Wireless radio communications, such as Wi-Fi, transmit public and private data from one device to another, including cell phones, computers, medical equipment, satellites, space rockets, and air traffic control. Despite their critical role and prevalence, many people are unfamiliar with radio waves, how they are generated and interact with their surroundings, and why they are the basis of modern communication and navigation. This topic is not only increasingly relevant to the technological lives of today’s youth and public, it is critical to the National Science Foundation’s Industries of the Future activities, particularly in advancing wireless education and workforce development. In this project, STEM professionals from academia, industry and informal education will join forces to design, evaluate, and launch digital apps, a craft-based toolkit, activity guides, and mobile online professional learning, all of which will be easily accessed and flexibly adapted by informal educators to engage youth and the public about radio frequency communications. Experiences will include embodied activities, such as physically linking arms to create and explore longitudinal and transverse waves; mobile experiences, such as augmented reality explorations of Wi-Fi signals or collaborative signal jamming simulations; and technological exploration, such as sending and receiving encrypted messages.
BSCS Science Learning, Georgia Tech, and the Children’s Creativity Museum (CCM) with National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net) museum partners will create pedagogical activity designs, digital apps, and a mobile online professional learning platform. The project features a rigorous and multipronged research and development approach that builds on prior learning sciences studies to advance a learning design framework for nimble, mobile informal education, while incorporating the best aspects of hands-on learning. This project is testing two related hypotheses: 1) a mobile strategy can be effective for supporting just-in-time informal education of a highly technical, scientific topic, and 2) a mobile suite of resources, including professional learning, can be used to teach informal educators, youth, and the general public about radio frequency communications. Data sources include pre- and post- surveys, interviews, and focus groups with a wide array of educators and learners.
A front-end study will identify gaps in public understanding and perceptions specific to radio frequency communications, and serve as a baseline for components of the summative research. Iterative formative evaluation will incorporate participatory co-design processes with youth and informal educators. These processes will support materials that are age-appropriate and culturally responsive to not only youth, with an emphasis on Latinx youth, but also informal educators and the broader public. Summative evaluation will examine the impact of the mobile suite of resources on informal educators’ learning, facilitation confidence and intentions to continue to incorporate the project resources into their practice. The preparation of educators in supporting public understanding of highly technological STEM topics can be an effective way for supporting just-in-time public engagement and interests in related careers. Data from youth and museum visitors will examine changes to interest, science self-efficacy, content knowledge, and STEM-related career interest. If successful, this design approach may influence how mobile resources are designed and organized effectively to impact future informal education on similarly important technology-rich topics. All materials will be released under Creative Commons licenses allowing for widespread sharing and remixing; research and design findings will be published in academic, industry, and practitioner journals.
This project is co-funded by two NSF programs: The Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program, which supports projects that build understandings of practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to increasing students' knowledge and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and information and communication technology (ICT) careers.
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 Smart and Connected Community (SCC) project will partner with two rural communities to develop STEMports, an innovative Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning game for workforce development. The game's activities will take players on localized Augmented Reality (AR) missions to both engage in STEM learning challenges and discover emerging STEM careers in their community, specifically highlighting innovations in the fields of sustainable agriculture and aquaculture, forest products, and renewable energy. Community Advisory Teams (CATs) and co-design teams, including youth, representatives from the targeted emerging STEM economies, and decision-makers will partner with project staff to co-design STEMports that reflect the interests, cultural contexts, and envisioned STEM industries of the future for each community.
The project will: (a) design and pilot an AR game for community STEM workforce development; (b) develop and adapt a community engagement process that optimizes community networking for co-designing the gaming application and online community; and (c) advance a scalable process for wider applications of STEMports. This project is a collaboration between the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance and the Field Day Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to both build and research the co-designing of a SCC based within an AR environment. The project will contribute knowledge to the informal STEM learning, community development, and education technology fields in four major ways:
Deepening the understanding of how innovative technological tools support rural community STEM knowledge building as well as STEM identity and workforce interest.
Identifying design principles for co-designing the STEMports community related to the technological design process.
