How can you carve out a museum space that’s less authoritative? And how you can make work that is smaller, more intimate in that same space? Kio Stark and Mark Allen discuss Machine Project, the Echo Park, Los Angeles exhibiting space that doubles as an interactive setting, an alternative performance venue, and an active agent in creating events around the local area, including in museums such as the Hammer.
Over the past 50 years, women in the United States have made great strides in education and entry into the work force in this country. However, despite these advances, women continue to be underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, collectively referred to as “STEM.” Women’s representation is low at all levels of the STEM career “pipeline,” from interest and intent to majoring in a STEM field in college to having a career in a STEM field in adulthood. Studies show that girls lose interest in math and science during middle school, and STEM interest for girls
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kamla ModiJudy SchoenbergKimberlee Salmond
This toolkit provides materials to better prepare role models to engage girls in STEM. The toolkit provides instructional materials, activities, and professional development resources.
The Challenger Reach 2 U program will reach over 6,500 fourth-grade students in 261 missions from underserved communities throughout southwest Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, including primarily rural, lower socio-economic status, Hispanic and Native American districts that seldom have such STEM educational opportunities. The Colorado Consortium for Earth and Space Science Education (CCESSE) will show that increasing the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is not only a NASA goal set at the national level and a state and local priority, but is the underlying core competency of our organization as well. As an integral part of our Challenger Reach 2 U proposal to motivate interest in STEM curriculum and to strengthen the Nation's future workforce, we will thoroughly train teachers of these students to be more comfortable with technology and more prepared to deliver motivational STEM lessons, leaving an educational legacy that will greatly outlive the life of this grant. We will provide these students with cross-curricular preparatory lessons which will culminate with an exciting simulated space mission delivered in their own classrooms and moderated by a "NASA" mission director at our Center. With the help of the NASA grant, all of these services will be provided at no cost to the schools.
The project will conduct a mapping study to describe the contexts, characteristics and practices of a national sample of science-focused Out-of-School Time (OST) programs. The study targets OST programs for middle- and high-school-aged youth, including after-school programs, camps, workshops, internships, and other models. While millions of dollars are invested in these programs, and tens of thousands of students participate , as a community, we have no truly comprehensive view of the wide variety of formats, audiences, and approaches that are represented by the many active programs. Where, when, and by whom are these science-rich programs conducted? What types of experiences do they offer to what kinds of students, with what goals? What organizational and experiential factors affect the outcomes for these youth? Ultimately, we wish to understand how these differences in program design are related to youth outcomes such as STEM learning, attitudes and interest, and their later career and educational choices. To answer these questions, we are gathering data through documents, interviews, and the online MOST-Science Questionnaire.
The Mars Exploration Exhibit is a new public exhibition designed to provide experiential learning opportunities for students, educators and the public while inspiring greater excitement about space science. The exhibit emphasizes the importance of STEM education and careers through practical application and inquiry-based learning. Space Center Houston, the official visitor center of Johnson Space Center, is creating the new Mars landscape simulation in partnership with the Houston Independent School District and University of Houston Clear Lake. The exhibit will offer interactive science education activities that will be delivered through distance learning and onsite instruction at Space Center Houston. Utilizing research-based practices in both formal and informal learning environments, the project will help to attract and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It will also foster life-long learning and enthusiasm toward the promise of space science and innovation. This unique exhibit will enable students and Space Center Houston’s more than 800,000 annual visitors to increase their knowledge of Earth science and apply their learning to the Mars environment. The exhibit will also highlight the role NASA missions serve in scientific innovation. The project will build the capacity of the Greater Houston community and school-based organizations to engage girls, minorities and other underrepresented students in STEM learning. It will offer in-depth science education for low-performing and gifted/talented students, ultimately bridging achievement gaps, increasing student performance and cultivating greater interest in science. Project outcomes will include: a 1,500-square-foot Mars landscape exhibition; interactive video presentations highlighting water recovery and other environmental processes; a standards-based learning curriculum aligned with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS ) and National Science Standards; and a menu of K-12 experiential learning activities focused on water, air, renewable energy and other critical science topics.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Janet BrownMelanie JohnsonPaul SpanaMeg Naumann
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Learning In and Out of School in Diverse Environments is the product of a two-year project during which a panel convened by the LIFE Center (an NSF Science of Learning Center) and the Center for Multicultural Education identified important principles that educational practitioners, policy makers, and future researchers can use to build upon the learning that occurs in the homes and community cultures of students from diverse groups. This report lays out an argument for focusing on cross setting learning as key to equity in STEM education.
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The LIFE Center (The Learning in Informal and Formal Enivronments Center)University of WashingtonJames BanksKathryn AuArnetha BallPhilip BellEdmund GordonKris GutierrezShirley HeathCarol LeeYuhshi LeeJabari MahiriNa'ilah Suad NasirGuadalupe ValdesMin Zhou
The purpose of this toolkit is to provide library professionals and library workers who work with and for tweens and teens with materials and resources for professional development, outreach, collections, and programs to successfully integrate Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) into programs and services.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Young Adult Library Services Association (YASLA)Erica Compton
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM) programs in out-of-school time (OST) are designed to supplement school work, ignite student interest, and extend STEM learning. From interactive museum exhibits to summer-long science camps, opportunities for informal student engagement in STEM learning abound. What difference do these programs make, and how can we improve them? These questions preoccupy educators and funders alike. OST program developers and providers can benefit from understanding why evaluation is critical to the success of STEM OST programs, what data collection
This article focuses on three approaches to STEM in out-of-school time that would be instructive for any organization seeking to develop STEM opportunities for teen girls. While Techbridge and Queens Community House focused on reaching populations most underrepresented in STEM—girls of color and those from immigrant and low-income families—the strategies they used could be applied to any population of adolescent girls.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Harriet MosatcheSusan Matloff-NievesLinda KekelisElizabeth Lawner