to an inaccurate belief that changes in individual organisms acquired in a lifetime are passed directly on to offspring or that entire populations transform as a whole. These cognitive biases and "intuitive” misunderstandings can persist into adulthood. This Innovations in Development project will counter that narrative through an informal science project focusing on the blue whale one of nature’s most spectacular stories of adaptation. It is a species that lives life at extremes: a long-distance migrator, a deep diver, an extravagant eater, the largest animal to ever exist. With its awe-inspiring size and rich mosaic of anatomical, physiological, and behavioral specializations, it serves as a bridge to an enriched understanding of universal concepts in elementary biology and can begin to dispel the deeply rooted misconceptions. The project deliverables include a giant screen film documenting the field work of research scientists studying the blue whales in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Mexico; multi-platform educational modules and programs that will build on the blue whale content from the film for use in science center programs and rural libraries; and professional development webinars that will offer content utilization and presentation skills for ISE facilitators. Project partners include California Science Center, STAR Library Education Network, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios and SK Films.
The external evaluation studies will gather data from 20 participating rural libraries and 6 science museums. A formative evaluation of the film will be conducted in a giant screen theater setting with 75 families. After viewing a fine-cut version of the film they will complete age-appropriate post-viewing surveys on the film’s engagement, storytelling, content appeal and clarity, and learning value in communicating key science concepts. An external summative evaluation will include three studies. Study 1 will assess the implementation of the project at the 26 organizations, addressing the question: To what extent is the project implemented as envisioned in the libraries and science center settings? Baseline information will be collected, and later partners will complete post-grant surveys to report on their actual implementation of the project elements. In addition, the study will examine outcomes relating to professional development. Study 2 will be an evaluation of the film as experienced by 400 youth and parents in science centers and examining the question: To what extent does experiencing the film engage youth and parents and affect their interest, curiosity, and knowledge of blue whales, adaptations, and the scientific process? Study 3 will examine: To what extent and how does experiencing an educational module (virtual field trips, hands on activities, augmented reality) affect youth and parents’ interest, curiosity, and knowledge of adaptations and scientific process?
This project will scale up fully virtual or face-to-face STEM professional development to afterschool educators in both urban and rural settings. Given that many afterschool educators have little or no background in STEM education, there is demand for professional development that is effective, inexpensive, and accessible. This project will build national capacity in STEM education by developing the STEM skills of over 1,500 educators across multiple states and will ultimately impact over 31,000 under-represented youth in these areas. The project will also deliver robust materials through a free open-source mechanism, for use by educators anywhere and anytime. The project will broaden participation in STEM by engaging community educators in the rural parts of the nation, a critically under-represented group in STEM. It will also reach educators from low-income urban communities across three states and seven cities, targeted through strategic networks and partnerships, including organizations such as the YMCA, 4-H, and the National Afterschool Association.
This collaborative project is scaling the ACRES model (Afterschool Coaching for Reflective Educators in STEM). The model humanizes the virtual experience, making it social and engaging, and allows educators to learn, share, and practice essential STEM facilitation skills with a focus on making STEM relevant and introducing STEM careers to youth. In addition to enhancing the professional STEM skills of rural and urban educators, the project will create a national cohort of coaches with deep expertise in (i) converting in-person activities for youth into a highly engaging, choice-rich online format, (ii) engaging isolated informal educators in supportive professional learning communities, and (iii) coaching foundational research-based STEM facilitation skills that ensure these activities are pedagogically sound. A key part of this broad implementation project involves studying how to integrate an effective professional development program into afterschool organizations, including the ways afterschool programs adapt the materials to be culturally responsive to their local communities. The researchers will also study factors contributing to the longer-term sustainability of the program. The research will use surveys, interviews, direct observations, and case studies of participants to provide the field with valuable insights into scaling a program in the afterschool world.
This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for extending access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
Black girls display high interest, confidence and ability in STEM but face multiple barriers including racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes, low exposure to STEM role models, low awareness of diverse STEM fields and financial obstacles to STEM education. It is critical to infuse STEM education with specific and intentional culturally responsive and anti-racist strategies to attract and retain Black girls in STEM. Through this combination of media, role modeling and outreach, Black SciGirls will help increase access to STEM education for Black girls, preparing them for future workforce participation. This project will study the impacts on elementary/middle school Black girls’ exposure to early career Black female STEM professionals as role models. Deliverables include 1) professional development for STEM educators and Black STEM professional women to prepare them to lead STEM programs for girls 2) a PBS series of role model videos of early-career Black STEM professionals and 3) a research study that examines how/if in person and media-based STEM role models increase Black girls’ interest and confidence in STEM, motivation to pursue future STEM studies, and STEM identity. While women make up 47% of the U.S. workforce, they are underrepresented in STEM and only 1.6% are Black women.