Developing social network approaches and analytics to better understand the social dimensions and community connections fostered by the STEMport community.
Understanding how participants' online and offline interactions with individuals and experiences builds networks and knowledge within a SCC.
With the scaling of use by an ever-growing community of players, STEMports will provide a new AR-based genre of public participation in STEM and collective decision making. The research findings will add to the emerging literature on community-wide education, innovative education technologies, informal STEM learning (especially place-based learning and STEM ecosystems), and participatory design research.
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.
The Science and Math Informal Learning Education (SMILE) pathway is serving the digital resource management needs of the informal learning community. The science and math inquiry experiences offered by science and technology centers, museums, and out-of-school programs are distinct from those found in formal classrooms. Interactive exhibits, multimedia presentations, virtual environments, hands-on activities, outdoor field guides, engineering challenges, and facilitated programs are just some of the thoughtfully designed resources used by the informal learning community to make science and math concepts come alive. With an organizational framework specifically designed for informal learning resources, the SMILE pathway is empowering educators to locate and explore high-quality education materials across multiple institutions and collections. The SMILE pathway is also expanding the participation of underrepresented groups by creating an easily accessible nexus of online materials, including those specifically added to extend the reach of effective science and math education to all communities. To promote the use of the SMILE pathway and the NSDL further, project staff are creating professional development programs and a robust online community of educators and content experts to showcase best practices tied to digital resources. Finally, to guarantee continued growth and involvement in the SMILE pathway, funding and editorial support is being provided to expansion partners, beyond the founding institutions, to add new digital resources to the NSDL.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is creating, implementing and evaluating a forum for the NSF INCLUDES broadening participation community of practice and for engaging the NSF INCLUDES awardees and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) researchers across the nation to expand the NSF INCLUDES broadening participation network. The NSF INCLUDES program is a comprehensive national initiative designed to enhance U.S. leadership in STEM discoveries and innovations focused on NSF's commitment to diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation in these fields.
The NSF INCLUDES Open Forum will use the AAAS Trellis networking platform and the organization's experience engaging communities of practice focused on broadening participation, STEM education and STEM research. The project builds on the success of a prior NSF INCLUDES Conference award (HRD-1650509) that was addressing goals to define networking needs of the first round of NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilots (DDLP); to develop design specifications for NSF INCLUDES networking, curating of resources, and supporting communities of practice; and to propose tools, techniques, capacities and functionalities for an NSF INCLUDES national network.
The NSF INCLUDES Open Forum project includes advisory board members with expertise in networking platforms and others with broadening participation knowledge and experience. A yearly conference for NSF INCLUDES awardees will offer participants an opportunity to learn about how Trellis platform upgrades, functionality and technology options (e.g., a smartphone application) can be used in new ways to engage a broader community of partners interested in broadening participation in STEM research and education contexts. An external evaluator will assess the activities and outcomes of the NSF INCLUDES Open Forum both during implementation and at project end. The PIs will also communicate the outcomes of the project to broader audiences, both academic and non-academic, and encourage a dialogue within the NSF INCLUDES community about the use of technology for organization and communication within a network.
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. The project will derive a nationwide online coaching/mentoring program for out of school educators in rural settings. The program builds on a Noyce Foundation pilot project. The issue to be addressed is that educators in rural settings are challenged in a multitude of ways due to isolation. This project will try to find ways to alleviate some of the consequences of isolation through resource sharing, knowledge sharing, and unique techniques for communicating with students. Partners in this effort are the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, the National AfterSchool Association, Development Without Limits, and the Maine State Library.
By using widely-available technologies, this project will bring fully online instructional coaching in STEM to out-of-school educators who live too remotely to attend ongoing in-person workshops. The project team will achieve this by adapting a highly promising coaching program where groups of educators video-record their own work with youth, practice key skills, and meet regularly to discuss their work. The project will: (a) test technical challenges to achieve fully virtual implementation; (b) design and adapt a specific STEM-skill curriculum to align with different levels of need; (c) customize the model to work with rural librarians; and (d) integrate the work into existing state and national accreditation systems.
