The Coalition for Science After School (CSAS) was established in 2004 in response to the growing need for more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning opportunities in out-of-school time. CSAS sought to build this field by uniting STEM education goals with out-of-school time opportunities and a focus on youth development. Over a decade of work, CSAS Steering Committee members, staff and partners advocated for STEM in out-of-school-time settings, convened leaders, and created resources to support this work. CSAS leadership decided to conclude CSAS operations in 2014, as the STEM in out-of-school time movement had experienced tremendous growth of programming and attention to science-related out-of-school time opportunities on a national level. In its ten-year strategic plan, CSAS took as its vision the full integration of the STEM education and out-of-school time communities to ensure that quality out-of-school time STEM opportunities became prevalent and available to learners nationwide. Key CSAS activities included: (1) Setting and advancing a collective agenda by working with members to identify gaps in the field, organizing others to create solutions that meet the needs, identifying policy needs in the field and supporting advocates to advance them; (2) Developing and linking committed communities by providing opportunities for focused networking and learning through conferences, webinars, and other outreach activities; and (3) Identifying, collecting, capturing, and sharing information and available research and resources in the field. The leadership of the Coalition for Science After School is deeply grateful to the funders, partners, supporters, and constituents that worked together to advance STEM in out-of-school time during the last decade, and that make up today's rich and varied STEM in out-of-school time landscape. We have much to be proud of, but as a movement there is much more work to be done. As this work continues to expand and deepen, it is appropriate for the Coalition for Science After School to step down as the many other organizations that have emerged over the last decade take on leadership for the critical work that remains to be done. A timeline and summary of CSAS activities, products, and accomplishments is available for download on this page. All resources noted in the narrative are also available for download below.
Assessing the Impact of a Visit to a Zoo or Aquarium: A Multi-institutional Research Project will create a functional taxonomy of zoo/aquarium visitors' entering knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. This taxonomy, in conjunction with data about the specific experiences visitors have during their visit, will enable investigators to understand and predict the contribution of zoos and aquariums to the public understanding of animals and their conservation. The results will clarify the role of zoos and aquariums as centers of informal learning and point to ways to strengthen their educational impact. The AZA convened a national advisory committee that commissioned and completed a thorough review, confirming a critical need to conduct more research, particularly research that attempts to ask broad questions, collect data systematically, and includes sufficient number and types of institutions to permit community-wide generalizations. Twelve AZA institutions of various sizes, geographic regions and types will participate in the study. The net result of the study will be a descriptive model of zoo and aquarium visitor learning experiences and development of a set of diagnostic tools to help zoo and aquaria staff understand and enhance the nature and extent of their public impact.
The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Education (NSEE) Center for Learning and Teaching (NCLT) would focus on the research and development of nano-science instructional resources for grades 7-16, related professional development opportunities for 7-12 teachers, and programs infused with nano-science content for education doctoral students. The Center would bring together educators and scientists from several areas of nano-science and engineering research to collaborate with science teachers and doctoral candidates in education on both the development of the resources and research on their efficacy. The PI has prior experience as director of the Materials World Modules project, an NSF-funded curriculum currently in use in several secondary schools across the country. Lead partners in the proposed Center are Northwestern University, Purdue University, University of Michigan, University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Additional partners include Argonne National Laboratory, West Point Military Academy, Alabama A & M University, Fisk University, Hampton University, Morehouse College and University of Texas at El Paso. The additional partners will widen the geographic range of the project, expanding opportunities to reach a diverse and currently underrepresented population of graduate students, teachers and ultimately students. STEM and Education faculty and researchers from the partner institutions would participate in interdisciplinary teams to address the Center's mission: Provide national education leadership and resources for advancing NSEE Create and implement professional development programs in NSEE Use innovative ideas in learning to design instructional materials for grades 7-16 Conduct research relating to integration of NSEE into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
R. P. H. ChangThomas MasonNcholas GiordanoJoseph Krajcik
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History will partner with The Exploratorium and with three smaller science museums that have strong connections to rural and Spanish-speaking populations in Texas: Discovery Science Place, Loredo Children's Museum, and Science Spectrum to develop TexNET, a four-year project modeled on the Exploratorium Network for Exhibit-based Teaching (ExNET). TexNET builds on lessons learned from past exhibit outreach models and addresses the needs of small, rural partners for exhibits and capacity-building workshops. Each small museum partner will host a set of ten exhibits for one year. Exhibit topics are 1) motion, 2) weather and 3) sound. Workshops focus on inquiry learning techniques, science content, programming and workshop design, as well as the institutional needs of each partner. Based on feedback from formative evaluation, the project added three additional partners in its final year, the Children's Museum of Houston, the Austin Children's Museum, and the Don Herrington Discovery Center, and focused its remaining year on building institutional capacity around tinkering. Inverness Research Associates will conduct the project evaluation. They will examine the success of this project by looking at the effectiveness of the TexNET model, the success of the individual exhibit elements to engage rural communities, the effectiveness with which this project has enhanced the abilities of local rural communities to sustain their own educational improvements and the effectiveness of the training components in increasing the capabilities of the local museums to serve their rural audiences.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
Charlie WalterSamuel DeanJoe HastingsRobert Lindsey
TEAMS, an exhibit collaborative of seven small science museums, will collaborate with academic researchers to expand knowledge about learning in informal science environments and will apply that knowledge to the creation of eight (two copies of four topics) traveling science exhibitions suitable for small museums and science centers. The research investigations build on recent findings about the nature of socio-cultural learning in museums. This close working collaboration among researchers, museum evaluators and museum exhibition designers provides an innovative opportunity to examine a model for rapid transfer of research knowledge into museum practice. Through this collaborative effort the project builds capacity within the seven small museums, helping address the larger problem of under-served audiences in rural areas. One component of the research supports design guidelines to increase effectiveness for girls visiting STEM exhibitions.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
David GoudyCharles TrautmannSarah WolfMark SinclairCatherine McCarthy
Mixing in Math is a multi-dimensional, three-year project that seeks to build the capacity of after-school programs to provide meaningful and engaging math activities for youth. Program collaborators including project leaders from TERC and after-school program leaders will reach approximately 40,000 children through at least 350 sites and approximately 9,000 staff and volunteers. Drawing on the unique features of the after-school environment, the project design includes the following elements: development of materials appropriate to the setting; staff development and support; institutionalization and dissemination of materials throughout an established network and evaluation research to further knowledge about informal math and after-school programming. Project goals are to: provide free math materials to all participating after-school staff; produce a significant increase in informal math training for the after-school workforce; strengthen the role of informal math in after-school settings; and conduct and disseminate research on the project in terms of its impact on after-school programming, informal math education and the math "achievement gap." "Mixing in Math" national partners will facilitate further reach of the project. The National Institute of Out of School Time (NIOST) in addition to posting materials on their website, will incorporate project activities into their staff development programs. Ceridian, a work-life benefits provider, will distribute project materials to workplace school-ages childcare programs.
