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The Westside Science Club (WSSC) is an out-of-school time opportunity that brings participant-directed STEM activities to under-resourced late-elementary and middle school students in low-income housing units in Los Angeles. WSSC and CCI Solar began a collaboration in 2012 with funding from the NSF to connect research scientists from Caltech with the underserved youth in the club. Another community partner, Wildwood School, provided high school students to act as near-peer mentors for the club members. CCI Solar's research on the efficient and economical conversion of solar energy into stored chemical fuel provides an entry point for informal science education activities designed to introduce pre-high school participants to basic chemistry and related STEM concepts such as physics and plant biology. Activities were largely student driven, though lessons were developed by the team of facilitators including the club's founder Ben Dickow, Wildwood teacher Levi Simons, and students, post-docs, and staff from Caltech. Each lesson was tied to CCI Solar's research through a mind-map of related chemistry concepts. The activities were mostly intended to be "maker-type" experiences that allowed the club members to follow their own interests and questions. Caltech students and postdocs from CCI Solar helped deliver activities while honing their science communication skills with the young WSSC audience. The team is currently adapting the model of this successful collaboration to develop another science club in a different Los Angeles community. Two-years of lessons developed from this project, an evaluation of the project by Kimberly Burtnyk of Science for Society, and a model on how to replicate such a program are available in the project final report below. This was a two-year pilot program that was completed in July 2014.
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TEAM MEMBERS: California Institute of Technology Center for Chemical Innovation Carolyn Patterson Siddharth Dasgupta Michelle Hansen Benjamin Dickow
resource research Public Programs
Front-line educators are arguably critical to the visitor experience at museums and science centers across the country. However, little research exists to inform staff facilitation strategies or professional development efforts. In this article, we describe the results of a qualitative study of 63 staff-family interactions in a science center, focusing particularly on the role of adult family members.We observed three distinct phases of interaction, during which adult family members acted as gatekeepers to deeper staff engagement. The results suggest that in order to successfully facilitate
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TEAM MEMBERS: Oregon State University Scott Pattison Lynn Dierking
resource research Media and Technology
The January 2013 issue includes articles and features on crowdsourcing, partnerships in natural history museums, communicating science through art, theater as climate change education, case studies on informal science education-related projects like gigapixel imaging and museum educators collaborating with scientists to engage visitors, and more.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Zahava Doering
resource research Public Programs
Poster on NSF grant DRL-0741760 (""Future Earth Initiative)"") presented at the 2012 ISE PI Meeting.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Patrick Hamilton
resource research Public Programs
Poster on NSF grant DRL-1049317 ("Carbon Smarts Conference: Learning Climate Change Science Anywhere Anytime") presented at the 2012 ISE PI Meeting.
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TEAM MEMBERS: David Lustick
resource research Media and Technology
Poster on NSF grant DRL-0840186 (""Go Botany! Integrated Tools to Advance Botanical Learning"") presented at the 2012 ISE PI Meeting.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Elizabeth Farnsworth
resource research Public Programs
Poster on NSF grant DRL-1113648 (""Creating Communities of Learners for Informal Cognitive Science Education"") presented at the 2012 ISE PI Meeting.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Becki Kipling
resource research Media and Technology
Presentation on CAISE resources developed prior to the 2012 ISE PI Meeting, March 15th, 2012.
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TEAM MEMBERS: James Bell
resource research Media and Technology
Attendee list for the 2012 ISE PI Meeting.
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TEAM MEMBERS: CAISE
resource research Media and Technology
Images from projects represented at the 2012 ISE PI Meeting.
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TEAM MEMBERS: CAISE
resource research Public Programs
Presentation on NSF grant DRL-0741760 (""Future Earth Initiative)"") presented at the CAISE Convening on Sustainability Science and Informal Science Education, February 6th, 2012.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Patrick Hamilton
resource research Public Programs
Presentation on NSF grant DRL-0813135 (""Communicating Climate Change (C3)"") presented at the CAISE Convening on Sustainability Science and Informal Science Education, February 6th, 2012.
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TEAM MEMBERS: Walter Staveloz Kate Crawford