RISES (Re-energize and Invigorate Student Engagement through Science) is a coordinated suite of resources including 42 interactive English and Spanish STEM videos produced by Children's Museum Houston in coordination with the science curriculum department at Houston ISD. The videos are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, and each come with a bilingual Activity Guide and Parent Prompt sheet, which includes guiding questions and other extension activities.
The National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation [NNOCCI] is a Community of Practice [CoP] dedicated to advancing the conversation on climate change, based on the principle that wide-scale training with proven communication techniques can change the national discourse around climate change to be more productive, creative, and solutions-focused.
NNOCCI CoP is a network of individuals and organizations in formal and informal education, the social sciences, climate sciences, and public policy. By 2018, the community represented more than 184 institutions in 38 states, and over
This project is designed to support collaboration between informal STEM learning (ISL) researchers, designers, and educators with sound researchers and acoustic ecologists to jointly explore the role of auditory experiences—soundscapes—on learning. In informal STEM learning spaces, where conversation advances STEM learning and is a vital part of the experience of exploring STEM phenomena with family and friends, attention to the impacts of soundscapes can have an important bearing on learning. Understanding how soundscapes may facilitate, spark, distract from, or even overwhelm thinking and conversation will provide ISL educators and designers evidence to inform their practice. The project is structured to reflect the complexity of ISL audiences and experiences; thus, partners include the North Park Village Nature Center located in in a diverse immigrant neighborhood in Chicago; Wild Indigo, a Great Lakes Audubon program primarily serving African American visitors in Midwest cities; an after-school/summer camp provider, STEAMing Ahead New Mexico, serving families in the rural southwest corner of New Mexico, and four sites in Ohio, MetroParks, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and the Center of Science and Industry.
Investigators will conduct large-scale exploratory research to answer an understudied research question: How do environmental sounds impact STEM learning in informal learning spaces? Researchers and practitioners will characterize and describe the soundscapes throughout the different outdoor and indoor exhibit/learning spaces. Researchers will observe 800 visitors, tracking attraction, attention, dwell time, and shared learning. In addition to observations, researchers will join another 150 visitors for think-aloud interviews, where researchers will walk alongside visitors and capture pertinent notes while visitors describe their experience in real time. Correlational and cluster analyses using machine learning algorithms will be used to identify patterns across different sounds, soundscapes, responses, and reflections of research participants. In particular, the analyses will identify characteristics of sounds that correlate with increased attention and shared learning. Throughout the project, a team of evaluators will monitor progress and support continuous improvement, including guidance for developing culturally responsive research metrics co-defined with project partners. Evaluators will also document the extent to which the project impacts capacity building, and influences planning and design considerations for project partners. This exploratory study is the initial in a larger research agenda, laying the groundwork for future experimental study designs that test causal claims about the relationships between specific soundscapes and visitor learning. Results of this study will be disseminated widely to informal learning researchers and practitioners through workshops, presentations, journal articles, facilitated conversations, and a short film that aligns with the focus and findings of the research.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Martha MersonJustin MeyerDaniel Shanahan
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Centering Native Traditional Knowledge within informal STEM education programs is critical for learning for Native youth. In co-created, place-based learning experiences for Native youth, interweaving cultural traditions, arts, language, and community partnerships is vital for authentic, meaningful learning. Standardized STEM curricula and Western-based pedagogies within the mainstream and formal education systems do not reflect the nature of Native STEM knowledge, nor do they make deep connections to it. The absence of this knowledge base can reinforce a deficit-based STEM identity, which can directly impact Native youths’ participation and engagement in STEM. Reframing STEM education for Native youth to prioritize the vitality of community and sustainability requires active consideration of what counts as science learning and who serves as holders and conduits of STEM knowledge. As highly regarded holders of traditional and western STEM knowledge, Native educators and cultural practitioners are critical for facilitating Native youths’ curiosity and engagement with STEM. This Innovations in Development project is Native-led and centers Native knowledge, voice, and contributions in STEM through a culturally based, dual-learning approach that emphasizes traditional and western STEM knowledge. Through this lens, a network of over a dozen tribal nations across 20 U.S. states will be established to support and facilitate the learning of Traditional and Western STEM knowledge in a culturally sustaining manner. The network will build on existing programs and develop a set of unique, interconnected, and synchronized placed-based informal STEM programs for Native youth reflecting the distinctive cultural aspects of Native American and Alaska Native Tribes. The network will also involve a Natives-In-STEM Role Models innovation, in which Native STEM professionals will provide inspiration to Native youth through conversations about their journeys in STEM within cultural contexts. In addition, the network will cultivate a professional network of STEM educators, practitioners, and tribal leaders. Network efforts and the formative evaluation will culminate in the development and dissemination of a community-based, co-created Framework for Informal STEM Education with Native Communities.