This study (1) creates a genre of exhibit-based, group scientific inquiry programs for general and low-income museum visitors, (2) determines key program characteristics that lead to learning, (3) conducts a controlled experiment to assess the levels and nature of actual transfer of such skills to other exhibits and to visitors' lives beyond the museum visit. A team of researchers and educators creates, revises, and studies Exhibit Investigations for general and underserved visitors at the Exploratorium. During Investigations, educators coach visitors in inquiry skills that are heuristics for engaging with exhibits or physical phenomena beyond the museum. Pre- and post-assessments of learner interactions with a novel exhibit are recorded and analyzed for evidence of transfer of the inquiry skills introduced during the Investigations. Exit and follow-up interviews determine long-term impact. Two versions of the Investigations-with and without mnemonic cards summarizing inquiry skills-are compared with two control conditions in a randomized block design with four conditions and 50 groups per condition. Intellectual Merit The project broadens the focus of current research on the learning of scientific inquiry skills beyond the school setting. A science museum with engaging and interactive exhibits constitutes an ideal and understudied setting for research on inquiry learning by groups. This project . describes the nature of inquiry learning in an informal learning environment . generates principles for using audience diversity to enhance learning identifies specific inquiry skills that are relevant and effective in this environment . assesses levels of transfer of such skills by visitors . compares such transfer to control groups receiving no mediation or content-based mediation The exhibit-based, group inquiries adapt best practices from formal education for use in the multigenerational, free-choice learning environment of a museum. The research yields a series of effective programs and a set of theoretical principles that account for their efficacy. Broader Impacts Project results and learning principles will be disseminated to academic, museum, and lay audiences. In total, the project serves approximately 1,000 Exploratorium visitors. The project will is presented at national and local conferences such as AERA, ASTC, VSA, and AAM, reaching museum researchers, practitioners, and a broad educational research community. Articles are submitted to peer-review journals in the fields of museum studies and science education. Project updates and the final report are posted on the Exploratorium Web site (visited by 15 million annually). Outcomes are disseminated to the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS), an initiative of the Exploratorium, Kings College London, and UC Santa Cruz. A non-technical publication, distributed through the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), informs science centers around the world.
This CAREER grant interweaves research and teaching focused on understanding how social groups construct meaning during scientific conversations across different learning contexts, such as classrooms, museums and the home. This work will be translated into formal educational settings and used to inform teaching practices within pre-service University and in-service school district settings. The research and educational emphasis will be on creating conceptual links between social learning in diverse settings and the creation of corridors of opportunity between formal and informal learning institutions. To date there has been little research with families from cultural and linguistic minority populations, such as Latino families, at informal learning settings and virtually none that integrates formal and informal learning, or impacts teaching. The five-year project will: 1. Conduct Study 1, aimed at making fundamental cross-cultural comparisons of family conversational meaning making at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and linking this work with family interviews, reflective conversations and visits to family homes; 2. Review the theoretical framework and conduct Study 2, which will incorporate lessons learned from Study 1, and linking this research to formal classrooms; and 3. Use the findings (at each stage) to inform teaching practice with UCSC undergraduate (Science majors) and graduate (Science credential, MA and Ph.D.) students, and, in collaboration with teacher research groups for new and experienced teacher in schools that serve predominantly Latino students. This research plan provides an opportunity for viewing several inter-connected mechanisms, including family interactions and conversations, compelling science content, naturalistic learning in museum settings, and, finally, analyzing these factors in order to inform teaching practices that promote bilingual minority students to the rank of scientists.
The "Crafting & Evaluating Interactive Educational Websites" conference will be developed through a collaboration between the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology and the Exploratorium. The PIs will develop and host a three-day invitational conference focusing on the practice of interactive web site design, development, evaluation and maintenance intended to achieve or support informal STEM learning. The conference, which will be held in Spring, 2005, will involve 50 individuals with a wide range of expertise who will focus on a variety of issues including audience expectations and abilities, designing for learner outcomes, testing for usability, evaluation tools and accessibility. With regard to intellectual merit, conference attendees will explore challenges and barriers that hinder development of truly interactive web sites and identify best practices and promising models, tools and technologies for encouraging authentic public interaction. Conversations begun at the conference will be extended to a broader audience through development of an online manual, informed by the conference presentations and commentaries, and designed for use by the museum, media and research communities. An interactive Web site developed after the conference will allow Web developers to locate content and ideas for design, and to share new ideas and results of usability studies and evaluations.