Video has become a key tool for scientific communication because it increases the outreach and impact of projects, furthers scientific research within and across fields of study, and offers an accessible medium to engage the public in the understanding of science. This project supports the expansion of an interactive, online STEM Videohall where hundreds of NSF-funded researchers share their work through brief video narratives and interactive discussion. While the Videohall is accessible year-round, periodic annual Showcase events are used to drive visitors to the site where they can engage with one another, the project investigators and trained facilitators. The Videohall is a multiplier of NSF's investments in individual projects because it allows STEM education researchers to become aware of, and learn from, related work that is funded across NSF programs and directorates, and other federal agencies. In 3-minute video narratives, investigators share ideas, resources, data, evidence of impact, strategies and challenges. The Videohall platform supports open access and is designed to foster communication in ways that scale beyond traditional formats such as academic conferences. Moreover, because the online STEM Videohall is open to the public, it allows STEM investigators to share their work with multiple stakeholder communities including K-12 educators and school leaders, informal educators and community organizations, the STEM industry, education policy makers and families. Finally, because each video narrative is accompanied by a facilitated online discussion thread, investigators have a unique and valuable mechanism for receiving feedback from these various stakeholder communities. The STEM Videohall project is funded by the Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12), which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.
This project brings together seven NSF-funded resource centers who work with their respective communities to encourage Principal Investigators to share video narratives of their work through annual NSF STEM Showcase events. Each annual Showcase event presents videos created by 150-230 projects; many of the projects are affiliated with one of the seven resource centers, but others are from projects across NSF directorates and beyond. During a one-week period, Principal Investigators, their project staff, as well as the public at large, are invited to engage in interactive discourse, providing queries, comments, and feedback. Participants also vote for favorite presentations through "Presenters' Choice," "Public Choice," and "Facilitators' Choice," processes. This participant voting system serves to increase engagement and enhances outreach of the event through social media. After the one-week Showcase event concludes, all of the videos along with the related discourse remain available to the public online, who continue to access the Showcase throughout the year. Based on prior pilot work, it is estimated that over the course of a year, over 30,000 visitors, from over 150 countries, will engage with each annual Showcase. Videos from annual showcase events will be shared, reused, and repurposed to create new products with new constituencies. The project includes technical development efforts to iteratively improve its interactive platform, outreach efforts before each annual Showcase event, facilitation of the week-long event, and intensive dissemination efforts. A research component examines the extent of participation on various constituencies, the benefit of participation to projects, and the success of the events in terms of dissemination nationally and internationally.
The purpose of this document is to build on best practices and offer new approaches toward creating "a bold new initiative" to augment the Foundation's ongoing efforts to increase participation in STEM from underrepresented groups.
InformalScience.org is an online collection of resources designed to serve a broad community of professionals whose work relates to informal education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Funded by the National Science Foundation and managed by the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE), InformalScience hosts a variety of usercontributed resources, including a wiki of evidence-based information on the impacts of informal STEM and a database of over 7,000 reports, articles, project descriptions, and other items uploaded by CAISE and website members.
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As a part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds research and innovative resources for use in a variety of settings. This media and technology project will scale up Youth Radio's proven model of STEM education through youth-driven multimedia journalism and related app development using the MIT App Inventor. A new Youth News Network (YNN) will implement a nationwide feeder system of youth reporters and educators using the previously developed and proven STEM curriculum. Previous research and evaluation has demonstrated that this model can engage underserved youth and put them in leadership positions in technological innovation. Key deliverables include the YNN STEM Desk that will produce 15-20 STEM-related stories each year; bootcamps (1-3 day workshops) training youth around the country focusing on app development and media links; and new toolkits providing resources to help with app development, data analysis and other STEM-specific skills. Project partners include MIT Media Lab, National Public Radio, Best Buy's Teen Tech Centers, National Writing Project, Computer Clubhouses, and PBS Learning Media among others.
