The 2012 Science Festival Alliance Annual Report is now available. This first-of-its-kind document provides a snapshot of activity for the SFA and its members in 2012, and it paints quite a striking picture. With 13 SFA member festivals (membership has grown since!) reporting on the over 1,600 events they produced in 2012 the numbers add up quickly. How many of these events drew more that 1,000 visitors? What percent of attendees gave the events evaluated positive ratings? Read on to find out, and notice that certain sections of the report, such as our list of a few festival news stories, are
Presentation on NSF grant DRL-0840333 (""National Science Festival Network"") presented at the CAISE Convening on Organizational Networks, November 17th, 2011."") presented at the CAISE Convening on Organizational Networks, November 17th, 2011.
Presentation on NSF grant DRL-1010844 (""STAR Library Education Network: A Hands-on Learning Program for Libraries and Their Communities"") presented at the CAISE Convening on Organizational Networks, November 17th, 2011.
In this study, the authors describe a conceptual framework addressing culturally based ways of knowing, and provide a brief description of their efforts to design a community-based summer science program with a Native American tribe using this framework. To address the call to attract culturally diverse students to STEM fields, the authors advocate supporting students in their navigation of multiple and perhaps conflicting epistemologies, and using the student community as resources to be built upon, rather than pushing them toward replacing their personal epistemologies with canonical
In this article, Lyon, Jafri, and St. Louis discuss the limitations of the concept of the “STEM pipeline,” an analogy commonly used in education and policy discussions to describe the academic progression of students from elementary school through higher education in STEM, ideally resulting in employment in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) field. Based on a decade of experience with the urban out-of-school time (OST) program Project Exploration, the authors propose a conceptual framework that supports youth development goals in addition to STEM learning. The Youth-Science
In this article, researchers report on the ways that middle school students positioned themselves as agents of change in their community by using the results of their research into local scientific phenomena and advocating for environmental reforms. This article might be of interest to ISE educators who are exploring how their programs can support the emergence of positive science learning identities in their youth participants.
In an effort to prepare female high school students for a college curriculum and achieve gender parity in the engineering industry, WGBH has developed an initiative entitled, Engineer Your Life (EYL). The initiative is targeted toward female high school students, career counselors/educators, and professional engineers. It is designed to: 1) increase these target audiences' understanding of engineering, 2) inspire young women to explore engineering as a career option and 3) help adults encourage young women to investigate engineering opportunities. One component of this initiative involves
One World, One Sky: Big Bird's Adventure (OWOS) is a bi-national, China-US cooperative project to produce and distribute a planetarium show based on popular characters from Sesame Workshop's television productions in each country for preschool- and kindergarten-aged children, as well as accompanying outreach materials for children, parents and teachers to further enhance learning. The project aims to: (1) provide young Chinese and American children aged four to six with an age-appropriate introduction to astronomy; (2) promote positive attitudes toward science among young children in both
To prepare for future summative research on the synergy among multiple educational media, the present pilot research explored real-life use of Cyberchase outreach materials. The present pilot study included: a Web survey of 48 outreach providers (representing over 3000 children in 19 states), follow-up phone interviews with 26 of these providers, and in-person observations at two outreach sites, one in New York and one in Massachusetts. With an eye toward future summative research, the resulting data yield conclusions and implications in two broadly defined areas: providers' use of Cyberchase
Research Questions: (1) To what extent do children's and parent's interest in math and science increase as a result of exposure to one or more of the project's components? (2) To what extent do children and parents want to engage further with Mateo y Cientina after initial exposure to the cartoon through one or more of the project's components? (3) To what extent do parents and children think they've learned new concepts about math and science as a result of completing a Mateo y Cientina activity? (4) To what extent do parents and children gain confidence in their understanding of math and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sarah MushlinUniversity of CaliforniaColleen Kuusinen
Goodman Research Group, Inc. conducted a comprehensive multi-method external evaluation of the first season of the Design Squad TV series and outreach initiative. The broad evaluation goals were to: assess the extent to which children's knowledge, interest, and awareness of engineering increased as a result of watching the Design Squad series, document the implementation of community events resulting form the November 2006 Engineering Summit, and assess the effectiveness of the Afterschool Educators Guide with leaders and students.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Peggy VaughanEmilee PressmanIrene GoodmanWGBH