Together with Elders and other contributors of each community, local leads within the STEM for Youth in Native Communities (SYNC) Network team will identify and guide the STEM content topics, as well as co-create and implement the program within their sovereign lands with their youth. The content, practitioners, and programming in each community will be distinct, but the community-based, dual learning contextual framework will be consistent. Each community includes several partner organizations poised to contribute to the programming efforts, including tribal government departments, tribal and public K-12 schools, tribal colleges, museums and cultural centers, non-profits, local non-tribal government support agencies, colleges and universities, and various grassroots organizations. Programmatic designs will vary and may include field excursions, summer and after school STEM experiences, and workshops. In addition, the Natives-In-STEM innovation will be implemented across the programs, providing youth with access to Native STEM professionals and career pathways across the country. To understand the impacts of SYNC’s efforts, an external evaluator will explore a broad range of questions through formative and summative evaluations. The evaluation questions seek to explore: (a) the extent to which the culturally based, dual learning methods implemented in SYNC informal STEM programs affect Native youths’ self-efficacy in STEM and (b) how the components of SYNC’s overall theoretical context and network (e.g., partnerships, community contributors such as Elders, STEM practitioners and professionals) impact community attitudes and behaviors regarding youth STEM learning. Data and knowledge gained from these programs will inform the primary deliverable, a Framework for Native Informal STEM Education, which aims to support the informal STEM education community as it expands and deepens its service to Native youth and communities. Future enhanced professional development opportunities for teachers and educators to learn more about the findings and practices highlighted in the Framework are envisioned to maximize its strategic impact.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Juan ChavezDaniella ScaliceWendy Todd
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Potential STEM talent is lost each day for some of the most underserved and underrepresented populations in our nation's incarcerated men, women, and youth. With years devoid of quality STEM education and opportunities while in prison, incarcerated individuals are often significantly underprepared in STEM and for the STEM workforce. This educational debt exacerbates the pattern of marginalization for these vulnerable populations. Their STEM literacy, employability and potential for earning sustainable wages upon release are stifled. This deficit in opportunity is especially stark for underrepresented groups in the United States. Roughly 61% of the prison population is non-white, which far exceeds the national average of 35%. The U.S. also has the highest per capita incarceration rates in the world, incarcerating 698 men, women, and youth for every 100,000 people. Equally unsettling, for the first time in American history the population growth rate for incarcerated women has outpaced men by almost 2 to 1 for the past 25 years. While there are many contributing factors to the high rate of incarceration in the U.S., high quality prison STEM education programs have been shown to help counter socio-economic and education debts through greater STEM knowledge attainment, successful societal integration, and increased wage and advancement potential, which increase the likelihood that formerly incarcerated individuals and their children can live productive lives. The NSF INCLUDES STEM Opportunities in Prison Settings (STEM-OPS) Alliance endeavors to build a national network aimed at providing and supporting viable pathways to STEM for the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. Using a collective impact approach, the Alliance will work collaboratively with key stakeholders and the target population to advance extant and untapped knowledge on high quality prison STEM education and opportunities. This work builds on efforts supported by the National Science Foundation, including exploratory work piloted by two NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilots. If successful, this Alliance has the potential to significantly transform the face of the STEM workforce and the narrative regarding the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated and their potential to succeed in STEM.
The STEM-OPS Alliance is comprised of partner organizations committed to ensuring that STEM preparation during and post incarceration is commonplace and successful. During its first year, the Alliance will focus on establishing its national network through a shared vision and goals and a collective impact approach. It will conduct systems ecology mapping to inform the supports and resources needed for the target population to succeed in STEM. Focus groups and interviews will be conducted with incarcerated middle/high school aged youth to better understand their experiences in K-12 schools and with STEM education prior to and during incarceration. The results of the mapping and youth study will be used to inform the future work of the Alliance. Affordances the network endeavors to achieve include: (a) creating accessible STEM opportunities for the target populations through STEM courses, in-prison laboratories, research experiences for undergraduates (REUs), internships, and mentoring, (b) a culturally responsive platform to connect formerly incarcerated job seekers with STEM employment opportunities, (c) an evidence-based toolkit for effective STEM in-prison program design and implementation, (d) an annual convening of key stakeholders and representatives from the target populations to share learnings, disseminate findings and resources, and support the growth and development of the Alliance, and (d) leveraging connections to the greater NSF INCLUDES National Network. A formative and summative evaluation will be conducted by an external evaluator. Through its network, the STEM OPS Alliance is well poised to directly impact 700-880 incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men and women and reach a significant number of organizations working to improve STEM opportunities and outcomes within prison contexts.
This NSF INCLUDES Alliance is funded by NSF Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES), a comprehensive national initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in discoveries and innovations by focusing on diversity, inclusion and broadening participation in STEM at scale. Significant co-funding has also been provided by the NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program and the NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning Program (AISL).
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:
Eden BadertscherStanley AndrisseJannette CareyRich Milner
As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. Informal STEM educational activities have proliferated widely in the US over the last 20 years. Additional research will further validate the long-term benefits of this mode of learning. Thus, elaborating the multitude of variables in informal learning and how those variables can be used for individual learning is yet to be defined for the circumstances of the learners. Thus, the primary objective of this work is to produce robust and detailed evidence to help shape both practice and policy for informal STEM learning in a broad array of common circumstances such as rural, urban, varying economic situations, and unique characteristics and cultures of citizen groups. Rather than pursuing a universal model of informal learning, the principal investigator will develop a series of comprehensive models that will support learning in informal environments for various demographic groups. The research will undertake a longitudinal mixed-methods approach of Out of School Time/informal STEM experiences over a five-year time span of data collection for youth ages 9-19 in urban, suburban, town, and rural communities. The evidence base will include data on youth experiences of informal STEM, factors that exert an influence on participation in informal STEM, the impact of participation on choices about educational pathways and careers, and preferences for particular types of learning activities. The quantitative data will include youth surveys, program details (e.g. duration of program, length of each program session, youth/facilitator ratio, etc.), and demographics. The qualitative data will include on-site informal interviews with youth and facilitators, and program documentation. 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.