Over the previous eight years, research and evaluation findings had been used to refine the project. These data served as the foundation for this scale-up project. The research conducted by the investigator and the Scholar-in-Residence in this scale-up uses an embedded ethnographic approach that combines field notes, recorded meetings and discussions, media artifacts, etc.--data that is transcribed and coded for indicators of STEM learning and critical computational literacy. The external summative evaluation will build on prior evidence regarding how this unique model engages youth and impacts their skills in STEM related media and technology.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elisabeth SoepEllin O'LearyHarold Abelson
This infographic presents a visual summary of a user study of the InformalScience.org website, which was conducted in 2016. The study used online surveys, task-based interviews, and web analytics to explore the following questions: (1) Who are the site's users and what content do they value? (2) Does the site clearly convey its purpose to visitors? and (3) Are users able to navigate the site and use search tools effectively?
This project had three objectives to build knowledge with respect to advancing Informal STEM Education:
Plan, prototype, fabricate, and document a game-linked design-and-play STEM exhibit for multi-generational adult-child interaction utilizing an iterative exhibit design approach based on research and best practices in the field;
Develop and disseminate resources and models for collaborative play-based exhibits to the informal STEM learning community of practice of small and mid-size museums including an interactive, tangible tabletop design-and-play game and a related tablet-based game app for skateboarding science and technology design practice;
Conduct research on linkages between adult-child interactions and game-connected play with models in informal STEM learning environments.
Linked to these objectives were three project goals:
Develop tools to enable children ages 5-8 to collaboratively refine and test their own theories about motion by exploring fundamental science concepts in linked game and physical-object design challenge which integrates science (Newton’s Laws of Motion) with engineering (iterative design and testing), technology (computational models), and mathematics (predictions and comparisons of speed, distance, and height). [Linked to Objectives 1 & 3]
Advance the informal STEM education field’s understanding of design frameworks that integrate game environments and physical exhibit elements using tangibles and playful computational modeling and build upon the “Dimensions of Success” established STEM evaluation models. [Linked to Objectives 1 & 2]
Examine methods to strengthen collaborative learning within diverse families through opportunities to engage in STEM problem-based inquiry and examine how advance training for parents influences the extent of STEM content in conversations and the quality of interactions between caregivers and children in the museum setting. [Linked to Objectives 1 & 3]
The exhibit designed and created as a result of this grant project integrates skateboarding and STEM in an engaging context for youth ages 5 to 8 to learn about Newton’s Laws of Motion and connect traditionally underserved youth from rural and minority areas through comprehensive outreach. The exhibit design process drew upon research in the learning sciences and game design, science inquiry and exhibit design, and child development scholarship on engagement and interaction in adult-child dyads.
Overall, the project "Understanding Physics through Collaborative Design and Play: Integrating Skateboarding with STEM in a Digital and Physical Game-Based Children’s Museum Exhibit" accomplished three primary goals. First, we planned, prototyped, fabricated, and evaluated a game-linked design-and-play STEM gallery presented as a skatepark with related exhibits for adult-child interaction in a Children's Museum.
Second, we engaged in a range of community outreach and engagement activities for children traditionally underserved in Museums. We developed and disseminated resources for children to learn about the physics of the skatepark exhibit without visiting the Museum physically. For example, balance board activities were made portable, the skatepark video game was produced in app and web access formats, and ramps were created from block sets brought to off-site locations.
Third, we conducted a range of research to better understand adult-child interactions in the skatepark exhibit in the Children's Museum and to explore learning of physics concepts during physical and digital play. Our research findings collectively provide a new model for Children's Museum exhibit developers and the informal STEM education community to intentionally design, evaluate, and revise exhibit set-up, materials, and outcomes using a tool called "Dimensions of Success (DOS) for Children's Museum Exhibits." Research also produced a tool for monitoring the movement of children and families in Museum exhibit space, including time on task with exhibits, group constellation, transition time, and time in gallery. Several studies about adult-child interactions during digital STEM and traditional pretend play in the Museum produced findings about social positioning, interaction style, role, and affect during play.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Deb DunkhaseKristen MissallBenjamin DeVane