This project focuses on environmental health literacy and will explore the extent to which diverse rural and urban youth in an out-of-school STEM enrichment program exhibit gains in environmental health literacy while engaged in learning and teaching others about community resilience in the face of changing climates. Science centers and museums provide unique opportunities for youth to learn about resilience, because they bring community members together to examine the ways that current science influences local decisions. In this project, teams of participating youth will progress through four learning modules that explore the impacts of changing climates on local communities, the local vulnerabilities and risks associated with those changes, possible mitigation and adaptation strategies, and building capacities for communities to become climate resilient. After completion of these modules, participating youth will conduct a resilience-focused action project. Participants will be encouraged to engage peers, families, friends, and other community stakeholders in the design and implementation of their projects, and they will gain experience in accessing local climate and weather data, and in sharing their findings through relevant web portals. Participants will also use various sensors and web-based tools to collect their own data.
This study is guided by three research questions: 1) To what extent do youth develop knowledge, skills, and self- efficacy for developing community resilience (taken together, environmental health literacy in the context of resilience) through participation in museum-led, resilience-focused programming? 2) What program features and settings foster these science learning outcomes? And 3) How does environmental health literacy differ among rural and urban youth, and what do any differences imply for project replication? Over a two- year period, the project will proceed in six stages: a) Materials Development during the first year, b) Recruitment and selection of youth participants, c) Summer institute (six days), d) Workshops and field experiences during the school year following the summer institute, e) Locally relevant action projects, and f) End- of-program summit (one day). In pursuing answers to the research questions, a variety of data sources will be used, including transcripts from youth focus groups and educator interviews, brief researcher reflections of each focus group and interview, and a survey of resilience- related knowledge. Quantitative data sources will include a demographic survey and responses to a self-efficacy instrument for adolescents. The project will directly engage 32 youth, together with one parent or guardian per youth. The study will explore the experiences of rural and urban youth of high school age engaged in interactive, parallel programming to enable the project team to compare and contrast changes in environmental health literacy between rural and urban participants. It is anticipated that this research will advance knowledge of how engagement of diverse youth in informal learning environments influences understanding of resilience and development of environmental health literacy, and it will provide insights into the role of partnerships between research universities and informal science centers in focusing on community resilience.
Hero Elementary is a transmedia educational initiative aimed at improving the school readiness and academic achievement in science and literacy of children grades K-2. With an emphasis on Latinx communities, English Language Learners, youth with disabilities, and children from low-income households, Hero Elementary celebrates kids and encourages them to make a difference in their own backyards and beyond by actively doing science and using their Superpowers of Science. The content is aligned with NGSS and CCSS-ELA for K–2.
This report summarizes findings from a case study with 4 large
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Betsy McCarthyDaniel BrennerClaire MorganJoan FreeseMomoko Hayakawa
Hero Elementary is a transmedia educational initiative aimed at improving the school readiness and academic achievement in science and literacy of children grades K-2. With an emphasis on Latinx communities, English Language Learners, youth with disabilities, and children from low-income households, Hero Elementary celebrates kids and encourages them to make a difference in their own backyards and beyond by actively doing science and using their Superpowers of Science. The content is aligned with NGSS and CCSS-ELA for K–2. This report summarizes findings from a case study with 4 large
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Betsy McCarthyDaniel BrennerClaire MorganJoan FreeseMomoko Hayakawa
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Many informal learning institutions use STEAM approaches to engage diverse learners. Our project aims to support educators in libraries, museums, and after school programs through a STEAM professional development (PD) series. Our PD approach is centered around a set of core STEAM practices that prioritize STEAM mindset and identity work. Participants engage in exemplar activities and design new experiences for their specific teaching and learning contexts. The series involves in- person sessions, online training, and team
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This project is a retrospective study to explore the long-term impact of STEM programming. The study follows up with participants to ask questions like "Where are they now? What mattered? What difference did it make? and What’s next?"
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Collaborative robots – cobots – are designed to work with humans, not replace them. What learning affordances are created in educational games when learners program robots to assist them in a game instead of being the game? What game designs work best?
