This Pilot and Feasibility project will investigate: a) the kinds of learning outcomes that occur in an informal STEM project utilizing a Critical Environmental Justice-informed Participatory Action Research framework, co-created between researchers and homeless communities, and b) the challenges and opportunities that arise in evaluating such collaborative projects. To address these questions, a team of university and community researchers will work with two self-organized homeless communities, in Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD, to systematically examine air quality at their sites and further develop a multimedia environmental justice toolkit. The toolkit is aimed at equipping homeless communities with STEM-based information and approaches to learn about and address various environmental hazards. Homeless people are disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of air and soil pollution, rodents, extreme weather, floods, fires, and other hazards. This collaboration will study STEM learning outcomes related to the broader historical socio-political context in which people are living. The project also anticipates finding ways to adapt evaluation processes to better suit the needs of marginalized groups participating in informal STEM projects.
Guided by this integrated framework, the team will undertake participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and document analysis to assess learning. It also anticipates gaining insights into how evaluation processes may be adapted to better suit the needs of marginalized groups participating in informal STEM learning. 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 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.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Chris HawnMelanie MaloneErin GoodlingDillon MahmoudiAnthony Levenda
The summative evaluation report for Project TRUE focuses on program implementation, participant experiences, organizational capacity outcomes and project scale-up over the five-year project.
Appendix includes logic model and instruments.
Under the Arctic: Digging into Permafrost, a 2,000 square foot museum exhibition, engaged visitors in real and simulated experiences related to the nature of permafrost, permafrost research, and the impact of climate change on permafrost. Development of the exhibition was part of a larger National Science Foundation Advancing Informal STEM Learning grant, Hot Times in Cold Places: The Hidden World of Permafrost, awarded to the University of Alaska Fairbanks in partnership with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
Two related evaluation studies led us to our conclusions. First, we
Our goal in creating this guide is to provide practitioners, organizations, researchers, and others with a “one-stop shop” for measuring nature connections. The guide is for those interested in assessing and enhancing the connections their audiences have to nature; we use the term “audience” to refer broadly to your participants or to any group you are trying to assess. The guide can help you choose an appropriate tool (for example, a survey or activity) for your needs, whether you work with young children, teenagers, or adults (see the Decision Tree on p. 14). The guide also includes 11 tools
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Gabby SalazarKristen KunkleMartha Monroe
Learning to See, Seeing to Learn is a National Science Foundation-funded project to develop www.macroinvertebrates.org, a digital observation tool and set of informational resources that can supplement volunteer biomonitoring trainings and improve aquatic macroinvertebrates identification. Project researchers are interested in how trainers and volunteers use the tool, as well as how training that incorporates the tool impacts volunteers’ confidence in and accuracy around aquatic macroinvertebrates identification. In November 2018, project partner, Stroud Water Research Center, conducted a
Char Associates conducted an evaluation of the four-year, NSF-funded project, Interpreters and Scientists Working on Our Parks (iSWOOP). The project brought interpreters and scientists together in multi-day professional development sessions at five national parks with the purpose of showcasing scientific research that usually goes unseen and unappreciated by park visitors. iSWOOP coordinated the development and delivery of digital libraries including animations, still photos, thermal and high-speed videos, and maps to give visual support to explanations of particular scientific studies. In
NOVA Wonders is a multi-platform media project from the producers of NOVA exploring the biggest questions on the frontiers of science. From the mysteries of astrophysics to the secrets of the body to the challenges of inventing technologies that could rival—and even surpass—the abilities of the human mind. With content delivered across broadcast, digital and social platforms, the project’s total video content was viewed approximately 17 million times, reaching a range of audiences. The centerpiece was a six-part PBS series which premiered on April 25, 2018, hosted by a team of young
By first recognizing the valuable social and scientific practices taking place within families as they learn science together across multiple, everyday settings, this dissertation addresses questions of how to design and scaffold activities that build and expand on those practices to foster a deep understanding of science, and how the aesthetic experience of learning science builds connections across educational settings. Families were invited to visit a natural history museum, an aquarium, and a place or activity of the family’s choice that they associated with science learning. Some families
This video presents reflections on SCIENCES: Supporting a Community’s Informal Education Needs—Confidence and Empowerment in STEM. SCIENCES brought together Eden Place Nature Center and the Chicago Zoological Society to collaboratively support environmental conservation and lifelong scientific learning in the Fuller Park neighborhood of Chicago.
The SCIENCES project began in 2013 and focused on adapting existing educational programs into a suite of environmentally focused science learning opportunities for professional, student, and public audiences in the Fuller Park neighborhood
The summative evaluation documents and articulates what SCIENCES has improved or changed, and in what ways. The final design of the summative evaluation was based on findings from the front-end and formative evaluations, including using participatory evaluation techniques to engage community members in discussing their experience with the programs and assessment of community needs and assets at the close of the project.
The goal of the summative evaluation was to address discrete program impacts in the context of the project, as well as the cross-program impact of providing a thematically
In The Nature of Community: SCIENCES, we share the lessons learned from an innovative partnership designed to leverage the strengths of two nonprofit organizations—a large cultural institution and a smaller, deeply-rooted community-based organization, both of which offer informal science education expertise.
You’ll read first-hand reflections of how staff members, community leaders and members, children, and adults experienced this partnership: the expectations, surprises, challenges, successes, and lessons learned. We hope the description of this partnership inspires other organizations to