In an effort to prepare female high school students for a college curriculum and achieve gender parity in the engineering industry, WGBH has developed an initiative entitled, Engineer Your Life (EYL). The initiative is targeted toward female high school students, career counselors/educators, and professional engineers. It is designed to: 1) increase these target audiences' understanding of engineering, 2) inspire young women to explore engineering as a career option and 3) help adults encourage young women to investigate engineering opportunities. One component of this initiative involves
Bio Med Tech: Engineering for Your Health was a 2,750 square foot exhibition at the Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) that dealt with issues related to biomedical technology. Partially funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health Science Education Partnership Awards program (NIH/SEPA), the project was developed through a partnership between GLSC and Case Western Reserve University. The SEPA grant also funded a variety of programming activities, including informal Exploration Cart activities in the exhibition, presentations in the exhibition's theater space, and teacher training
The EDC Center for Children and Technology (CCT), a nonprofit international research organization, conducted the formative evaluation of the first year's implementation of the Be A Scientist! (BAS) project. The goal of this five-year afterschool family science program project is to provide quality science and engineering courses to underserved families in New York City and Los Angeles. It targeted underserved first graders and their families in the Spring 2010. Guiding by formative research questions (e.g., X) and using multi-method research approach (e.g., X), CCT researchers uncovered
This report presents an evaluation study of Soundprint Media's project, Out of This World (#0741737), which was funded by the National Science Foundation's Informal Science Education Program. The mission of the project was to introduce adult radio listeners and youth participants in museum events to the historical context and challenges faced by African-Americans and women who were involved as professionals in the United States' space program in the 1960's. The project website, capecosmos.com, included an interactive menu of activities set within the context of a NASA mission control center
WGBH and the Materials Research Society (MRS) collaborated to create Making Stuff, a multi-faceted project about the all-encompassing role that materials play in shaping our lives. The project included a four-episode NOVA mini-series originally broadcast in January, 2011 that was hosted by NY Times columnist David Pogue, a large-scale national outreach campaign with collaborating partnerships funded in 20 locations, web pages on the NOVA website, and an online contest promoted and hosted on Facebook. Across all project components, the overarching goals were to enhance the general public's
This study was conducted as part of the formative evaluation of the NISE Network Forum Nanomedicine in Healthcare. The purpose of the forum was to bring members of the public together to discuss the conditions under which nanotechnology applications in medicine and personal care products should be made available to the public. During the forum, participants learned about nanotechnology and its societal and ethical impacts from expert speakers, had chance to ask questions of the experts, participated in a small group discussion in which they talked about the pros and cons of releasing
The Nanoawareness Study is designed to answer the question "What, if any, impact do NISE Net activities delivered at Tier 1 and Tier 2 institutions have on the nanoawareness of the public audiences that experience those activities?" The appendix of this report includes the online survey instrument used in the study.
The NISE Network Forums were created to provide an in-depth learning experience that would (1) enhance participants' understanding of nano and its potential impacts; (2) increase participants' confidence in participating in public discourse about nanotechnologies; and (3) build informal science educators' knowledge and ability to conduct this type of programming at their institution (NISE Network Public Forums Manual, 2007). In an effort to reach out to a more diverse audience, the NISE Network Forums Team translated into Spanish the existing NISE Net forum "Nanomedicine in Healthcare" to
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth KollmannJane MorganNanoscale Informal Science Education NetworkRoxana del Campo
Premiering on PBS in January 2011, Design Squad Nation (DSN) is a 10-part series of TV shows and video blogs that build on the success of the award-winning PBS reality competition series Design Squad to get kids excited about engineering. Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) was hired to conduct an evaluation of DSN in 2011. The evaluation was designed to measure WGBH's success in achieving the following impacts on students and teachers: After using the DSN resources Middle school students will increase their knowledge of science and engineering concepts and the design process. Middle school
The findings summarized in this summative evaluation report focus on three of The World's media venues: (1) its radio broadcast, (2) its Science Podcast (http://www.world-science.org/category/podcast), and (3) its online resources (e.g., articles, streaming audio and video). An additional focus is on The World's participatory Science and Technology Forums. The primary research aim was to assess the project's impact and success at reaching its intended goals while avoiding unintended negative outcomes. Toward these ends, The World's audience members were asked to respond to an online survey
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Arthur JohnsonPublic Radio International (PRI)
Produced by Twin Cities Public Television, St. Paul, MN, DragonflyTV (DFTV) is a weekly television series of half-hour live action shows for 8-12 year olds, distributed by PBS Plus. DFTV features real children engaged in real inquiry-based investigations in and around science centers across America. Six 2009 episodes of DFTV focus on the world of nanoscale science and technology. DFTV Nano highlights science centers and university research labs while applying the DFTV Real Kids Real Science model to communicate basic concepts and the scientific process in nanoscience. The programs were very
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Barbara FlaggTwin Cities Public Television
The Nurture Nature Foundation’s Flood Forum project, funded by a two-year National Science Foundation (NSF) planning grant effective August 1, 2009, explored innovative means to promote science learning by and for local communities. The NSF planning grant allowed Nurture Nature Foundation (NNF) to develop a model of outreach for science centers that engages rural and underserved audiences in public dialogue on the science underlying an issue of high public concern—frequent flooding in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. Building on a public forum model used by other science centers such as the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alice ApleyNurture Nature Foundation