This practitioner guide summarizes lessons learned from a three-year design-based research project focused on using elements of narrative (such as characters, settings, and problem frames) to evoke empathy and support girls' engagement in engineering design practices. The guide includes a summary of the driving concepts and key research findings from this work, as well as design principles for creating narrative-based engineering activities. Six activity case studies illustrate the design principles in action, and facilitation tips and observation tools offer practical guidance in developing
Although virtual conferences have become commonplace in the age of COVID-19, this format poses both challenges and opportunities for organizers to design, implement, and engage participants in productive and connected ways. We created this brief to share an example of the process and lessons learned as we designed and hosted a virtual NSF-funded conference called: Mapping Connections Between STEM and Social-Emotional Development (SED) in Out-of-School Time (OST) Programs. This conference focused on identifying outcomes at the interface of STEM and SED in OST research and practice (e.g
This project is a Smart and Connected Communities award. The community is part of Evanston, Illinois and is composed of the lead partners described below:
EvanSTEM which is a in-school/out of school time (OST) program to improve access and engagement for students in Evanston who have underperformed or been underrepresented in STEM.
McGaw YMCA which consists of 12,000 families serving 20,000 individuals and supporting technology and makerspace activities (MetaMedia) in a safe community atmosphere.
Office of Community Education Partnerships (OCEP) at Northwestern University which provides support for the university and community to collaborate on research, teaching, and service initiatives.
This partnership will develop a new approach to learning enagement through the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) interests of all young people in Evanston. This project is entitled Interests for All (I4All) and builds upon existing research results of the two Principal Investigators (PIs) and previous partnerships between the lead partners (EvanSTEM and MetaMedia had OCEP as a founding partner). I4All also brings together Evanston school districts, OST prividers, the city, and Evanston's Northwestern University as participants.
In particular the project builds on PI Pinkard's Cities of Learning project and co-PI Stevens' FUSE Studios project. Both of these projects have explicit goals to broaden participation in STEAM pursuits, a goal that is significantly advanced through I4All. In this project, I4All infrastructure will be evaluated using quantitative metrics that will tell the researchers whether and to what degree Evanston youth are finding and developing their STEAM interests and whether the I4All infrastructure supports a significantly more equitable distribution of opportunities to youth. The researchers will also conduct in depth qualitative case studies of youth interest development. These longitudinal studies will complement the quantitative metrics of participation and give measures that will be used in informing changes in I4All as part of the PIs Design Based Implementation Research approach. The artifacts produced in I4All include FUSE studio projects, software infrastructure to guide the students through OST and in-school activities and to provide to the students actionable information as to logistics for participation in I4All activities, and data that will be available to all stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of I4All. Additionally, this research has the potential to provide for scaling this model to different communities, leveraging the OST network in one community to begin to offer professional development more widely throughout the school districts and as an exemplar for other districts. These research results could also affect strategies and policies created by local school officials and community organizations regarding how to work together to create local learning environments to create an ecosystem where formal and informal learning spaces support and reinforce STEAM knowledge.
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.
This three-year research and implementation project empowers middle school LatinX youth to employ their own assets and funds of knowledge to solve community problems through engineering. Only 7% of adults in the STEM job cluster are of Hispanic/Latino origin. There is a continuing need for filling engineering jobs in our current and future economy. This project will significantly broaden participation of LatinX youth in engineering activities at a critical point as they make career decisions. Design Squad Global LatinX expands on a tested model previously funded by NSF and shown to be successful. It will enable LatinX youth to view themselves as designers and engineers and to build from their strengths to expand their skills and participation in science and engineering. The project goals are to: 1) develop an innovative inclusive approach to informal engineering education for LatinX students that can broaden their engineering participation and that of other underrepresented groups, (2) to galvanize collaborations across diverse local, national, and international stakeholders to create a STEM learning ecosystem and (3) to advance knowledge about a STEM pedagogy that bridges personal-cultural identity and experience with engineering knowledge and skills. Project deliverables include a conceptual framework for a strength-based approach to engineering education for LatinX youth, a program model that is asset based, a collection of educational resources including a club guide for how to scaffold culturally responsive engineering challenge activities, an online training course for club leaders, and a mentoring strategy for university engineering students working with middle school youth. Project partners include the global education organization, iEARN, the Society of Women Engineers, and various University engineering programs.