The research study will examine how educators’ use of role models addresses a critical barrier for Black girls, seeing women in STEM who look like them. The research study questions are: How and in what ways do Black STEM women role models influence Black girls’ interest in STEM? How and to what extent do role models report changes in their confidence and ability to engage girls in STEM as a result of training in best practices in role modelling? and, How and to what extent are parents engaged in supporting girls’ involvement in STEM, as a result of the participation of role models? The research team will visit participating local SciGirls programs to collect qualitative data, including observations of program activities, interviews, and focus groups. To ensure reliable outcomes and utilize robust theoretical underpinnings, the research will combine pre/post survey data and an in-depth cross-case studies employing qualitative and quantitative data collection. This mixed-methods approach will enable gathering data that comprehensively offers insight into Black girls’ STEM experiences and those of the Black STEM professional women role models and parents who support them. Qualitative data that centers girls’, role models’, and parents’ perspectives will contribute to this identity-centered study. A culturally responsive evaluation will determine the extent to which the project builds educators’ ability to integrate equitable and anti-racist practices to build Black girls’ interest and confidence in STEM studies.
This Research in Service to Practice project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Rita KarlAngel Miles NashRonda BullockAdrienne StephensonLataisia Jones
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Millions of Latinx youth, aged 14 to 18, work formal or informal jobs to provide income for themselves or their families. In the context of these workplaces, Latinx youth demonstrate numerous skills that are essential to industrial engineering, such as minimizing workplace injuries or optimizing processes to maximize efficiency. However, their workplace ingenuity and skills are often underrecognized by educational systems. To counter this lack of recognition, the purpose of this project is to iteratively develop and research an out-of-school engineering program for working Latinx youth. This program is designed to recognize and build from youths’ workplace experiences by connecting them with industrial engineering concepts and practices, such as those used to promote worker safety. This program is also designed for youth to articulate transformational visions of industrial engineering, which expand current goals, values, and methods commonly embraced within this discipline. This year-long program will be facilitated by educators of existing out-of-school programs (e.g., Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement), in partnership with undergraduate mentors from the Society for Professional Hispanic Engineers and other local organizations that serve Latinx youth (e.g., Latinos in Action). Approximately 220 youth are expected to participate in the programming. Researchers will explore whether and how youth participants develop identities in engineering, as well as how the educators and mentors understand and enact assets-based, out-of-school engineering education grounded in youths’ experiences. Researchers will also identify the individual, institutional, and systemic factors that support or inhibit sustained implementation of the program over time in different sites and contexts. This project will result in a set of empirically tested, bilingual program materials that will be disseminated widely to professional organizations dedicated to out-of-school programming and to serving Latinx youth.
This project will result in a localizable, transferable, and sustainable model for an out-of-school time program that recognizes and amplifies Latinx youths’ workplace funds of knowledge and leverages them toward youth-driven visions and applications of engineering. This program, which will connect with other people and sites in youths’ learning ecosystems, is grounded in principles of translanguaging, transformational mentorship, and educational dignity and recognition. In partnership with youth participants, researchers will use a social design experiment to explore the following research questions: What are the engineering identity trajectories of working high school youth, and how do specific moments of identity negotiation and recognition relate to broader patterns across program sessions and identity trajectories for individual participants over time? To answer these questions, a pre-, mid- and post-program Engineering Identity Scale; recordings of program implementations; interviews; and youth artifacts will be analyzed using various methods such as critical multimodal discourse analysis. After implementations of the program across multiple sites, researchers will use design-based implementation research to answer the following questions: How do educators and mentors understand and enact assets-based pedagogies designed to foster recognition across sites? What institutional and systemic features (designed or naturalistic) support or inhibit productive adaptations and implementations of the program? These questions will be answered using constant comparative analyses of data sources such as interviews with the program educators and mentors, observations of program implementations, observations of professional development sessions, and public documents. Culturally responsive, educative evaluation will be used to iteratively improve the program. The resulting research and program materials will be disseminated widely through professional organizations dedicated to Latinx youth, engineering education, and out-of-school learning.
This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to (a) advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments; (b) provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; (c) advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and (d) engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Amy Wilson-LopezAlfonso Torres-RuaMarisela Martinez-ColaColby Tofel-GrehlAlfonso Torres-Rua
Informal STEM learning environments, programs, and policies can be designed to support and promote neurodiversity through inclusive practices. This project will explore the benefits of informal STEM learning for K-12 neurodiverse learners through a systematic review and meta-analysis of extant literature and research grounded in the theory of social model of ability. This framework is an asset-based approach and aims to promote social, cognitive, and physical inclusion, leading to positive outcomes. Using various quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this project endeavors to collect and synthesize the evidence for supporting and enhancing accessibility and inclusiveness in informal STEM learning for K-12 neurodiverse learners. It will explore key features of informal STEM learning and effective, evidence-based strategies to effectively engage children and youth with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and dyspraxia, in informal STEM learning environments. The findings of this complex synthesis will provide a timely contribution to deeper understanding of supports for neurodiversity while also highlighting areas that inform further research, shifts in practice, and policy.
