This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This project's research questions include:
How and to what extent do Brains On!’s coronavirus-based episodes help children and their families understand and talk about science-related pandemic topics? What kind of conversations are sparked by these episodes?
What kinds of worries and questions do Brains On! listeners have about coronavirus and related aspects of the pandemic? How do children’s worries and questions change over the course of the pandemic?
What resources do caregivers need to answer children’s questions
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Our overarching goal is to better understand the particulars of how and why youth co-make in life-based and STEM-rich ways with families and communities, such that we can better infrastructure community-based maker programs in support of youth learning and well-being.
This project engages families in engineering design challenges through a sustainability and biomimicry lens. Families advance their engineering proficiencies while learning from nature to create a livable future.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This practitioner guide summarizes lessons learned from a three-year design-based research project focused on using elements of narrative (such as characters, settings, and problem frames) to evoke empathy and support girls' engagement in engineering design practices. The guide includes a summary of the driving concepts and key research findings from this work, as well as design principles for creating narrative-based engineering activities. Six activity case studies illustrate the design principles in action, and facilitation tips and observation tools offer practical guidance in developing
The Brains On! exploratory research study was guided by three overarching research questions:
Who is the audience for Brains On! and what are their motivations for listening to children’s science podcasts?
How are Brains On! listeners using the podcast and engaging with its content?
What kinds of impacts does Brains On! have on its audiences?
These questions were answered through a three-phase mixed-methods research design. Each phase informed the next, providing additional insights into answering the research questions. Phase 1 was a review of a sample of secondary data in the
Awareness of a STEM discipline is a complex construct to operationalize; a learner’s awareness of a discipline is sometimes viewed through the lens of personal identity, use of relevant discourse, or knowledge of career pathways. This research proposes defining engineering awareness through a learner’s associations with engineering practices - fundamental processes involved in engineering such as identifying criteria and constraints, testing designs, diagnosing issues and assessing goal completion. In this study, a learner’s engineering awareness was determined by examining 1) their ability to
This paper provides detailed descriptions of the goals, theoretical perspectives, context, and methods used in A study of collaborative practices at interactive engineering challenge exhibits (the C-PIECE Study), the first of two studies in the Designing Our Tomorrow (DOT) research program. The C-PIECE Study supported foundational and exploratory lines of inquiry related to engineering practices used by families engaging with design challenge exhibits. This paper describes the study background and methods as an anchor to four other products that detail these four specific lines of inquiry and
The purpose of this research was to explore associations between engineering practices included in the C-PIECE framework. In this work, we took particular interest in practices under the Defining a Problem proficiency. Practices under Defining a Problem have great potential to influence the entire exhibit interaction and early observations indicated that visitor groups did not engage frequently in these practices at the informed level, therefore they were seen as an opportunity ripe for study. Through observations, interviews, and video analysis, the DOT research team investigated the
The goal of this NSF-funded RAPID research project was to advance understanding of how children’s science podcasts can provide families with information to help ease children’s worries during a pandemic by increasing children’s understanding of pandemic-related science concepts and supporting pandemic-related family conversations. Our research was guided by the following questions:
1. How and to what extent do Brains On!’s coronavirus-based episodes help children and their families understand and talk about science-related pandemic topics?
2. What kinds of conversations are