The research study will employ an experimental study design to evaluate the impact on youth participating in the Design Squad LatinX programs. The key research questions are (1) Does participation increase students' positive perceptions of themselves and understanding of engineering and global perspectives? (2) To what extent do changes in understanding engineering vary by community (site) and by student characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity)? (3) Do educators and club leaders increase their positive perceptions of youths' funds of knowledge and their own understanding of engineering? and (4) Do university mentors increase their ability to lead informal engineering/STEM education with middle school youth? A sample from 72 local Design Squad LatinX clubs with an enrollment of 10-15 students will be drawn with half randomly assigned to the participant condition and half to the control condition. Methods used include pre and post surveys, implementation logs for checks on program implementation, site visits to carry out observations, focus groups with students and interviews with adult leaders. Data will be analyzed by estimating hierarchical linear models with observations. In addition, in-situ ethnographically-oriented observations as well as interviews at two sites will be used to develop qualitative case studies.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
It is estimated that there could be 40 billion earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of stars in the Milky Way. Major advances in long range telescopes have allowed astronomers to identify thousands of exoplanets in recent decades, and the discovery of new exoplanets is a now a common occurrence. Public excitement for the discoveries grown alongside these discoveries, thus opening new possibilities for inspiring a new generation of scientists and engineers that may dream of one day visiting these planets. This project investigates the use of interactive, intelligent educational technologies to generate interest in STEM by allowing learners to explore and even create their own exoplanets. Research will occur across several informal learning contexts, including summer camps, after school programs, planetarium shows, and at home. The approach is based on the idea of "What if?"questions about Earth (e.g., "What if the Moon did not exist?"), designed to trigger interest in STEM and frame exploratory and elaborative discussions around hypothetical science questions that are subsequently linked to the search for habitable exoplanets. Learners are able to interact with and explore scientifically accurate simulations of alternative versions of Earth, while making observations and posing explanations for what they see. Technology-based informal learning experiences designed to act as triggers for and sustainment of interest in STEM have the potential to plug the leaky STEM pipeline, and thus have profound implications for the future of science and technology in the United States.
The project seeks to advance the science of designing technologies for promoting interest in STEM and informal astronomy education in several ways. First, the project will develop simulations for exploratory learning about astronomy and planetary science. These simulations will present hypothetical worlds based on what-if questions and feasible models of known exoplanets, thus giving learners a chance to better understand the challenges of finding a habitable world and learning about what is needed to survive there. Second, a new PBS NOVA Lab will be developed that will focus on Exoplanet education. This web-based activity has the potential to reach millions of learners and will help them understand how planets are formed and the requirements for supporting life. Learners who use the lab will have an opportunity to invent their own exoplanets and export them for first-person exploration. Third, researchers on the project will design and implement Artificial Intelligence-based pedagogical agents to support learning and promote interest. These agents will inhabit the simulations with the learner, acting as a coach and guide, and be designed to be culturally responsive and personalized based on learner preferences. Fourth, interactive exoplanet-focused planetarium shows, that will involve live interaction with simulations, will take place at the Fiske Planetarium (Boulder, CO). Finally, the project will develop a server-based infrastructure for tracking and supporting long term development of interest in STEM. This back-end will track fine-grained behaviors, including movement, actions, and communications in the simulations. Such data will reveal patterns about how interest develops, how learners engage in free-choice learning activities, and how they interact with agents and peers in computer simulations. A design-based research methodology will be employed to assess the power of these different experiences to trigger interest and promote learning of astronomy. A range of different pathways for interest in STEM will therefore be considered and assessed. Research will measure the power of these experiences to trigger interest in STEM and promote re-engagement over time. Innovation lies in the use of engaging and intelligent technologies with thought-provoking pedagogy as a method for extended engagement of diverse young learners in STEM. Project research and educational resources will be widely disseminated to researchers, designers developers and the general public via peer-reviewed research journals, conference presentations, informal STEM education networks of science museums, children's museums, Fab Labs, and planetariums, and public media such as public television's NOVA science program website.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