The systematic review will occur over a two-year period. It will focus on identifying program elements that promote inclusion of children and youth with neurodevelopmental disabilities in informal STEM learning contexts. Specifically, the review will explore two overarching research questions and several sub-research questions:
RQ1. What program elements (teaching and learning variables) in informal STEM learning settings facilitate inclusion of K-12 neurodiverse STEM learners? Sub-RQ1a: What are the overlapping and discrete characteristics of the program elements that facilitate social, cognitive, and physical inclusion?
Sub-RQ1b: In what ways do the program elements that facilitate inclusion vary by informal STEM learning setting?
RQ2: What program elements (teaching and learning variables) in informal STEM learning settings are correlated with benefits for K-12 neurodiverse STEM learners? Sub-RQ2a: What are the overlapping and discrete characteristics of the program elements that correlate with increased STEM identity, self- efficacy, interest in STEM, or STEM learning?
Sub-RQ2b: In what ways do the program elements that correlate with positive results for students vary by informal STEM learning setting? The research synthesis will consider several different types of studies, including research and evaluation; experimental and quasi-experimental designs; quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods; and implementation studies.
The research team will (a) review all analyses and organize findings to illustrate patterns, factors, and relationships, (b) identify key distinctions and nuances derived from the contexts represented in the literature, and (c) revisit and confirm the strength of evidence for making overall assertions of what works, why, and with whom. The findings will be disseminated in practice briefs, journal articles, the AISL resource center, as well as presentations and materials for researchers, practitioners, and informal STEM leaders. Ultimately, this work will result in a comprehensive synthesis of effective informal STEM learning practices for neurodiverse K-12 learners and identify opportunities for further research and development.
This literature review and meta-analysis project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.
What exactly is “scientific culture”? How does it relate to science communication, non-formal education or artistic interactions with the scientific world? That was the topic of the 14th International Summer School of Mind, Brain and Education (ISMBE), held 1–4 October 2019 at the Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice (Sicily), Italy. The ISMBE has a long history of bringing together researchers from diverse fields to catalyze research relating to cognitive science and neuroscience through to education, and the directors of the School, Drs. Kurt Fischer, Antonio Battro and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Guadalupe Díaz CostanzoDiego Golombek
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Build SciComm, an international symposium on strategies for fostering science communication in Japan held at the University of Tsukuba in November 2019, brought together academics and practitioners to discuss issues faced by the field in Japan and vision for future direction. Informally, the symposium was well received and generally considered to be a useful and stimulating event. We discuss issues to be considered for future incarnations and explain why this symposium provides an important forum for inclusive discussions on fundamental questions about the nature of science communication in
Science communication is proliferating in the developing world, however, with respect to science centres, as a whole Africa is being left behind. Here 15 participants in a capacity building program are investigated using traditional needs-based and contemporary asset-based development conceptualisations. These development theories parallel deficit and participatory approaches, respectively, within science communication and demonstrate synergies between the fields. Data showed staffing, funding, governments, host institutions, and audiences are prominent needs and assets, networks are a major
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Graham WalkerLeapotswe BantsiSiphesihle BukhosiniKnowledge ChikundiAkash DusrathMartin KafeeroBhamini Kamudu ApplasawmyKenneth Monjero IgadwaKabelo MoswetsiSandile RikhotsoMarthinus J. SchwartzPuleng Tsie
There is a renewed interest amongst science communication practitioners and scholars to explore the potential of storytelling in public communication of science, including to understand how science storytelling functions (or could fail) in different contexts. Drawing from storytelling as the core theme of the 2018 conference of the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Network, we present a selection of papers, essays and practice insights that offer diverse perspectives. Some contributions focus on the cultural and structural qualities of science stories and its key success
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marina JoubertLloyd DavisJenni Metcalfe
resourceevaluationProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This document describes the summative project evaluation of 5 annual cohorts of STE(A)M teachers, mostly from California, Florida, and New Mexico participating in out-of-school authentic research experiences collecting fossils and learning about geology, biology, and the natural history along the Panama Canal, and their experiences with museums and research collections. The STEM content of this project is based on the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI) of animals and plants across the Isthmus of Panama over the past 5 million years. This report also describes the efficacy of sustained