H Chad LaneNeil CominsJorge Perez-GallegoDavid Condon
This Research in Service to Practice project will bring together representatives from six long-standing youth programs, experts in the field of out-of-school-time youth programming, and education researchers to collaboratively explore the long-term (15-25 years) impact of STEM-focused, intensive (100+ hours/year), multi-year programming. The six partnering programs have maintained records with a combined total of over 3000 alums who participated between 1995 and 2005. This four-year research project uses an explanatory, sequential, mixed-method design to carry out four steps: (1) identify and describe the impact on the lives of program alums who are now ages 30 to 45; (2) identify causal pathways from program strategies to long-term outcomes; (3) develop an understanding of these pathways from the perspective of the people who experienced them; and (4) disseminate this knowledge broadly to those associated with STEM-focused programming. Research questions include: How did these programs affect youth's lives as they progressed toward and into adulthood? What program strategies and what participant attributes contributed most to the staying power of these effects? What life events and social structures supported and inhibited participant outcomes? This project describes the effects, identifies the causal pathways, and produces materials that programs can use for both strategic planning and generating support resources. Additionally, this project provides research methodology for organizations that want to conduct their own retrospective research and lays a foundation for a more comprehensive study that includes programs without historical documentation. The project aligns with NSF's Big Idea "NSF INCLUDES: Transforming education and career pathways to help broaden participation in science and engineering" by providing essential information about the long-term effect of interventions on educational and career pathways in STEM.
The project's approach involves three phases: (1) research preparation, (2) causal structural modeling of survey data from approximately 2,000 respondents, and (3) rich qualitative follow-up. Human ecological and self-determination theories inform data collection and analyses at every project phase. In the preparation phase, program staff complete program profiles from an historic perspective by identifying program strategies that may have included, for example, scientific research, robotics development, teaching science in informal settings, and working in scientific research labs. In the quantitative phase, the project will recruit alums who attended one of the 6 youth programs between 1995 and 2005 to submit a current resume and complete an online questionnaire, based on the following scaled variables: retrospective recall of basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration in relation to perceived program strategies; STEM identity (at three time periods: pre-program; post-program; and current); current well-being; career influences; and career barriers. The questionnaire also includes open-ended questions about life events related to the following categories: family and friends, school and work, and living conditions. Analysis of the questionnaire will lead to development of a causal structural model. In the qualitative phase, data will be collected from a purposefully selected sample of 30 alums based on findings from the quantitative phase. Methods include interviews, photo journals, and STEM pathways maps. Analysis of interviews, resumes, and photo journals take place within the structure of basic psychological need satisfaction and motivational quality across ecological systems over time. Qualitative analysis uses the constant comparative method, and findings are used to update and refine the final causal structural model and inform overall findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the project.
Since the 1990s, out-of-school time programs have engaged youth from underserved communities in STEM learning and in building interest in STEM careers, yet these programs often based on untested assumptions that participation has lasting effects on education, career, and life choices related to STEM. This Research in Service to Practice project has the potential to 1) guide practitioners in program improvement and improved program outcomes; 2) provide insight into achieving program goals, such as equity, increased well-being of participants, an informed citizenry, and a diversified STEM workforce; and 3) inform multi-stakeholder decision-making with respect to this type of programming. This research also builds a foundation of research data collection and analysis methods to guide and support future research on long term-impacts and youth STEM programming. Dissemination strategies include a website, webinars, video, infographics, conference presentations, and written reports to reach stakeholders including practitioners, researchers, administrators, and funders.
This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which supports innovative research, approaches, and resources for use in a variety of learning settings.